Climate litigation has spent years moving closer to the center of corporate decision making. The latest data suggests that its reach is continuing to expand, both geographically and across industries.
The 2026 edition of the Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation report from the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics tracks more than 3,600 climate cases filed since 1986. More than three quarters of them have been filed since the Paris Agreement in 2015, and cases have now been documented across 62 countries, compared with 17 a decade ago. In 2025 alone, 249 new cases were filed.
For companies, however, the more relevant development may be where litigation is heading.
More than 50 strategic climate aligned cases were filed against companies in 2025, bringing the total since 2015 to 434. The defendants now span energy, finance, transport, real estate and consumer goods, while litigation is increasingly reaching businesses further along emissions intensive supply chains.
That expansion should get the attention of sustainability leaders.
Climate litigation cannot be treated as an issue concentrated among a relatively small group of fossil fuel companies. As climate considerations enter regulation, investment decisions, product claims, infrastructure planning and corporate governance, the potential points of legal exposure are also expanding.
The risk is becoming more distributed
One of the most useful aspects of the report is the range of litigation strategies it identifies.
Companies can face cases related to their overall contribution to climate change, their governance and transition plans, their management of physical climate risks, the way directors manage transition risk and the accuracy of environmental claims. Climate washing alone accounts for at least 226 cases globally since 2015, according to the report. Failure to adapt, transition risk and cases seeking changes to corporate policies and governance represent additional areas of activity.
New areas are also appearing. The report identifies litigation involving carbon removal infrastructure, data centres and plastics, illustrating how legal arguments are following the evolution of climate policy and investment.
For sustainability teams, this creates a different type of risk landscape. A company does not need to operate an oil field to have climate related legal exposure. Decisions around financing, procurement, infrastructure, advertising, resilience and product strategy can all create connections.
This also means that identifying exposure requires a broader view of the organization. Sustainability teams need to understand where climate considerations enter important decisions, which jurisdictions the company operates in, what claims are being made publicly and where physical or transition risks could affect assets and operations.
Better climate communication requires better evidence
Climate washing remains one of the clearest examples.
More than 65% of climate washing cases that have reached a decision have been resolved in favor of claimants, according to the report. At the same time, annual filings have declined from 58 cases in 2023 to 31 in 2025. The authors suggest several possible reasons, including greater corporate awareness of the risks associated with unsupported environmental claims.
The report specifically warns that greenhushing does not eliminate litigation exposure and argues that well evidenced transition plans and substantiated disclosure can help companies manage risk.
That has an important implication for how sustainability communication should be managed. Environmental claims increasingly need to be connected to evidence, governance and implementation. A target should have a credible pathway behind it. A product claim should be supported by the methodology used to reach it. A transition plan should connect ambition with investment and operational decisions.
Communications teams cannot solve this at the end of the process. The quality of the claim depends on the quality of the underlying sustainability work.
Climate litigation should influence how sustainability teams assess risk
The report also shows how legal exposure is spreading through interconnected corporate relationships.
Financial institutions and state owned enterprises are defendants in at least 42 strategic climate aligned corporate cases, with more than 40% of those filed since 2023. Insurers and shareholders are also appearing as claimants as they seek to recover losses associated with extreme weather, while regulators are taking action around the assessment of climate and environmental risks.
This makes climate litigation relevant to areas that sustainability teams may not traditionally have treated as part of their remit.
Supplier due diligence, capital allocation, adaptation planning, environmental impact assessments and public claims can all have a legal dimension. The appropriate response is therefore unlikely to come from sustainability or legal teams working separately. It requires coordination across legal, risk, finance, operations, communications and sustainability.
The report also stresses that the picture varies significantly between jurisdictions. The regulatory environment is fragmenting, particularly around ESG, while legal strategies are increasingly crossing borders as claimants and courts learn from cases elsewhere.
Companies operating internationally will need to understand that exposure accordingly.
A broader role for sustainability leadership
There is a tendency to discuss climate litigation after a lawsuit has been filed. By then, many of the underlying decisions have been made.
Are climate risks properly reflected in investment decisions? Can environmental claims be defended with evidence? Do transition plans connect with actual capital expenditure? Are physical climate risks being incorporated into asset planning? Does the company understand potential exposure across its supply chain and markets?
These are sustainability questions, but they increasingly carry legal and financial consequences.
The Grantham report concludes that climate litigation has established itself as a permanent feature of global climate governance. Courts are now hearing cases involving governments, companies, banks and financial institutions, while litigants are learning from one another across jurisdictions.
For sustainability leaders, that makes litigation another source of information about where expectations around corporate climate performance are heading. Understanding those signals early can help companies make better decisions before they have to defend them in court.
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Sustainability Consultant
Published Oct 6, 2026 9am EDT / 6am PDT / 2pm BST / 3pm CEST