For Brianna Mazze, sustainability reporting is about accountability.

The vice president of compliance and sustainability at Counselor Top 40 supplier SRG (asi/84592; Canada, asi/84595) has worked on three Impact Reports since 2023.

In them, SRG has set and met goals, touted its silver EcoVadis sustainability rating and highlighted decarbonization efforts. The company sets future objectives, too, which allows it to look at sustainability in a holistic way, Mazze says.

“Sustainability reporting is very high level,” she says. “We started doing it because it was a way to communicate what we’re doing as a company to the industry, not just to all of our stakeholders.”

SRG is one of several top promo firms that release annual sustainability reports — a growing trend as companies become more intentional about environmental goals.

“Sustainability reporting is very high level. We started doing it because it was a way to communicate what we’re doing as a company to the industry, not just to all of our stakeholders.” Brianna Mazze, SRG (asi/84592)

But the way sustainability reporting is done varies across companies. Some include specific metrics on things like employee demographics, carbon emissions and energy output, while others focus on more generalized descriptions of initiatives and accomplishments.

ASI Research compiled sustainability reports released from Counselor Top 40 suppliers and distributors since 2023 to compare how they report data related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors – and glean best practices in this relatively new, but growing, focus in promo.

Sustainability by the Numbers

In the last two years, nearly one-third of Counselor Top 40 suppliers and distributors released a public, dedicated sustainability report. That’s 25 out of 80 companies, a majority of which started publishing these kinds of reports after 2022.

Click here for a PDF of this infographic.

At least one company not included in this tally had a sustainability section in a publicly available annual report, and some companies released yearly sustainability statements rather than a full sustainability or ESG report. The parent company of one top promo firm releases annual reports but only reports aggregates for every company combined, so it was not included in this count.

Lindsay Hampson, founder and president of ESG consulting company ThisRock, started her business in 2022 and has worked with 50 organizations during that timeframe. This year alone, she’s had 30 new clients sign on, which she says indicates a push across industries for sustainability reporting.

“If [companies] don’t do sustainability, they’re likely going to lose deals,” she says.

At the same time, platforms like EcoVadis and certifications like B Corp have become more popular in recent years as a way for companies to show their commitment to sustainability. EcoVadis has assessed more companies each year since 2019, and the number of B Corp-certified companies more than doubled between 2020 and 2023, according to Modern Retail.

Laura Smith, product and sustainability manager at certified B Corp Storm Creek (asi/89879), has also noticed this trend. The Eagan, MN-based apparel supplier has long included impact summaries in its catalogs and on the web, but didn’t start publishing formal reports until 2023.

“There has definitely become a trend in releasing them, and I think that’s a good thing,” she says. “There are definitely some that are better than others [but] … it’s a good thing that people are moving toward transparency.”

Sustainability reporting has become increasingly common outside the promo industry, too. A 2024 survey from KPMG found that 96% of the world’s largest 250 companies report on sustainability in annual investor or sustainability reports, and 95% publish a carbon goal.

In 2025, however, some major U.S. companies shifted their strategy related to ESG initiatives. Sustainability reporting among 3,000 of the largest U.S. companies dropped by nearly 50% this year, according to business-oriented think tank The Conference Board. Major companies like Adobe, Citigroup and General Motors have yet to file this year despite publishing sustainability reports in the first half of 2024 — a change that the think tank described as a “strategic recalibration” of corporate ESG focus instead of a full shift away from this type of reporting.

There’s no mandatory sustainability reporting regulation in the U.S., but in March 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the first requirements for public companies in the U.S. to disclose climate risks facing their businesses and, in some cases, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their operations. In March of this year, however, the SEC voted to walk away from implementing these regulations amid a shift from former President Joe Biden’s strategy on climate-related disclosures.

Despite those national headwinds, the promo industry isn’t seeing the same contraction in reporting. Most top promo companies that release annual sustainability reports have already published a 2025 report, and a majority of those that haven’t didn’t release their 2024 report until later in the second half of the year.

Counselor Top 40 supplier Koozie Group (asi/40480) started releasing Keep It. Give It. reports at the end of 2020 — a play on the company’s initials that details its sustainability and social impacts.

Victoria Sierra, the company’s compliance manager, says customers asked about the company’s emissions and other environmental claims, so annual reports help maintain transparency.

“While we still have more to do, we’re proud of what we’ve already accomplished and want to share that,” she says. “We truly want to make a positive impact in our community and industry, and we can’t do that if we gatekeep information about our own impacts.”

What Makes an Effective Sustainability Report?

Hampson says the hallmark of an effective sustainability report is data.

The founder of an ESG consulting company says it’s ideal to have figures early in the report on metrics such as Scope 1, Scope 2 and potentially Scope 3 GHG emissions. Other types of data can include company locations, the number of employees, labor statistics and more.

Scope 1 emissions are from sources owned or controlled by an organization, while Scope 2 are from indirect emissions from purchased energy like electricity, steam, heating or cooling. Scope 3 emissions generally account for a majority of a company’s GHG output. They’re harder to track because they account for all emissions that occur up and down a product’s value chain.

All the Counselor Top 40 suppliers and distributors that released sustainability reports in the last two years mention carbon emissions and their goals for reducing them, but not all include hard data. Fifteen out of the 25 disclosed figures for Scope 1 and 2 emissions, and nine companies reported Scope 3 numbers.

“The more sophisticated a sustainability strategy is, the more scopes you get to see,” Hampson says. “There’s only three of them, but if you see Scope 3, you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, that company knows what it’s doing.’”

Outside environmental reporting, these kinds of reports also tend to include details about social and community involvement, as well as diversity and inclusion programs. Twenty-one out of the 25 promo companies that release sustainability reports quantified their achievements in this category with metrics like volunteer hours or total charitable donations, but only six reported figures for both total donations and cumulative volunteer hours.

Hampson adds that an effective report aligns with globally recognized sustainability frameworks — like Global Reporting Initiative or Sustainability Accounting Standards Board guidelines — so companies can share comparable disclosures. Companies should also include real examples of initiatives or programs that achieved ESG goals, she says.

In its most recent report, Koozie Group highlighted environmental and social responsibility initiatives such as its support of 4 Paws for Ability, a nonprofit that supports people with disabilities with service dogs.

“I hate to admit it, but our math teachers were really onto something when they said, ‘Show your work.’ We’ve done the work, and the easiest way to tell our customers, employees and other stakeholders about it is to literally show our work.” Victoria Sierra, Koozie Group (asi/40480)

Sierra, the compliance manager at Koozie Group, says writing down goals can make it easier to achieve them. The supplier’s 2022 report listed a goal to be carbon neutral by the end of 2024. It reached this aim in September 2023, she says.

“I hate to admit it, but our math teachers were really onto something when they said, ‘Show your work,’” she says. “We’ve done the work, and the easiest way to tell our customers, employees and other stakeholders about it is to literally show our work.”

Promo for the Planet is your destination for the latest news, biggest trends and best ideas to help build a more sustainable and socially-responsible industry.