It’s 2026.
With just four years left until 2030 — the milestone year sustainability promised transformation — climate targets are being quietly missed, delayed, or abandoned, often without consequence.
Greenhushing is rising. Targets are being pushed back. Regulatory uncertainty is reshaping how companies communicate.
Governments continue to pledge ambition.
Corporations continue to report progress.
The planet continues to burn.
Across Asia, this disconnect is becoming harder to ignore. It is no longer just a moral or policy failure — it is a strategic business risk.
From record-breaking heatwaves to severe flooding, climate impacts are already disrupting supply chains, labour productivity, insurance models, and infrastructure planning. Yet the sustainability industry — once positioned as the bridge between economic growth and planetary limits — is increasingly showing signs of strain.
Highlights
When Sustainability Becomes a Reporting Exercise
The data reflects a system under pressure.
In 2025, the UN Global Compact reported a three-year decline in transparency around sustainability goals. The Green Impact Gap Survey found that companies are increasingly delaying target announcements, with postponements of one to two years becoming the norm.
Globescan’s 2025 survey revealed that 93% of sustainability experts believe the current model is no longer fit for purpose, citing slow progress and limited measurable impact. Only 6% believed incremental adjustments would be sufficient.
Instead of responding with urgency, many companies have chosen silence.
A 2024 survey by South Pole found that four in ten companies struggled to communicate sustainability efforts due to regulatory uncertainty and shifting standards. The result has been the rise of greenhushing — a deliberate pullback from public commitments to avoid scrutiny or reputational risk.
That same year, the Wall Street Journal advised companies to say less about ESG altogether, even suggesting a shift toward vague language such as “responsible business.”
Sustainability, increasingly, has become a language exercise — carefully managed, legally cautious, but strategically hollow.
When Credibility Becomes the Real Risk
For businesses in Asia, this retreat is not neutral. It carries real consequences.
Investor confidence depends on credible disclosures.
Consumer trust depends on clarity.
Corporate strategy depends on regulatory foresight.
When sustainability becomes cautious and opaque, it stops functioning as a value driver — and starts becoming a reputational and operational liability.
Singapore offers a clear example.
In 2023, a rare greenwashing complaint led the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore to rule that a PRISM+ air-conditioner advertisement was misleading — an unusual decision in a largely self-regulated market. Since then, the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore has tightened guidance, requiring sustainability claims to be accurate, substantiated, and meaningful.
The result has not been more ambitious commitments — but quieter ones.
Across sectors, companies are softening claims, reducing visibility, and retreating from bold targets.
When Systems Fail, Risk Moves to the Ground
The implications extend beyond communication.
In the Philippines, based on International View Points, despite allocating approximately ₱1.9 trillion to flood-control projects between 2021 and 2025, investigations suggest that between ₱700 billion and ₱1.4 trillion annually is lost to inefficiencies, opaque funding structures, and governance gaps.
For businesses operating in flood-prone regions, this translates directly into risk: infrastructure failure, project delays, higher operating costs, and a weakened social licence to operate.
India presents a different but equally complex challenge.
Based on Times of India, as the world’s sixth-largest emitter, accounting for 7.4% of global emissions, India faces a difficult balancing act. While renewable energy now makes up 47.4% of installed capacity, coal production has risen by 58% over the past decade and still accounts for more than 70% of emissions.
Ambitious national targets — including 500 GW of non-fossil capacity and net-zero by 2070 — are in place. Yet the burden of transition is uneven. 92% of SMEs cite cost as a major barrier to implementation.
This matters because India’s economy is deeply nature-dependent, with around one-third of GDP linked to nature-reliant sectors. Climate impacts are already affecting supply reliability, labour productivity, and long-term demand.
Estimates suggest potential losses of 6.4% to over 10% of national income by 2100, alongside an additional 50 million people pushed into poverty.
In this context, sustainability is no longer theoretical. It is operational.
So, Where Does Real Action Come From?
This raises a more uncomfortable question:
Has sustainability shifted from driving transformation to managing reputational risk?
And if institutional systems are struggling under their own weight, where does meaningful climate action now sit?
More importantly:
Where does agency lie when top-down systems fail?
What we are witnessing is not just a failure of policy or reporting — but a failure of accountability.
Targets without consequences mean little.
Promises without participation mean even less.
If sustainability as an institutional project is faltering, then the centre of gravity must shift — from boardrooms and global summits to communities, cultures, and citizens.
The Shift Already Happening Across Asia
This transition is already underway.
In 2024, the Singapore International Foundation brought together regional participants through a Climate Hack initiative, where communities developed locally grounded solutions — from flood-mapping platforms to community energy models.
That same year, Singapore launched AlterCOP, a parallel, citizen-led platform offering space for dialogue, education, and critique outside formal COP structures. Its continuation into 2025 signals growing demand for more participatory, accessible climate engagement.
For businesses, this is not a peripheral movement.
It is a signal.
From ESG Messaging to Co-Creation
For business leaders, this bottom-up momentum is not a threat — it is an opportunity.
As ESG specialist and NewInAsia Top Voice Sreelakshmi Menon notes: “Grassroots innovation becomes impactful when corporates co-create solutions rather than impose them.”
Sustainability cannot be delivered through messaging alone. It requires tools, incentives, and shared ownership.
Civic-led initiatives offer something traditional frameworks often miss:
- Early visibility into local risk
- Insight into emerging consumer needs
- Real-world adaptation strategies
By engaging as collaborators, funders, or pilot partners, businesses can:
- Strengthen social licence to operate
- Rebuild public trust
- De-risk operations in climate-exposed markets
- Generate market intelligence that informs more resilient products and supply chains
Final Thoughts: Reclaiming Agency in a Post-ESG World
This is what reclaiming agency looks like in practice.
It is not about waiting for better targets or more polished reports. It is about participation, experimentation, and shared responsibility.
The old language of sustainability — net zero timelines, distant targets, incremental gains — no longer matches the urgency of the moment.
As climate impacts intensify, trust in institutions continues to erode.
What is needed now is not better promises. It is a deeper participation.
Asia’s strength has always been its communities — adaptive, entrepreneurial, and deeply interconnected.
If the sustainability model is straining under its own contradictions, then perhaps the path forward is not to fix it incrementally, but to rethink where action begins.
The question is no longer whether sustainability will save us.
It is whether we — businesses, communities, and citizens alike — are ready to act without waiting for permission.
Editor’s Note:
This article was contributed by NewInAsia editorial fellow Marla Lise, a global educator and founder of The Eco Chapter.
In this piece, she explores the growing credibility gap in sustainability — and why, as institutional frameworks falter, meaningful climate action in Asia is shifting toward community-led participation and business co-creation.To pitch your story or share reflections on sustainability, innovation, or the future of business in Asia, contact the NewInAsia editorial team.
Highlights
Read the Chinese article here.
