Less talk, more doing

• Sustainability remains a long-term strategic priority - A majority of executives at Dutch companies plan to accelerate their efforts to become more sustainable. 

• The energy crisis reinforces the strategic case - Increased energy efficiency and supply chain resilience create a tangible competitive edge. 

• Financing as a key to success - Translating green ambitions into concrete projects that can be executed and financed at scale will make the difference.

In the top 5 of long-term strategic priorities for Dutch companies, as identified in Opens in a new tabING's 2025 CEO Survey, sustainability features prominently. 'Adapting to opportunities and risks related to sustainability and climate change' and 'Making business operations and production more sustainable' rank third and fifth respectively. 85 per cent of executives say that in 2026 they will accelerate their efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, reduce energy consumption while switching to greener sources, and develop more sustainable products and services. These findings are reinforced by Opens in a new tabING's recent annual survey of Dutch SMEs. Two-thirds of the respondents in that survey say they have now embedded sustainability into their strategy, the highest level since the first survey seven years ago. Sustainability is increasingly seen as a strategic tool for strengthening their competitive position. 

These survey results are remarkable given the pressures sustainability has come under in recent years. Energy crises, inflationary shocks, and geopolitical turbulence have forced many companies to refocus on competitiveness, affordability, and in some sectors, simply staying afloat. These pressures have been reflected at the policy level as well. The European Union, for example, has significantly narrowed the scope of the Opens in a new tabCorporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and extended its implementation timelines. And yet, according to our surveys, Dutch executives are not pulling back. 

Riccardo Papa recognises this: "What we see in many companies regarding sustainability is less talking, more doing," he says. "These days, companies might be less public about their sustainability ambitions, perhaps because some stakeholders currently place less value to it. But at the same time, we see them still doing a great deal to become more sustainable." Behind this is a fundamental shift in thinking about sustainability at the executive level: "The internal debate about whether to pursue sustainability is largely over, and the answer is yes. But in the past, the main question when it came to sustainability was often: how do we generate impact? Now it is about which investments deliver not only impact, but also returns in the form of cost savings, risk reductions, or new revenue streams. That is a very sensible development in my opinion." 

The current energy crisis has reinforced rather than undermined the strategic case for sustainability, says Papa. "Companies that invested in efficient means of transport years ago, for example, are now reaping the rewards directly, because they simply consume less fuel," he says. "With today's fuel prices, that is an enormous competitive advantage over peers who haven't yet made that transition." The lesson is a broader one: companies that successfully reduce their dependence on fossil fuels, volatile raw material prices, and complex global supply chains are building greater resilience. "Every shock we've experienced this decade - the COVID-19 pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, new tariffs and trade wars, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz – had proved once more that companies that have made that transition are more resilient and attractive to lenders than those that have not." 

Not everyone finds it easy to make those investments, however. According to Opens in a new tabCBS data, financing is consistently identified as the single biggest barrier companies face in becoming more sustainable. "It is one of the structural bottlenecks we see and hear from our clients," Papa agrees. "It is not a lack of available capital though but a lack of bankable projects. With sustainability investments, the payback period is often highly uncertain because of changing regulations, volatile commodity prices, and the fact that new technologies do not always perform exactly as projected at the outset. That uncertainty is a real challenge, for companies as well as for banks that finance them. In the end it is key to have a viable business case with predictable and stable demand, and with that financing will follow. As a bank we are addressing this by engaging with policymakers to ensure alignment between policy and investment decisions and by bringing market participants together to help solve the structural issues."  

Given that sustainability ranks highly as a strategic priority, how can companies turn it into a lasting competitive advantage? "Sustainability has indeed become a 'must-have' in many sectors. Companies have formulated ambitions and have set ESG targets against which they report. But the real difference will only emerge when companies translate those ambitions on paper into concrete and financeable projects." And the winners, in Papa's view, are not those who invest in isolated projects, but those who build scalable financing structures that can be replicated across multiple investments. "Often the capital investment required for an individual sustainability project is not enormous, relative at least to the transaction sizes banks consider efficient to finance. But if companies can structure the financing for one project in a way that they can then copy and paste into the next, that's when they can really accelerate sustainability investments." 

For investments to be scalable, Papa argues, sustainability has to be an integral part of what a company does, as opposed to an isolated or one-off activity. "It requires internal alignment across sustainability teams, finance departments, and those responsible for capital allocation. It needs to be clear, concretely, which investments are required to meet sustainability targets, and in what timeframe. That step, translating ambitions into a concrete investment roadmap, is one that many companies have not yet taken. The target is often clear; how to get there may still be quite fuzzy." 

Companies that do have that level of clarity, Papa says, can have more productive conversations about financing with their bank, for example about innovative Opens in a new tabnew structures where financing costs match savings. These structures link a company's financing costs directly to the actual returns that the sustainability investments deliver. This ensures that companies do not bear the full financing burden and risk from day one, but pay only if and when the projected returns actually occur. "These structures are novel and relatively rare in the market," Papa says. "They underline my bigger point: companies that can translate their sustainability ambitions into concrete projects and finance them at scale will pull ahead of competitors that cannot. In times that demand greater resilience, that may well be a decisive competitive advantage." 

Society is transitioning to a low-carbon economy. So are our clients, and so is ING. We finance a lot of sustainable activities, but we still finance more that’s not. See how we’re progressing on our Opens in a new tabclimate approach.