Capgemini Research Institute’s new report, Navigating uncertainty with confidence – Investment priorities for 2025, suggests that business leaders increasingly see sustainability investment as a business value driver as well as an asset for compliance and efficiency.

Two thirds (62 percent) of executives (up 10 percentage points from 2024) are planning to increase their sustainability budgets, by 10.5 per cent on average. The priority areas are climate tech (72 per cent of executives planning to spend more), including hydrogen, renewables, batteries, nuclear, and carbon capture.

Batteries are seen as the top climate tech investment in 2025, with over half of business leaders ranking them in their top three, in particular manufacturers and automotive companies – followed by solar energy. Besides climate tech, the other top areas of increased investment in sustainability are sustainable R&D and product development, biodiversity protection and restoration, and water conservation/management.

Globally, the US leads, with organisations expected to outpace their peers in terms of tech investments in 2025. US business leaders are also more likely to feel they should invest more to be competitive (84 per cent) compared to their European counterparts (64 per cent). In terms of technology investments, nearly 3 in 4 executives ranked AI/generative AI in their top three priority technologies in 2025 – and again, even more so in the US.

The Capgemini Research Institute surveyed 2,500 business leaders from 2,500 organisations across 17 countries in North America, Europe. and Asia-Pacific and included nine industries and sectors: automotive; consumer products; banking and capital markets; insurance; retail; life sciences; telecoms, media and high-tech; manufacturing; and energy and utilities.

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