How sustainable is sustainable enough? (2024)

I remember the first time I dreamt in Japanese. It was, as they say, the moment you realise you’re thinking in another language. When you can understand it in your dreams. I’d been living in Japan for about 6 months, and was far from fluent, but obviously the dream-people surrounding me in my dream-life finally represented the place I recognised subconsciously as the one I was living in; I lived in their world, it was not foreign to me anymore.

I see something like the same thing in people who are learning the language of sustainability for the first time. It is utterly foreign, incomprehensible, unfathomable. You’re living in a world where you know it matters, where it’s all around you, but you don’t really ‘get’ it; and it's all a bit overwhelming.

There are as many interpretations of the concept of what sustainability means as there are people in the world. Mostly, one would assume, it means something to do with “being green”; with saving the planet, with not taking more than enough. There is a long-recognised dearth of guidance around what sustainability actually means to business. In my frustration I ended up writing some (publicly-available) guidance while I was in my old job, to help SMEs on their way; but the demystification challenge remains, and is real.

I’ve started to talk “survival” now instead of “sustainability”. There are a couple of reasons for this. One: the subjectivism of the buzzword has rendered it almost meaningless. And meaningless is most definitely not what we need right now. And two: because we are talking survival. Sustainability is seen as a choice: I choose to buy organic; I choose to bike instead of drive. It’s not seen as an imperative: either we don’t take more than we need, or this place we live in will not survive. Which it most patently, is not.

My friend and colleague Adam Carrell recently authored a (I hope) seminal paper on the role of corporate sustainability in activating and orientating an urgent move towards actual sustainability; and explains the failure of the market to respond consequentially to the decline of the health of the planet we live on. The Enough Report is the first time I have ever seen it laid out so baldly: here is where we think we are making a (positive) difference, and here is where we are making a (negative) difference. The juxtaposition between corporate commitments to climate pledges, versus the equally marked decline in species, for instance, was a particularly breath-holding “how have I not seen this before?” gut-wrencher.

Adam describes the “painful incrementalism” of sustainability over the years, and our own role as sustainability professionals in exacerbating these baby steps, when what we really need is giant leaps. There is no company in the world, he says, who can tell you exactly how sustainable they need to be, in order to be sustainable. That blows my mind; but when you really think about it, is true. Or is it that they do, and don’t know how to close that gap?

The Enough Report puts some of the responsibility for the failure to figure out the true cost of unfettered capitalism on the planet at the feet of us: the sustainability managers, practitioners, advisers, and corporate financiers. (What our dear departed colleague Brendan le Blanc used to term “the Sustainarati”). The report posits that “If sustainable finance, ESG and other private sector-led sustainability vehicles are going to play a leading role in the sustainable reorganisation of the global economy, then the concept of corporate sustainability needs to be fundamentally revisited. This needs to go far beyond universalised reporting frameworks and get to the heart of what it means to have genuinely embedded sustainability into the structure and strategy of a private or corporate enterprise. Done well, this should not make it easier for more companies to appeal to sustainable finance and conscious consumers, but harder. For if capitalism really can be harnessed to expedite the remedy of its own impacts then it cannot be without its most storied attributes: competition and innovation. Given the extraordinary structural changes we need the global economy to take in the next decade, we simply cannot afford to let a few expeditious tweaks of disclosure qualify as evidence of sustainable re-alignment. Instead, we need to strip bare the paradoxes of mainstream corporate sustainability and recognise and reward those willing to break the mould.”

So, what do we mean by a shift from “a few expeditious tweaks” to “genuinely embedded sustainability”? And what are the paradoxes of mainstream corporate sustainability?

Ask anyone in this game and they will agree that in defining what sustainability is, we’ve never done better than the good old Brundtland Report from 1987. The United Nations Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” As Adam says, humans are the only living being (apart from parasites) who take more than we need. Every other living thing on earth manages to exist by leaving some of what they need behind so that they, and others, can live. We take so much more than what we need we have become numb to it. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth regenerates during the entire year. In New Zealand this year, it is April 19. In Australia, it is March 23. There are so many data points that could be used to illustrate how egregious is the state of our avarice, they have ceased to be effective. We are well beyond meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Vastly.

