“Sustainability strategies really should be working by now. We’ve been designing and implementing them for decades.”

It’s a sentiment that will ring painfully true for anyone working in corporate sustainability. The data capabilities have improved. The reporting frameworks are in place. Best practices have been established. And yet, when you zoom out, organisations are no better equipped to take the kind of decisive, transformative action the moment demands.

So what’s going wrong?

To find out, we spoke to Chief Sustainability Officers, sustainability directors, advisors and practitioners across our network: people like Mike Barry (former lead of Marks & Spencer’s Plan A), Lauren Bartley (CSO at GANNI), Alison Taylor (Clinical Professor at NYU Stern) and many others. What emerged from those conversations was a clear pattern: not a single problem, but three recurring fault lines where strategies consistently break down.

Connection. Implementation. Focus.

We’ve distilled those insights into a practical guide, The Principles of Doing the Impossible, a set of 9 principles designed to help sustainability leaders build strategies that actually work in today’s challenging context. Here’s a taste of what’s inside.

Part One: Connection — Grounding sustainability in how the business actually wins

1. Stop thinking outside-in, and start thinking inside-out

Most sustainability strategies begin with a list of desired outcomes and then ask the business to align with them. The problem? A list of outcomes you hope for isn’t a strategy. The most effective sustainability strategies work the other way: they start with how the company creates value and competes, then design a path where the positive outcomes follow as a natural consequence. If your targets disappeared tomorrow, would the business still drive toward them? If not, you have a wishlist, not a strategy.

2. Lack of ambition isn’t the enemy. Scarcity is.

It’s tempting to blame weak leadership when progress stalls. But research shows that scarcity, whether the anticipatory kind that sends companies into overdrive or the acute kind that forces week-by-week survival thinking, genuinely narrows what feels possible. The answer isn’t to demand more boldness. It’s to create the conditions where boldness becomes possible again: protecting pockets of progress, keeping long-term visions alive through small pragmatic moves, and demonstrating how sustainability supports the organisation’s own priorities.

3. Make reality your friend

Sustainability leaders often position themselves as distinct from the rest of the business. But that instinct may itself be part of the problem. Real influence comes from being fluent in the language of the business, understanding what drives other departments’ decisions, presenting a balanced view of both the upsides and the downsides of action. The truth may not always be comfortable, but it builds the credibility that turns sustainability from a voice at the margins into a genuine force at the centre.

Part Two: Implementation — Turning strategy into action

4. Don’t simplify, translate

Sustainability teams are skilled at making complex information easier to understand. But that’s not the same as making it easier to act on. People don’t change behaviour because they receive better information; they change when that information speaks directly to their own challenges. The shift from simplifying to translating starts with listening. As one interviewee put it: “The most effective sustainability leaders don’t translate climate science into simpler climate science. They translate it into competitive positioning.”

5. Everything is change management — treat it that way

Sustainability has attracted brilliant minds who love big ideas. But leading sustainability at a company isn’t just a technical problem to solve. It’s a change management journey to lead. The boldest visions only become reality when you start small enough to build trust, create co-ownership and generate evidence. You don’t need to convince everyone. You just need the right people, showing up in the right rooms, often enough to make sustainability feel normal. Change spreads socially, not rationally.

6. Learn to lead without owning everything

Just because the sustainability team identified something as material doesn’t mean they should own solving it. Taking on too much is a trap, one rooted in good intentions but which undermines both progress and relationships. The most effective sustainability leaders know when to step back, hand the baton to the team best placed to run with it, and resist the temptation to go it alone. Collaboration isn’t a nicety. It builds the co-ownership and expertise that makes solutions stick.

Part Three: Focus — Concentrating energy where it matters most

7. If your strategy is to do everything, it’s not a strategy

Sustainability teams have become the department of everything. And when everything is a priority, nothing is strategic. The most effective teams make a crucial distinction between what’s foundational and what’s truly additional. Compliance, risk management and operational efficiency will always need doing, but what makes a sustainability team genuinely transformative is the one or two bold bets that simply wouldn’t happen without them. A useful framework: 70% on compliance and efficiency, 20% on tackling hairy challenges, 10% on the truly experimental.

8. Your metrics should tell a story

When every company in your sector has the same targets, you don’t have a strategic position. You have a baseline consensus. The most powerful targets don’t just measure progress, they signal intent. They tell the world what you believe, how you compete and what kind of company you’re determined to become. The best sustainability leaders don’t just accept the metrics everyone else uses. They design their own, grounded in the day-to-day reality of their business.

9. Focus on your role in the system, not just your place in the company

There’s a difference between being focused and being insular. Systemic sustainability challenges can’t be solved by one company alone, and difficult times demand more openness and collaboration, not less. Whether it’s strengthening external frameworks your company has already committed to, building pre-competitive coalitions or simply staying curious about what’s working elsewhere, looking outward isn’t a distraction. Often, it’s where the most important breakthroughs happen.

These nine principles each come with an ‘Action Starter’, a set of practical exercises and tools to help you apply the insights to your own challenges. Whether you’re looking to sense-check your plans, diagnose why things aren’t working or spark new ideas, the full guide has everything you need.

Download The Principles of Doing the Impossible →