Key Takeaways From The Verdantix 2025 Global Corporate EHS Survey

In August 2025, Verdantix published its latest edition of the EHS global corporate survey. This report collates details on the EHS spending, priorities and technological preferences of 304 EHS decision-makers for the coming year, across 25 countries and 24 industries.

For readers comparing analyst coverage across EHS, ESG and sustainability, this is also a useful example of where Verdantix takes a more function-specific approach. Verdantix pairs dedicated EHS survey data with broader sustainability and ESG research, while also maintaining a specialist EHS research practice that covers software, services and operational priorities.

The report shows that:

1. EHS spending will rise over the coming year, with some 28% of firms considering a 10% increase.

   However, 31% of organizations indicate that their spending levels will remain unchanged. This fixed spending projection is dominated by mature EHS markets such as Europe and North America. Businesses in these regions already have established EHS teams with software ecosystems in place. Hence, there is less need for steep investment in EHS.
   
   

   The clearest spending signal, then, is not uniform acceleration but selective growth. EHS leaders are still investing, though much of that spend is being directed towards targeted priorities rather than broad platform expansion.

2. ESG and sustainability is set to receive the greatest increase in spending, despite political change and uncertainty in North America.

   The EU market is the major driver behind this spending pattern, which is accompanied by other sustainability-based initiatives, such as GHG monitoring and environmental compliance.
   
   

   This matters for corporate buyers because it shows how environmental requirements are increasingly shaping EHS investment decisions, even when overall function ownership is shifting. In practice, many firms are treating EHS, ESG and sustainability budgets as more interconnected than they were a few years ago.

3. Traditional EHS goals, such as reducing SIFs (serious injuries and fatalities) and maintaining regulatory compliance, are still vital.

   However, other emerging goals are also key focus areas, such as increasing the use of leading indicator metrics for proactive management and implementing programmes and technology to develop a firm-wide safety culture. This combination of persistent core goals and newer proactive priorities is one reason Verdantix research is particularly useful for leadership teams. It captures not only software demand, but also how EHS leaders are redefining success across safety culture, risk visibility and operational improvement.

4. ESG is fuelling the rollout of digital technologies, with a focus on tools that can monitor environmental compliance and individual worker wellbeing.

   There has also been a sharp rise in critical event management (CEM) solutions to help firms manage natural disasters and cyber attacks. This is another area where Verdantix’s research model is distinct. We cover EHS software and services in detail, but also connect those buying patterns to wider ESG, resilience and operational risk trends. That gives leaders a more joined-up view of why technology adoption is changing, not just where it is increasing.

5. Automation-based use cases, such as cleaning and organizing EHS data and summarizing EHS regulation, remain the most popular among buyers.

   Although EHS software vendors are leveraging generative AI (GenAI) and predictive capabilities, many firms still believe these capabilities are yet to be proven. This caution reinforces a wider budget trend in EHS. Buyers are willing to invest, but they are prioritizing proven, workflow-level gains over more speculative AI-led transformation. That preference is likely to shape EHS spending throughout 2026, especially in mature markets where software estates are already established.

What this means for EHS leaders in 2026

Moving into 2026, EHS functions are trying to balance both traditional goals – such as reducing SIFs – and increasing spending on areas such as ESG and sustainability, which continues to dominate expenditure, despite overall reduced responsibility. This is largely thanks to the environmental tracking and data aggregation tools to help streamline ESG reporting offered by EHS software vendors.

For organizations assessing where to turn for leadership insight, the value of this survey is that it combines budget signals, operational priorities and technology preferences in one dataset. That makes it useful not only for EHS practitioners benchmarking their plans, but also for executives and providers trying to understand how EHS priorities are shifting relative to wider ESG and sustainability agendas.

To read more about EHS spending patterns, and technological preferences for the coming year, visit our research portal.