Classic scenario. Someone outside the corporate world (usually family or friends) asks “What do you do for work?”. “I work in Sustainability” I would answer, usually seeing an utterly confused face in front of me. In most cases, they have no idea what that means, and in other cases jump straight to assuming I am talking about carbon emissions. It’s just as vague as describing a business management degree to someone, which I unfortunately also must do. Ah, the beauty of a term that says everything and nothing at the same time (heavy sarcasm).
Which made me think – why am I having so much trouble with a term I use pretty much every day? And in all honesty, I concluded that I’m not a big fan of the term ‘sustainability’. Ironic, I know, coming from someone with that term in their bio.
Why? Let’s start from scratch.
What is the official definition of sustainability, the one everyone always goes back to? In 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.”
Simple, eh? Well, not really. Needs of the present are based on local conditions. The needs of someone living in a village are very different from someone living in a city. Every ecosystem and community has different needs, so how do we plan and execute with such subjectivity? And how are we even supposed to know the needs of future generations? This definition was created by the UN, for the UN.
Okay, lets take another example. According to UCLA (University of California), sustainability is “the balance between the environment, equity, and economy“. Has anyone found this magical spot? And when we do find it, how do we know, and how do we keep it?
The term “sustainability” stems from “sustainable”, which could be used to describe something constant and reliable over the longer term. Which, in essence, creates problems. Say you make the statement “we want sustainable profits”. It can be interpreted as wanting profits that aren’t exposed to revenue-degrading factors. Or it can be read as wanting profits derived from sustainable products. But then what exactly are sustainable products? Or, say “we want a sustainable supply chain” and the same problem appears. Are we talking about supply chain continuity, or ethical sourcing, or managing CO2 emissions in the supply chain? I think you see where I’m going. The word bends to whatever the listener brings to it, which makes it almost impossible to act on.
Adding to the mix, somewhere along the way, striving for sustainability led us into a long list of acronyms, endless reporting requirements, ratings, and supplier demands, and along with it, frustration, confusion and tears. I guess chaos is normal with anything new, right? But this broadness, combined with the jargon and the endless abbreviations, is where we are losing people. Walk into certain companies and the moment you say “sustainability”, you hit a wall and get some eye rolls. The term carries the baggage of bureaucracy, of projects that are “obviously too expensive with too long an ROI“, and of out-of-touch planet-saving idealists. And if we’re honest, Omnibus didn’t help us in the reputation battle. All of which makes it harder to work with the term, the concepts, and everything that follows it.
And yet, I’ve seen plenty of management teams get shamed for “not caring about the future” and “only wanting short-term profits“. But maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s us. We walk into organisations speaking the language of impact and change, while executives are thinking about market advantage and profit. Is it any wonder they tune out? If we talk about the business case last every time we talk about sustainability, we shouldn’t be surprised when we’re seen as the non-savvy idealists chasing corporate fluff.
Here’s what’s interesting though: in many cases, the actual work has been there for decades, just not labelled as sustainability. Environmental permits, waste management, health & safety, energy efficiency, supplier audits, HR programmes. The list goes on. Which makes me question whether the problem was ever the content itself, or simply the way we’ve been framing it.
My argument is that the term itself is where many of our struggles begin. The goal of sustainability is too vague and too broad. Yes, we want the world to be a better place. But to really achieve what you want, you need to be specific. If we want tangible change, we need to be concrete about what we’re actually aiming for. “Leaving a better world behind” is too subjective to act on.
So, what should we do? Define what sustainability means specifically to you, to your company, to your ecosystem. And honestly, this will be different for everyone. Make it real for you, make it measurable, make it concrete. Get rid of the fluffy statements and replace them with something you can actually act on. For example, instead of saying “Sustainable Profits”, say something along the lines of “10% revenue growth with a 20% reduction in operational emissions by 2030”.
The direction we are going has not changed, yet its time to get more concrete on where we are trying to go, specific to our personal case. If the vagueness of the language we use is getting in the way, maybe it’s time to change the language? Sustainability as a term may have outgrown its usefulness, not because the mission doesn’t matter, but because broad ambitions rarely move people to act, while precision does. So, the next time you find yourself reaching for the word “sustainability”, ask yourself: what do I actually mean? Say that instead. You might be surprised how much further it gets you.
Leave a Reply