Why Your Sustainability Strategy Isn’t Working and What to Do Instead |
Why Your Sustainability Strategy Isn’t Working and What to Do Instead
You don’t have a sustainability problem. You have a people problem.
EXPERT OPINION BY BENJAMIN LAKER, PROFESSOR, HENLEY BUSINESS SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF READING @DRBENLAKER
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Most founders think sustainability is a strategy decision. It’s not. It’s a hiring, incentive, and behavior problem.
That’s why so many small businesses struggle to turn good intentions into meaningful change. The plan exists. The ambition is there, but day-to-day decisions tell a different story. Teams prioritize speed over impact. Cost over responsibility. Convenience over long-term thinking. Slowly, sustainability becomes something the company talks about rather than something it does.
A new article in the German Journal of Human Resource Management by Douglas Renwick makes a similar point from inside larger organizations. It argues that companies often underestimate the role of people management in delivering sustainability. The strategy might be sound, but without changes to how people are hired, managed and rewarded, little shifts.
For small businesses, this problem is even more direct. You may not have a formal HR function. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a people system. It just means you are running it yourself.
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Why sustainability stalls in small businesses
Sustainability feels harder than it should because it’s treated as an add-on. It sits alongside the work of running the business rather than inside it. Founders define goals, make commitments, and perhaps launch a few visible initiatives. Internally, however, the way work gets done stays the same.
People are still hired for speed and output. Teams are still rewarded for hitting targets at the lowest cost. Under pressure, decisions default to what is quickest and easiest. This creates a predictable pattern. When trade-offs appear, sustainability is lost.
This is not because people don’t care, but because the system they are working in tells them what matters most. If you want sustainability to stick, you must change that system.