According to ESG Today, a recently-published survey from Honeywell, which included over 750 business, technology, and sustainability officials, found that one of the biggest priorities from companies around the world is achieving ongoing sustainability goals. Thus, 75% of the surveyed organizations consider sustainability as being one of their top five priorities in the short-term, ahead of the digital transformation initiatives.

Energy Evolution and Efficiency was considered the biggest priority by 62% of the respondents, while the next two sustainability efforts cited were Emissions Reduction at 47% and Pollution Prevention at 43%. Circular Economy and Recycling came after that, with a 33 percentage.

With sustainability being a top priority for company executives, 88% of them want to increase the budget for energy efficiency over the next 12 months, while 84% look to allocate more funding towards emissions reduction and pollution prevention. At the same time 83% of them want to spend more on circularity and recycling.

Worldwide companies are also more confident about hitting their climate goals, with 72% of the executives being optimistic about their emissions reduction efforts, compared to last year's 65% and 72% of the surveyed officials are also confident about hitting 2030 goals, up from 63% in 2022.

Looking to see how climate change-related events might change a company's sustainability progress, Honeywell introduced a new category into the survey regarding this very fact. Accordingly, 62% of the executives reported that wildfires, floodings and storms will have an impact on their environment initiatives, while 44% stated that extreme heat could have or already had a material impact on their sustainability efforts.

Gavin Towler, Chief Scientist for Sustainability and Chief Sustainability Officer at Honeywell, said that "the extreme weather events this year have increased the sense of urgency for immediate action at organizations. As a result, we should expect to see more organizations looking to accelerate their sustainability efforts and, in particular, adopting a technology-driven approach to their energy transition plans."