ESG has gone quiet in procurement. Is it embedded in your process or just off the agenda?

A year ago, integrating ESG matters was the risk allocation method transport infrastructure leaders were most likely to call critical. This year it came last.

In our survey of 150 senior executives for the 2027 Transport Infrastructure Outlook Report , just 5% named ESG as their single most important risk allocation method. When respondents could select every method they consider key, 27% included ESG, down from 52%. Every other method on the list rose, and ESG was the only one to decline.

Read cold, that looks like a retreat. The findings raises the question: is ESG being genuinely embedded, or quietly deprioritised? The practitioners interviewed suggest both are happening. Which one applies depends on the organisation.

The only risk lever that went backwards

The methods that overtook ESG tell you what the market now wants from risk allocation. Advanced risk analysis tools took the top spot as the single most important method, at 25%, with financial risk-sharing incentives close behind at 21%. On the broader measure, the two are cited by 78% and 77% respectively, up from 49% and 53%.

Both methods produce something you can point to: a quantified model or a commercial mechanism tied to outcomes. Government agencies show the strongest preference for risk analysis tools, with 33% naming them their most important lever. That fits a public sector where decisions may need defending under audit years after project completion..

ESG, treated as a standalone method, doesn’t produce that kind of evidence on its own. Peter Jones, Managing Director of MBB Group, holds two views at once: “At the risk of two contradictory statements, both of which I think are true, ESG is far more embedded as part of the standard procurement process than it was… It’s less prominent because you’re not shining a spotlight on it in the same way.”

The case for absorption

The integration argument has solid support. KPMG’s Global Construction Survey 2025/2026 , found that stakeholder sustainability expectations now feature so strongly across the industry that ESG should be treated as a mainstream risk, not a niche concern.

Audrey Bailly, Business Development Director at Ansarada Procure, sees the same shift on the ground. “A few years ago, it was often discussed as a standalone objective,” she says. “Today, many ESG requirements have become embedded in the procurement framework itself, in supplier assessment, in governance processes.”

Craig McMahon, Business Development Director at Ansarada Procure, gives a concrete example. A head of major projects in Victoria told him about a key project that had been significantly affected by a climate-related disruption. “Because of that, for all subsequent projects, they bake the climate focus into their planning early on, rather than it being a reactive piece. It’s been embedded in their procurement processes rather than treated as a bolt-on and that’s not just from a climate perspective but from a social one too.”

Regulation is pushing the same way. Amanda Branley, CEO and founder of The Procurement Coach, points to sustainability reporting requirements through the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC). “Procurement is seen as the lever that can actually deliver on those commitments, not just set them,” she says.

Why absorption isn’t guaranteed

Integration is the generous reading, and the interviewees give reasons to be careful with it.

Amanda warns that the reporting behind those commitments is shallow in places: “The challenge is that Scope 1, 2 and 3 reporting is still quite checkbox-driven in Australia. People are filling it in to the best of their ability and hoping it goes away.” She also points to competing pressures. Following the conflict in the Middle East, diesel prices in some regional parts of Western Australia rose nearly threefold. “If you’re managing logistics in the Kimberley, that’s not an abstract ESG challenge, it’s an operational one.”

Peter sees a political current too: “There is rhetoric emerging about whether we’re overpaying for projects because of ESG, the language of red tape and cost blowout. I’m not seeing it translate into execution yet, but it’s in the ether.”

The survey adds its own counterpoint. The share of respondents naming community engagement as a top area needing improvement has more than doubled, from 23% to 48%. If the social dimension of ESG had been smoothly absorbed into standard practice, it’s hard to see why it has become one of the most widely recognised delivery risks in the same year.

The report’s conclusion makes the stakes plain. Organisations that have genuinely embedded ESG will be more resilient when climate disruption, supplier failure or community opposition hits. Those that have simply stopped talking about it may only find out the difference when those risks materialise.

What embedded actually looks like

You can only tell absorption from dropping interest by looking at where ESG now sits in the process. Marc Allen, Executive Advisor at RP Infrastructure, describes the practical test: “The opportunity for clients is to translate these priorities into clear, measurable requirements that are relevant to the project. Embedding them in evaluation criteria, governance arrangements and delivery measures gives bidders greater clarity and enables performance to be assessed throughout the project lifecycle.”

Institutions are moving in that direction. For example, from January 2026, the Asian Development Bank’s Merit Point Criteria system is mandatory for all internationally advertised works contracts it finances. The system brings non-price factors, including technical quality and sustainability, into bid evaluation alongside price.

Once ESG lives inside evaluation criteria and supplier assessment rather than in its own workstream, the evidence for it lives in the procurement record. That record has to show how criteria were weighted, who scored what and on what basis. This is where a controlled environment with a complete audit trail, like Ansarada Procure , does more than a stack of shared drives and email threads.

Embedding ESG in evaluation criteria and supplier assessment only works if you can show how those criteria were applied. Ansarada Procure gives procurement teams one secure environment to run evaluations, control access and keep a complete audit trail of every decision. Book a demo to see how it works.