January 8, 2026
Five-Minute Brief: Q+P’s 2026 Outlook
In the year ahead, here are five areas we are monitoring closely that will shape decisions for businesses, investors and policymakers alike.
1. Connecting Sustainability, Climate and Financial Value
The ability to link sustainability risks and opportunities to measurable business outcomes is becoming essential for sound strategic decision-making. Amid shifting macrotrends and evolving market expectations, companies are recalibrating their sustainability and climate strategies with a sharper focus on value creation and financial performance.
In 2026, we expect leading organizations to embed sustainability into corporate strategy, build rigorous business cases to mobilize capital, use financial metrics to monitor progress and strengthen the connection between risk, resilience and long‑term value. We anticipate this will widen the divide between companies that remain defensive — treating sustainability as a compliance exercise — and those that leverage strategic foresight to proactively capture opportunities and create competitive advantage. In our experience, the strength of sustainability and climate governance often determines which path an organization takes.
2. An Erratic Transition to Mandatory Disclosure
Global progress towards mandatory climate and sustainability disclosure is advancing, albeit at a slower and uneven pace. In 2025, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) paused work on a new mandatory climate-related disclosure rule[1] while the Competition Bureau clarified guidance on the Environmental Claims and the Competition Act, inadvertently sowing market confusion and legal uncertainty. In response, the Canada Strong Budget 2025 signalled a recalibration of the Act, removing both the substantiation requirement for business-level claims and the ability of third parties to bring cases directly to the Competition Tribunal.[2] In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to stop defending its climate disclosure rules in court, and under the current SEC leadership, it is unlikely those rules will be implemented in the foreseeable future.[3] In Europe, policymakers narrowed and delayed elements of the ambitious Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive,[4] while globally, 36 jurisdictions have adopted or are in the process of introducing the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) sustainability disclosure standards.[5]
Despite hopes of harmonization and interoperability, we expect the fragmentation to continue in 2026 as some markets move fast and others recalibrate. To remain credible and competitive, entities should take advantage of the additional runway by adopting the Canadian Sustainability Disclosure Standards (CSDS) voluntarily, focusing disclosure on material risks and opportunities, substantiating their claims and investing in data quality, governance and controls that connect climate and sustainability information to financial planning and risk management.
Read more about The Future of Sustainability Disclosure here.
3. Canada’s Sustainable Finance Taxonomy
Canada’s Budget 2025 positions climate action as a core part of national industrial policy through a new Climate Competitiveness Strategy, framing decarbonization as both an environmental imperative and economic necessity. In late 2025, the federal government announced it would advance the long-awaited sustainable investment guidelines led by the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI) in collaboration with Business Future Pathways. Over the next two years, an independent Taxonomy Council will develop criteria for green and transition activities across six priority sectors (yet to be determined).[6]
Asset owners will be able to use the guidance to engage external managers and assess alignment, while asset managers can assess which holdings qualify under each criteria. Businesses will be able to gauge the extent to which their activities align with sector-specific taxonomies, understand the implications for their business models and value chains (and innovate new products and services accordingly) and reflect these implications in credible transition plans.
Read more about the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy here.
4. Preparing for Disruptive Climate Change
Physical climate change is an increasingly material financial risk. Insured climate losses from wildfires, hail and flooding tripled in recent years, and in 2025, Canada had its second-worst wildfire season on record, while the Los Angeles wildfires produced the costliest wildfire event globally.[7] [8]
As climate volatility becomes routine, stakeholders expect companies to move beyond risk identification and actively show they are resilient, prepared and able to maintain continuity. Businesses and investors alike should systematically assess their risk exposure, identify vulnerabilities in their business model and value chain (or investment portfolios, as the case may be) and implement mitigatory measures to enhance resilience. For our part, we helped many proactive clients in recent years perform scenario analysis to evaluate the business impacts under various plausible climate futures and plan accordingly.
5. AI-Powered Sustainability and Climate Analytics
As artificial intelligence (AI) adoption continues apace, it will reshape how organizations decarbonize, build resilience and create long-term value. While applications vary by sector, the most widespread use to date has been streamlining data collection, system performance and analytics — delivering more timely monitoring and productivity gains that can refocus resources on driving progress and generating insights. Beyond analytics, AI will increasingly support more complex sustainability processes, including supply chain optimization, peer benchmarking, regulatory requirement mapping and alignment with emerging standards.
Organizations will need to navigate how their digital transformation is managed responsibly and aligns with their sustainability goals. As capital markets pour investment into data centres and digital infrastructure, we expect greater scrutiny of environmental and climate impacts and a push for energy-efficiency, renewables-powered solutions. Companies should continue to build foundational AI literacy, mitigate the climate impacts of their digital footprints, closely monitor how tools are used in practice and treat AI outputs as inputs to informed decision-making, not as a substitute for company-specific data and judgment. As organizations accelerate their adoption of AI, we are closely monitoring whether they begin shifting away from traditional software in favour of in-house, agentic AI‑enabled solutions.
Ready to Navigate 2026?
At Quinn+Partners, we empower businesses and investors to realize a sustainable future. If you are ready to take the next step, please get in touch.
[1] CSA: CSA updates market on approach to climate-related and diversity-related disclosure projects
[2] Government of Canada: Budget 2025 – Annex 5: Legislative measures
[3] US SEC: SEC Votes to End Defense of Climate Disclosure Rules
[4] EU News: Sustainability reporting and due diligence: MEPs back simplification changes
[5] IFRS: IFRS Foundation publishes jurisdictional profiles providing transparency and evidencing progress towards adoption of ISSB Standards
[6] Developing Canada’s Sustainable Investment Guidelines
[7] Insurance Bureau of Canada: 2024 shatters record for costliest year for severe weather-related losses in Canadian history at $8.5 billion
[8] 2025 marks sixth year insured natural catastrophe losses exceed USD 100 billion, finds Swiss Re Institute