Resilient organizations are built on future-proofing

To stimulate growth and secure a viable future, organizations must embed sustainable practices into their operations.  

“Long-term business success is not built on temporary solutions. The actions organizations take today must ensure viable growth and a stable operating environment over the years to come. At Capgemini, we call this future-proofing. Approaches to future-proofing differ – but they have all been proven as strong drivers of profitability.” 

Cyril Garcia, Head of Global Sustainability Services and Corporate Responsibility, Capgemini 

In the days before everyone carried a computer in their pocket, digital operations and strategy functioned as standalone departments within organizations, responsible for ensuring compliance and fixing data governance issues. Today that seems unimaginable, as digital tools are fully integrated across all areas of organizations, driving strategy – and profitability – throughout. 

We are witnessing a similar evolution today with regard to sustainable practices, as the results of our fourth-annual A world in balance survey make clear. Our findings, which draw on insights from executives worldwide, paint a picture of organizational transformation. Today, actions to boost circularity, efficiently manage resources, and optimize product design are becoming increasingly cross-functional. This evolution reflects an understanding that such practices are integral to driving business value, sparking innovation, and enhancing competitiveness over the long term. In other words, executives recognize that embedding environmental action throughout their operations is a means of future-proofing what they do – and simply a matter of good business sense. 

Future-proofing practices deliver real returns on investment 

Doing business in 2025 requires navigating a climate of heightened global uncertainty, subject to complex political, economic, and environmental pressures. In our research, we found that senior leaders understand that long-term business success is not built on short-term solutions. At Capgemini, we call this future-proofing: taking action today to ensure viable growth and a stable operating environment tomorrow and in the years to come. 

Today, there is overwhelming consensus on the importance of the role sustainable practices have in value creation, with 75% of organizations centering their corporate strategy on such efforts. Whether increasing the use of recycled materials for new construction, streamlining product packaging to reduce potential waste, or rethinking energy use to lower consumption, approaches differ across organizations. But they are consistently prioritized, with over two in three executives recognizing how they drive profitability, cost savings, and operational efficiency. These leaders understand that environmentally-minded initiatives can deliver measurable returns on investment (ROI). Indeed, 49% of organizations surveyed have already realized positive returns on investments in sustainable practices. Half of those investments even provided a positive ROI faster than traditional investments.    

These results are encouraging. Organizations agree: one-quarter identify increased profitability as the greatest value-add for sustainable practices over the next five years.ⁱ   

Leaders also point to a variety of specific goals beyond value creation that drive their future-proofing efforts. Of the executives surveyed, 72% highlighted the importance of meeting future regulatory standards. While compliance is critical, it is joined by a desire to strengthen stakeholder trust (69%), mitigate emerging risks (68%), and drive innovation to remain competitive (67%). 

Organizations stand by investments, centering business value creation  

Organizations are committed to sustainable practices: only 4% plan to reduce their investment in these areas. While 14% plan to maintain current investment levels, a strong majority (82%) plan to prioritize further investment over the next 12 to 18 months. This indicates organizations’ desire to take full advantage of the financial opportunities sustainable actions provide.  

Similarly, the overwhelming majority (92%) of organizations plan to meet their initial net zero targets on time. A small minority (8%) have extended their timelines. Through our interviews with executives, it became clear that such extensions are motivated by practical, not ideological, concerns (for example, revisiting an emissions reductions target that relies on using higher volumes of recycled materials that are not currently available). Additional challenges include overly ambitious original targets, limited control over Scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions up or down an organization’s value chain), and high overall costs.  

Those organizations increasing investments in sustainable practices are taking a targeted approach to doing so. They are identifying priority areas with the most direct impact on business, and raising or redirecting investment there while keeping investment elsewhere steady. These organizations are also integrating future-proofing initiatives cross-functionally in order to drive profitability. 

While these mitigation efforts are imperative for the future of our planet, alone they cannot deliver the security that organizations crave. Leaders must take additional action to adapt to environmental changes that are already impacting business and will continue to do so. 

Adaptation ensures survival and competitiveness in a challenging context  

As their investment commitments make clear, business leaders recognize the strong value of contributing to mitigation efforts. They are also motivated to support their organizations by preparing them to weather future climate challenges. Identifying and deploying the right strategies to succeed amidst shifts in the natural environment is key to future-proofing. 

The environment is already presenting new and complex industrial challenges, and these challenges are set to continue. According to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), by 2049, climate change is expected to cost the global economy between $19 trillion and $59 trillion annually. Similarly, major global organizations are expected to experience massive disruptions to their operations due to physical shifts in the climate. For the largest companies in the S&P Global 1200, it is estimated that the financial costs of climate change will reach $1.2 trillion annually by 2050.ⁱⁱ This puts the staggering scale of expected changes into stark relief. 

These figures highlight the need to go beyond mitigation efforts and deploy adaptation strategies too. Whereas mitigation strategies, such as net zero, tackle the root cause of climate change by seeking to reduce or eliminate emissions and limit further warming, adaptation entails managing the current and future impacts of climate change. In practice, adaptation can mean shifting production to a region projected to be climate change-resistant, or shoring up infrastructure to withstand more frequent and severe storms.  

Over half of organizations are already prioritizing climate adaptation within their overall future-proofing efforts. In addition to physical climate risks, transition risks – meaning a new regulatory landscape or shifts in market demands – are an adaptation concern. As the head of sustainability at one European telecom operator says: “It’s not just about resilience – it’s about anticipating the next level of disruption. That means rethinking where we store equipment, how we cool it, and how we build redundancy into systems that were never meant to operate under climate stress.” 

