Quebec Business Transition Barometer 2025
As uncertainty weakens collective momentum, clear pathways emerge: companies need stable conditions to act
Montréal, November 19, 2025 – QNP (Quebec Net Positif) today unveils the results of the fourth edition of the Business Transition Barometer, conducted among 819 business leaders across Québec, and releases a new tool—the Flah Barometer—to support SMEs in their climate transition. The 2025 Barometer reveals that nearly three-quarters of business leaders in Québec (72%) are concerned about the potential impacts of climate-related events on their organizations. Moreover, half of them (51%) experienced such impacts over the past year, ranging from operational disruptions to revenue losses and threats to health and safety.
Yet, despite these tangible realities, a gap persists between belief and action. While 84% of business leaders say it is urgent to reduce GHG emissions and 82% believe companies have a central role to play, 47% of leadership teams report low engagement toward climate action—an increasing disengagement trend compared with 2024 (39%). The 2025 Transition Index stands at 33.3, meaning that on average, Québec companies are currently implementing one-third of the essential actions needed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Economic and political uncertainty weakens collective momentum
The 2025 Barometer reveals a growing gap between the most advanced companies and the rest. Fifteen percent of advanced businesses—the Visionaries—continue to progress despite headwinds, while the Transition Index of otherwise Engaged companies is declining. Companies identified as Enthusiastic, Motionless, or Unconcerned remain below average. The gap in Transition Index between Visionaries companies (62.3) and Unconcerned ones (16.8) has reached a new peak, underscoring the urgent need to strengthen the conditions that will allow all companies to move forward.
QNP also finds that 50% of Visionaries now consider evolving laws and regulations to be a risk, a sharp increase from 38% in 2024. This concern may reflect fears that deregulation or instability in climate policies could weaken their business models.
“Our data shows that current uncertainty is weakening collective momentum. To innovate, invest, and decarbonize with confidence, companies need stability, expertise, and durable coherence across public policies and private-sector levers,” says Anne-Josée Laquerre, Executive Director & Co-founder of QNP.
QNP calls for stronger predictability and continuity in policy frameworks to consolidate the mobilization of business leaders and accelerate the transformation toward a low-carbon, net-positive economy.
Concrete levers to drive action
The 2025 Business Transition Barometer highlights concrete levers to accelerate transformation. The most decisive remains access to expertise—internal or external—an essential support to help companies, especially SMEs, move from intention to action.
Mobilizing leadership, value chains, and internal teams is also crucial to making climate transformation a true driver of innovation and competitiveness.
QNP emphasizes the importance of placing climate governance at the heart of strategic decision-making: training leaders and board directors—whose level of engagement is directly correlated with climate action within their organizations—mobilizing professionals and recognizing climate action as a value-creation lever at every level of the company.
In 2025, 22% of Québec businesseshave completed at least part of their greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, an increase from 13% in 2022. Among those that have done so, nearly half (45%) now include all direct and indirect emissions (Scopes 1, 2, and 3) in their measurements, compared with 31% three years earlier.
To provide concrete support to SMEs, QNP is launching the Flash Barometer, a free digital tool unique in Québec. In just a few minutes, it allows companies to benchmark themselves relative to the businesses surveyed in the Barometer—representative of Québec’s economic landscape—obtain a comparative snapshot of their climate-action progress and identify key levers to advance further.
“It is by acting at the heart of their operations—and above all, together across their value chains—that companies can align themselves with likely transition pathways. In a context of climate disruption, geopolitical tensions, biodiversity collapse, and resource scarcity, Québec’s competitiveness and resilience will depend on our collective ability to turn uncertainty into a driver for action,” notes Anne-Josée Laquerre.
Quotes
“At Beneva, we put people at the heart of everything we do. That’s why we are committed to accelerating a just transition to a greener, more inclusive, and resilient world. We know that not all SMEs have the same resources to adapt to climate change. The 2025 Business Transition Barometer confirms this and helps us better understand the realities of SMEs so we can support them more effectively by offering concrete solutions, expertise, and a healthy dose of inspiration. As a mutual insurance company, Beneva believes that a successful transition is achieved by joining forces!”
Melissa Gilbert, FCPA, ASC, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, BENEVA
“The results of the Business Transition Barometer clearly show that Québec small and medium businesses remain committed. At BMO, we firmly believe that the energy transition requires tangible support tailored to the realities entrepreneurs face. That’s why we welcome the launch of the Flash-Barometer, an innovative tool that will help businesses better understand where they stand and accelerate their shift toward a more sustainable model.”
Grégoire Baillargeon, President, BMO Financial Group, Québec
“The climate transition is inseparable from the transition to a circular economy. To reduce GHG emissions, we need to rethink our business models, supply chains, and ways of producing and consuming. At RECYC-QUÉBEC, we believe that every company, regardless of size, can turn these challenges into opportunities for innovation and competitiveness.”
Francis Vermette, Vice President, Operations and Development, RECYC-QUÉBEC
About the Barometer
Created in 2022 by QNP, the Business Transition Barometer is a unique survey-based measurement and analysis tool assessing Québec companies’ engagement in climate action, based on 118 variables. To conduct this major study, QNP commissioned the research firm Léger, which surveyed 819 Québec business leaders between July 31 and August 25, 2025. The sample is representative of Québec’s overall economy, including sectors, company sizes, and regions.
QNP was able to produce the 2025 Business Transition Barometerthanks to the support of its partners: Beneva, BMO, and RECYC-QUÉBEC; its collaborators: Énergir, Investissement Québec, Miller Thomson, and Norda Stelo; and the support of APDEQ as well as experts from Copticom, Ouranos, Rümker, Voilà:, and Léger. This fourth edition was also made possible through financial support from the Québec government’s Plan for a Green Economy.
About QNP
Founded in 2016, QNP (Québec Net Positif) is an independent, nonprofit think tank whose purpose is to drive climate action by SMEs to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon, net-positive economy. Its mission: create winning conditions for SMEs to scale up their climate actions while seizing new business opportunities.
QNP mobilizes a committed community around this mission and publishes the annual Business Transition Barometer, along with training programs, publications, tools, and events.