There are many reasons for this, and we of the Sustainararti have many thoughts. Such as:

1. What does sustainability mean to you? What’s the thing you can do to really reduce your impact? Hint: If you are a dairy producer, it is not emissions from your corporate office photocopying. And if you do spruik your sustainability credentials based on reducing the emissions from your corporate office photocopying, while not also doing something about on-farm emissions, animal welfare, fertilisers, freshwater ecology, and sustainable packaging, then be prepared to be accused of greenwashing. Also, more importantly, be prepared to no longer be relevant to increasingly-enlightened consumers. And, if you are so determined to stay in your lane and refuse to innovate and adapt, then also be prepared to go out of business. (See why I’m starting to talk about survival?)
2. If you do have a Corporate Sustainability function in your organisation, how do you see them? Do they really have a seat at the table? Or are they there to nag people to separate their recycling and fly less and add a bit of diversity to your brand metrics? If they told you what it would really take to make your firm sustainable, would you do it?
3. Climate change has a critical PR problem. We’ve known we’re responsible for the planet’s warming – and consequential demise - for most of a century. We’ve had 26 global meetings about it, and untold thousands of scientists write about a gazillion inarguable reports on it. The planet is heating up, it is fast getting out of control, a whole lot of stuff is breaking and dying that can’t be unbroken and undead, and it’s because of us and the choices we make every day. But can I deal with that? On top of the mortgage and Covid and war in Ukraine and famine in Yemen and outlawing abortion in the US and parenting and house prices and social injustice and disillusioned youth? And really, what is it you’re asking of me? To not eat meat, to not fly? Really? That’s the thing, in the whole world, that I can do to do my bit? You can see how it becomes disillusioning real quick. We need to get better at the comms. Last month there were unprecedented (how precedented has that word become in this context, by the way?) wildfires in Western Europe that killed many and displaced more. Several countries declared states of emergency. The Prime Minister of Spain nailed it: after visiting areas impacted by the wildfires his statement was “Climate change kills people, our ecosystem and what is most precious to us.” The Spanish minister for ecological transition described her country as “literally under fire” as she attended climate change talks in Berlin. And another meeting is held. We look into a future of annual increasing extreme weather events, more droughts, wildfires and floods, and we feel a bit helpless. We need a plan; something to galvanise us in the right direction.
4. In the words of the sagacious Sir Jonathan Porritt: “Targets have become a proxy for action”. Sir Jonathan puts the fault of our failure to meet the challenge of the changing climate squarely at the feet of the (ironically-labelled) decision-makers, who every year, travel to far flung places in their tens of thousands to set targets! Which we then fail to meet! And then set another target! Targets are not action. Action is action. Ambition does not meet targets. Action meets targets. What we must do, as citizens, businesses, leaders and countries, is to figure out what that action means to us. And then to get on and do it.
5. We need to think differently. Diversity does not mean having more women on your Board. (Although you should). Diversity means doing stuff differently. What we are doing – have been doing since industrialisation – is not working. In order to do stuff differently, we need people who think differently around the table. And to celebrate them being there; not to condescendingly oblige them. As someone ( Joe Hanita FCA, CPFA, CMInstD ) recently said to me: “You don’t need to explain what sustainability is to Māori: we just know – have always known – that my ancestors sacrificed something for me to be here today; and it will take something of me for my mokopuna to exist in the future.” This is typical of any indigenous culture. Giving something up so that there’s enough left for others should not be a concept that needs explanation. To anyone but us who think it’s our right to take more than we need, in every facet of our lives. We celebrate ego, over-consumption, lasciviousness. We aspire to it; are fascinated by it. Our teenagers spend their lives captivated by it on social media. Is there any wonder no-one cares about climate change? What a drag. Who wants to think about and talk about something of such grim magnitude in the face of such uplifting self-entitlement?
6. While data and quality reporting of course have their place in shifting the dial (I would say that, wouldn’t I?) data that maps incremental shifts – or worse, backward shifts – along a sustainability strategy pathway, is not fulfilling any meaningful objective. It’s a great place to start, and of course, if you’re doing it, keep doing it – just don’t confuse the collection and reporting of data with the doing of the actions. What would be really interesting; what would really shake things up, would be if companies were to collectively start reporting against the causal equivalency between their (current/past) operations and the impact on the communities and biosphere that they operate in – and then map how their (future) operations are going to consequentially shift that dial. Now that’s what I would call “corporate sustainability”.