True adaptation means taking action across the organization 

Despite strong interest in adaptation efforts, only a minority of organizations are actively deploying initiatives to achieve their stated objectives. Just 38% of organizations have upgraded infrastructure, 31% have shifted production to more climate-resilient regions, and 26% have redesigned products. This has important consequences for resilience: 54% of executives say their organization is underprepared for the impacts of climate change.  

What explains this gap between intention and action? Rather than a question of misaligned value, it is one of operational realities. For example: planning for a future rise in sea level is a separate commitment from physically renovating facilities to withstand that rise. True climate adaptation and preparedness involves both steps – resilience requires implementation. 

Organizations must assess risk using scenario analysis and forecasting, and then integrate assessments into enterprise risk management (ERM), infrastructure planning, and supply chain strategies. While 78% of organizations have conducted climate risk assessments and integrated physical climate risks and transition risks into ERM (at rates of 84% and 76%, respectively), they tend to hit a roadblock when trying to turn these assessments into action.  

One successful example comes from BT Group, which has put its adaptation strategy into motion in several ways. It has rolled out full fiber, closed legacy networks in order to limit the number of physical sites needing attention, and implemented cooling upgrades so that high temperatures – up to 45°C – do not disrupt network operations. BT Group also rolled out early warning systems to manage risks and provide alerts of network outages, thereby assisting in service restoration. In addition, they are working with the water industry to protect infrastructure from water leaks and flooding and enable rapid repairs. BT Group’s various adaptation measures can serve as a model for others seeking to deliver on similar goals. 

AI has the potential to create enormous business value – and poses an environmental risk 

Adding an additional layer of complexity – and opportunity – to organizational future-proofing are AI technologies. They have already had a profound impact on the way organizations do business, and promise to bring further changes over the coming years. While AI can drive sustainability efforts and foster cutting-edge progress, it also has real environmental impacts. Striking the right balance when adopting AI tools is a key challenge for organizations.  

The environmental impact of AI is a serious concern. AI tools are ravenous for resources, especially water and energy, and their consumption has only grown. While we are seeing more studies of AI’s effects on the climate, its full environmental impact is as yet unknown. For executives, this issue is top of mind: 57% of the leaders we surveyed said Gen AI’s environmental impact is a topic of conversation on their organization’s boards – though only 32% said their organizations have taken action to mitigate this impact. 

This disconnect may stem from the usefulness of the solutions AI offers, from managing data to streamlining resource management and saving money. AI can explicitly drive value creation: it can automate reporting processes, identify inefficiencies in resource use, and optimize networks and infrastructure.  

Furthermore, AI technologies can themselves play a role in climate adaptation. They can perform enhanced scenario modeling, assist the design of climate-resilient infrastructure, reconfigure supply chains, support sustainable product redesign, and more. In doing so, AI fosters organizational resilience. What’s more, on a human level, using AI to complete basic operational tasks has the added benefit of returning time to employees who can then prioritize strategic work – such as determining how to achieve their organization’s climate adaptation goals. 

Overall, executives believe that Gen AI’s benefits outweigh its drawbacks, though not as strongly as they once did: we saw a ten-point drop in agreement with this statement between 2024 and 2025 (from 67% to 57% respectively). This reflects shifting sentiments about AI use and demonstrates that concerns about its environmental impact are making users increasingly cautious. 

Ultimately, there is a balance to be found. When deployed strategically, AI can help organizations boost efficiency, expand sustainable practices, and ensure value creation. But overreliance risks expanding, rather than reducing, an organization’s environmental footprint.  

Organizations have options to strategically embrace the future  

These insights shed light onto how organizations across the globe are grappling with immense change and transforming to meet modern challenges. As it becomes clear that circularity and renewable energy use, for example, bolster product innovation and long-term profitability, organizations are consciously integrating sustainable practices throughout their operations. And while strong mitigation targets remain in place, ambitious goals for adaptation do not yet match on-the-ground action. This is the key challenge for executives.  

Organizations that recognize how sustainable practices drive profitability and make their financial, operational, and environmental goals work in tandem will be best positioned to thrive in the face of future volatility. 

Download the full report to learn more about how organizations are embracing future-proofing. 

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As a leading strategic partner to organizations around the world, Capgemini has leveraged technology to enable business transformation for more than 50 years. We address the entire breadth of business needs, from strategy and design to managing operations. To do this, we draw on deep industry expertise and a command of the fast-evolving fields of cloud, data artificial intelligence, connectivity, software, digital engineering and platforms.  

Learn more: www.capgemini.com 

Cyril Garcia, Head of Global Sustainability Services and Corporate Responsibility, Capgemini 

With more than 25 years of experience in consulting in the fields of services, public sector, utilities and telecommunications, Cyril has always been at the forefront of the development of the digital strategy and services of the Capgemini Group and its clients. He joined the Group in 1993 where he led numerous transformation projects, then held the positions of Group Strategy Lead, Managing Director of Capgemini Consulting France and Spain, and CEO of Capgemini Consulting. In 2018, he launched the new Capgemini Invent brand, whose mission is to support decision-makers in defining and implementing the future of their organizations. Since 2019, Cyril also sponsors Sectors, Sustainability & CSR within Capgemini.