Largest U.S. Companies Stacking New Standards and Assuring More Data, Even as Reporting Ebbs
NEW YORK, September 16, 2026 /3BL/ - Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. (G&A), a leading corporate sustainability consulting and research firm, today released the 2026 edition of its annual Sustainability Reporting in Focus report. This research tracks corporate reporting practices by companies in the S&P 500® Index and the Russell 1000® Index for the reporting period 2025 – a year marked by uncertainty in the sustainability landscape.
Now in G&A’s 15th year of researching corporate reporting practices, long-range trends are presented in detail to illustrate the adoption of various reporting standards and frameworks. Findings for the past two years use an updated research methodology to reflect the latest corporate practices.
Key Findings
Corporate sustainability disclosure expanded steadily from 2011-2023, reaching the vast majority of the largest companies in the U.S. However, today’s report announces that in the past two years growth in reporting has stalled, although the percentage of reporters remained high, especially among the largest companies.
The latest research shows that in 2025, 86% of the Russell 1000, and 94% of the S&P 500, published sustainability disclosures, both slightly lower than in 2024. Reporting remained strong for the large majority of companies on these indices, despite dramatic change in the sustainability and regulatory landscape.
The drop in overall reporting, both in 2024 and 2025, was concentrated in the smaller half of the Russell 1000 Index, where reporting fell by 6.3 percentage points.
Who reported? (see infographic)
- Russell 1000: 86.0% of companies reported, down from 91.1% in 2024
- S&P 500: 93.9% of companies reported, down from 97.8% in 2024
- Smaller Half of Russell 1000: 78.2% of companies reported, down from 84.5% in 2024
Which reporting behaviors increased?
- More reporters – especially smaller companies – aligned with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards
- More reporters also aligned with: the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Sustainability Disclosure Standards, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)
- More reporters responded to the CDP Water Security questionnaire
Which reporting behaviors decreased?
- Fewer reporters aligned with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), though it remained the most widely used sustainability standard.
- Fewer reporters aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) – but TCFD alignment increased among the smaller companies on the Index
- Fewer reporters responded to the CDP Climate Change questionnaire.
Signals of sustainability maturity
Despite an ebb in the number of companies reporting, many of the shifts in 2025 signaled growing maturity of how companies reported. G&A’s analysts observed a greater emphasis on the quality of sustainability data, evidence-based commitments, and consistency in tracking and reporting. Among the specific trends identified: more companies committed to science-based targets, and more reporters obtained external assurance.
G&A’s research also provides analysis of reporting trends within all 11 sectors of the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®), to offer additional insights into reporting behavior per industry sector – such as the sectors lagging behind the rest.
Louis Coppola, G&A’s Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, commented, “For over a decade, large U.S. companies steadily increased their level of sustainability disclosure. It turns out that these practices and commitments don’t go away overnight. While we found lower reporting levels in 2025 than a year before, I’d argue that we are now seeing a different kind of growth. Many of the companies that continued to disclose did so in a more robust way. And based on how companies aligned with various frameworks and standards, it appears that companies are “stacking” standards and frameworks, rather than replacing one with another.”
Hank Boerner, G&A’s Chairman and Chief Strategist, added, “The SEC has abandoned its draft rules for climate-related disclosures. Yet, it is evident that the practice of corporate sustainability reporting is not slowing down to a meaningful degree among the largest 500 or even among the next-largest 500 companies as represented in the Russell 1000 Index. That’s good news for stakeholders. There are many reasons for the continuance and expansion of corporate sustainability reporting – voluntarily in the U.S. and on a global basis as reporting mandates evolve.”
G&A proudly recognizes the research team that made significant contributions to this study:
- Research Architect and Manager: Louis Coppola, CEO and Co-Founder
- G&A Research Supervisor: Charlotte Perrottey, VP, Sustainability Consulting
- G&A Research Team Leader: Natali Alsunna, Senior Sustainability Analyst
- G&A Research Team:
- Madeline Blankenship, Senior Sustainability Analyst
- Neva Modric, Sustainability Analyst
- Amelia Veleber, Intern Team Leader
ABOUT G&A’S 2026 SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING IN FOCUS
This new report marks the 15th annual edition in G&A’s research series tracking the publication of sustainability reports by the largest U.S. publicly-traded companies. In 2012, G&A published its first annual research on the 2011 sustainability reporting trends of S&P 500 companies, which at the time showed just 20% of these companies publicly reporting on sustainability. In 2019, G&A expanded this research to include all companies in the Russell 1000 Index, and in 2024, it further expanded to provide detailed analysis by the 11 GICS sectors. The latest research, on 2025 reporting practices, uses an updated methodology in line with contemporary practices in corporate reporting.
ABOUT G&A INSTITUTE, INC.
Founded in 2006, Governance & Accountability Institute (G&A) is a New York–based sustainability consulting and research firm advising corporate leaders and investors at the intersection of strategy, governance, and regulation. For two decades, we have partnered with executive teams and boards to translate sustainability strategy into durable enterprise value — helping organizations navigate shifting market expectations, evolving policy landscapes, and increasing capital market scrutiny.
More information is available on our website at ga-institute.com.
ABOUT THE S&P 500®
The S&P 500 is widely regarded as one of the best gauges of large-cap U.S. equity market performance, measuring the stock performance of approximately 500 large-cap companies covering approximately 80% of the total U.S. equity market capitalization. At the end of 2025, S&P Dow Jones Indices estimated that $23 trillion in assets was indexed or benchmarked to the index. More information is available here.
ABOUT THE RUSSELL 1000®
The Russell 1000 Index includes the largest publicly-traded U.S. companies by market cap, which comprise approximately 93% of the total market capitalization of all listed stocks in the U.S. equity market. The index is provided by FTSE Russell, a wholly owned subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). More information is available here.
CONTACT:
Louis D. Coppola, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder
Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc.
Tel 646.430.8230 ext. 14
Email: [email protected]
