“THE CORE PROBLEM IS ONE OF TRANSLATION, NOT OBSTRUCTION”
Jessica Pransky Senior Manager of ESG & Sustainability Verdantix
Organisations are also increasingly linking operational efficiency and resilience. Almost two-thirds now rate more efficient operations as a very important outcome of sustainability investment, and the share of senior sustainability executives reporting to the COO rose from under 5 % in 2025 to 11 % in 2026 – a structural shift that favours technologies that can prove both cases at once.
Q. WHAT IS THE BIGGEST NARRATIVE MISTAKE SUSTAINABILITY LEADERS MAKE WHEN PRESENTING RISK-PREVENTION PLATFORMS OR DECARBONISATION TECHNOLOGIES TO THE BOARD?
» Presenting the investment as an aspirational sustainability initiative, a feature set, or a retrospective dashboard – rather than as a decision-specific investment tied to a defined business risk, cost exposure or operational opportunity. Boards engage far more readily when leaders connect a longterm scenario to short-term upside, measurable risk mitigation and realistic financial expectations.
The fix starts with naming the decision the technology needs to improve, before describing what it does. A platform built for testing retrofit sequences is not automatically the right tool for modelling portfolio-level cost exposure or a net-zero pathway, so feature-led procurement can quietly mislead the board.
Q. WHAT DATA POINTS OR BENCHMARKS HAS VERDANTIX FOUND TO HAVE PROVEN MOST EFFECTIVE AT PERSUADING SCEPTICAL FINANCE TEAMS TO BACK NON-REVENUE-GENERATING SUSTAINABILITY TECH?
» The most persuasive cases combine three finance-relevant measures in a single
106 October 2026