A growing number of chief executive officers are confident in their firms’ ability to achieve corporate net zero goals, supported by artificial intelligence (AI), according to a new report by global advisory and accounting firm KPMG.
From a survey of more than 1,300 CEOs worldwide, 61 per cent of CEOs said they are on track to hit their net zero targets by 2030, KPMG revealed in a report published on Tuesday. This marks a 10 percentage point increase from the 51 per cent of CEOs which expressed confidence in achieving their climate targets last year.
“While attitudes toward environmental, social and governance (ESG) vary across regions, the KPMG 2025 CEO Outlook indicates that most corporate leaders remain strongly committed to their sustainability goals and are increasingly confident of meeting them,” the report said.
The increased confidence was attributed to businesses reviewing and reassessing their interim climate goals to be more realistic and aligned with core business strategy, said KPMG.
CEOs were also more bullish on achieving their net zero targets using the strategic application of AI. The top use cases include improving sustainability-related data quality and reporting (79 per cent), identifying opportunities for resource efficiency (78 per cent), and directly reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency (78 per cent), the survey found.
The report did not mention whether CEOs had considered the energy and water resources needed for data centres to power AI, which has been a subject of concern for environmental experts.
“I am encouraged that, despite the challenging macro conditions, leaders remain strongly committed to ESG issues,” said John McCalla-Leacy, global head of ESG at KPMG International. “The leap in confidence around net-zero sends out a positive signal and could help build momentum toward achieving collective decarbonisation goals.”
However, the path to decarbonisation is not without its hurdles. CEOs identified the top challenges as being the complexity of decarbonising supply chains (25 per cent) and a lack of skills and expertise to successfully implement solutions (21 per cent).
Comparatively, cost was seen as a lesser barrier to climate action, cited by only 11 per cent of leaders.
The survey also found that two-thirds (65 per cent) claim to have fully embedded sustainability into their business, viewing it as critical to long-term success. However, the integration of sustainability into capital expenditure decisions remains a work in progress, with only 29 per cent saying it is comprehensively done.
Business leaders also continued to prioritise community engagement, but in a more nuanced manner, said McCalla-Leacy. The report found that 83 per cent of CEOs believe there is an increasing need to balance between centralised and localised approaches when addressing the impacts of conflict, politics, and near- and long-term climate change.
More broadly, AI remained a top investment priority, with 69 per cent of CEOs planning to allocate 10-20 per cent of their budgets to the new technology over the next 12 months, KPMG said, despite confidence in the global economy dropping to its lowest level since 2001.
“Despite ongoing economic pressures, 92 per cent of leaders are planning to increase headcount over the next 12 months,” the firm said.
The top concerns related to AI use were ethical challenges (59 per cent), data readiness (52 per cent) and a lack of regulation (50 per cent).
Bill Thomas, KPMG’s global chairman and CEO said, “With what we are seeing, there’s a careful balance required between innovation and responsibility. CEO responses on AI exemplify this, with leaders recognising the need to embrace innovation while managing concerns over ethics, regulation, upskilling and access to talent.”