For years I have pondered the actual impact of what we in the game actually do to “make a difference”. Everyone I work with, everyone we’ve hired at EY, everyone I hang out with, does what we do because we want to make that elusive “difference”. I honestly believe that everyone wants to leave this world a better place; to make their innings count for something – whether they work in sustainability or not. Figuring out how to nail down that difference and to cost it up and put it into action is the trick. This is where the “genuinely embedded sustainability” comes into play. This year I have been honoured to be one of the judges of the annual Sustainable Business Network’s sustainable business awards. The (many dozens) of entries which have come across my desk to “judge” have been inspiration enough to keep me going for some time. The theme that was most remarkable from the entries was that all of them saw building up (or out) a sustainable business as an opportunity. Whether building it into a new business from the get-go, or changing lanes into something quite different; all are making a very deliberate, positive change to ensure they sustain. That they survive. Good for them.

Lately our team have been reflecting on where we are actually making an impact, and sharing those stories with each other. It’s not a quick buck: sustainability takes time, and a lot of the changes we’re advising clients to make we all know- will take years. But taking on that paradox of sustainable development is what we came here to do, and why people hire us. Some of the wins we know seem small, but will be huge. Just getting a client to see where they can have their biggest positive impact, and reduce or eliminate their negative footprint in the long run, can mean a seismic shift in the closing of the gap. The challenge, of course, is going to be pointing out that uncomfortable truth around what it might cost. What we – the Sustainarati – need to get better at, is explaining and showing why it’s not just a cost. Showing what those clever, innovative sustainable business have already realised – that there’s money in it; there’s a thousand known and not-yet-known co-benefits in it; and that ultimately there’s survival in it.

So, where can you start? Here:

1. Figure out what sustainability means to your business. (Hint: it’s probably about what you think it is…trust your gut).
2. If you don’t know, ask people. If they don’t know, ask different people.
3. Figure out what to do about it (increasing your positives and reducing your negatives).
4. Put an action plan in place and make sure everyone’s on board.
5. Get the people whose job it is to do the stuff, to keep doing that stuff, with a sustainability lens on it. Get the procurement team to manage the Sustainability Supplier Code of Conduct, get the CEO to corral the Exec, get the finance team to cost the climate risk impacts. It’s what they do.
6. If you need to set targets, make sure they’re backed up by corresponding actions.
7. Make sure the leadership is leading. And stays leading.
8. Figure out how you’re going to maintain momentum. Measure, check back in, re-cast, do all that. But keep it up!
9. Get a gang together. None of us is an expert in this space. Hang out with colleagues, competitors, suppliers, counterparts, and share questions, challenges, and opportunities. Someone will know, have been there, be doing the same. Share the problem, and even better, share your wins. The wonderful thing about sustainability is, there is no IP. The quicker we do this, the more of us on-board, the easier it is, the more everyone wins.

In the words of the Enough Report, “Sustainability needs to revert to being a noun and not a verb. Sustainability is not an activity, nor is it an industry or a theme - it is a specific point at which economic activity is maintained within sustainable limits. It is that, or it is nothing.” How sustainable your firm needs to be in order to be sustainable: in order to sustain, maintain, keep going – to survive – is a known quantity. An exhilarating opportunity lies in the deciding. Are you going to figure out how sustainable you need to be in order to be sustainable enough? And then, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs – will you go there?