The Sustainable Facilities Management Index (SFMI) has released its findings of its 2025 assessments in a new report ‘FM Leaders Zero in on What Really Matters in Sustainability’. Last year’s results showed that FMs were starting to commercialise sustainability initiatives. This year, the findings go a step further: the sector is moving beyond ad-hoc sustainability projects and towards a more integrated, long-term approach.
The SFMI congratulates all its 2025 Partners – Amey, Arcus FM, BAM FM, BBC Workplace, Churchill Group, EMCOR UK, Equans, Mitie, Optima Facility, Skanska and VINCI Facilities, and extends special recognition to this year’s overall winner – Mitie.
The trends emerging from this year’s SFMI assessments point to an FM sector that is moving beyond ad-hoc sustainability initiatives towards a more integrated, long-term transformation. The four overarching themes of the report, Decarbonisation, wellbeing, social value, and risk management, are no longer disparate workstreams but are increasingly converging to define how FM organisations design services and strategies. To see this year’s findings, download a copy of the 2025 report here.
Looking ahead
Decarbonisation services have matured significantly over the past few years, and the next phase will be defined by integration with business and financial planning. Rather than simply delivering energy projects or technology upgrades, leading FM providers will help clients optimise whole portfolios over asset lifecycles, align capital investment with transition pathways, and use data to prioritise where they can deliver the greatest reduction in emissions and cost. As companies seek to meet evolving targets and respond to tightening regulation, keeping abreast of new technologies and skills will become essential.
Wellbeing remains relatively nascent as a structured service line, despite being at the heart of FM’s workplace offer. FMs have made excellent gains in understanding how to improve wellbeing for their own staff including utilising technology to do so, and the next step will be looking at how to extend this to their clients. Shifting the focus to the wider workforce that occupies the spaces they manage will help FMs distinguish their services to clients and provide greater value. This means using insight on space utilisation, indoor environmental quality and user feedback to co-create workplace improvements that support productivity, retention and health. Providers that can connect wellbeing outcomes to business performance will be well placed to differentiate themselves in a tight market.
Social value has also seen an evolution away from narrow metrics to broader measures and organisational strategies that drive more meaningful change. There is growing recognition that basing the social value performance on an initial-stage measurement has often inadvertently led to the wrong behaviours and limited the usefulness of reporting. The next challenge is to embed these richer outcome-focused approaches into procurement frameworks and contract management, so that social value is judged on sustained outcomes rather than headline numbers. That will require FM organisations to develop stronger narratives, clearer evidence and more collaborative approaches with clients and communities.
Finally, risk management and opportunity identification are set to become regulatory and commercial cornerstones. As climate and nature-related requirements are woven into standards such as ISO 14001, FM providers will need robust processes to identify, prioritise and communicate risks. Furthermore, they will need to develop practical responses on how to address these risks and capitalise on opportunities. The focus going forward will be on understanding those risks and opportunities that are most material to the business, quantifying them financially, and using this insight to steer strategy.
The organisations that will succeed in the future will be those that can connect the dots between these trends and integrate them into their business models, to protect their own assets and also drive sustainability in clients and supply chains.
