Close to half of business leaders in Europe (47%) are ‘afraid’ to learn the full extent of their emissions data, due to the potential public backlash, a new study by Wasabi Technologies has found.
The 2025 Emissions Blindspots Report, which surveyed 1,200 business decision-makers across the UK, France, and Germany, found that 61% fear a public backlash if their emissions are too high.
While most businesses agree that their customers expect accurate emissions reporting, just over half (51%) of respondents state that they are ‘concerned’ that they are going to lose customers if they fully disclose their emissions data.
Emissions reporting
“The 2025 Emissions Blindspots Report from Wasabi Technologies offers interesting insights about how European business leaders are feeling about reporting their carbon emissions,” commented Archana Venkatraman, senior research director, Cloud Data Management at IDC.
“The report’s findings that accurate emissions reporting has a direct effect on a company’s innovation, means that organisations need to get their emissions data in order to not fall behind in a competitive market and invest confidently for innovation-oriented business outcomes.”
‘An accurate picture’
Other findings from the study indicate that two thirds (66%) of European businesses believe that they are able to paint an accurate picture of emissions from their external tech stack, while 77% believe that inaccurate emissions data impedes innovation.
Elsewhere, close to half of respondents said that they believed they did not get full access to emissions data from their tech vendors, while 44% of businesses do not fully trust the quality and accuracy of the data they receive from tech vendors.
“We have seen a lot of recent sustainability progress, as nine in ten businesses say that the accuracy of their tech stack emissions reporting has improved over the past five years”, added Kevin Dunn, VP & GM EMEA, Wasabi. “Ultimately, the responsibility is on businesses to hold themselves and their vendors accountable. Our 2025 Cloud Storage Index found sustainability to be a top influence when selecting tech providers.”
The research was conducted by Sapio Research on behalf of Wasabi Technologies in November 2024. Read more here.
