This article is originally published on Forbes on 15 May 2026 [Link to original article]
For years, sustainability has been framed as a performance problem. Reduce emissions. Improve efficiency. Hit targets. Publish results. All checked and accounted for. By many measures, progress looks encouraging. Companies are reporting lower operational emissions, investing in renewable energy and embedding ESG metrics into their dashboards.
And yet something does not add up. Supply chains are more vulnerable than ever. Climate disruptions are intensifying. Regulatory pressures are accelerating. Costs are becoming less predictable, not more. Leaders are discovering an uncomfortable truth: Despite all the effort, their organisations feel less stable, not more resilient.
The issue is not a lack of action. It is that most organisations are solving the wrong problem. They are optimising what they can control while ignoring the system that actually determines outcomes.
The Comfort Zone Of Control
Most sustainability strategies start where control is strongest: within the organisation. Companies improve energy efficiency in their buildings, electrify their vehicle fleets and transition to cleaner power sources. These are important moves. They reduce direct emissions and can often deliver cost savings over time.
This is the domain of what sustainability frameworks define as operational emissions. In plain terms, it is what happens inside your four walls, or close to it. It is also where progress is easiest to measure. But here lies the trap: What is easiest to measure is not always what matters most.
For many organisations, the majority of their environmental impact does not sit within their own operations. It sits across the network they depend on. Suppliers, logistics providers, partners, customers and even product usage all contribute to the total footprint. In other words, your sustainability performance is not just about what you do. It is also about what happens around you and what your wider ecosystem does because of you.
The System You Are Actually In
Most organisations operate within complex, interconnected systems where value is created across multiple players. Emissions, risks and opportunities emerge from these interactions, not from isolated activities. Yet many sustainability strategies are still designed as if the organisation is a closed system. That mismatch is where the real problem begins.
But the world is no longer stable. The same systems that made organisations efficient are now making them fragile. A highly optimised supply chain has little room to absorb disruption. A tightly cost-managed operation has limited flexibility to adapt. A network designed for predictability struggles under volatility.
Climate change amplifies this fragility. Extreme weather events disrupt production and logistics. Resource constraints ripple across industries. Policy shifts create sudden changes in cost structures and compliance requirements.
What leaders are facing today is not just a sustainability challenge. It is a system design challenge. Efficiency, on its own, is no longer enough.
Risk And Opportunity: Coming From The Same Place
When leaders think about climate, they often separate risk from opportunity. One is defensive. The other is strategic. In reality, both come from the same system.
The same supply chain that exposes you to disruption also creates opportunities for innovation. The same regulatory pressure that increases costs can accelerate new business models. The same customer expectations that demand change can unlock new sources of value.
Take IKEA. Its investments in circular design, renewable materials and sustainable sourcing are not just about reducing impact. They are about reshaping the system it operates in. By redesigning products and supply chains, IKEA is positioning itself for a future where resources are constrained and customers expect more sustainable choices. This is the shift many organisations have yet to make. Sustainability is not just about reducing harm. It is about redesigning the system to create advantage.
From Efficient Companies To Resilient Systems
If the problem is systemic, the response must be as well. This does not mean abandoning efficiency. It means balancing efficiency with resilience. Resilient systems are not just optimised for cost. They are designed for adaptability.
They have multiple pathways instead of single points of failure. They prioritize relationships, not just transactions. They build feedback loops that allow them to sense and respond to change.
In practical terms, this looks like:
- Diversifying supply sources instead of relying on a single lowest-cost provider
- Investing in deeper partnerships with suppliers to drive shared sustainability outcomes
- Designing products for reuse, repair and circularity
- Sharing data across the value chain to improve transparency and coordination
These are not purely sustainability actions. They are strategic choices about how the organisation functions within its ecosystem. What does this mean for leaders? It requires a shift in how sustainability is understood and led. Four changes stand out—from operations to ecosystems, from efficiency to resilience, from control to influence and from reporting to redesign.
Why This Matters Now
The urgency is not abstract. Global supply chains are under strain. Climate risks are materialising faster than expected. Regulatory frameworks are tightening. Investors and customers are demanding more transparency and accountability.
Frameworks such as the GHG Protocol, the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, the Science Based Targets initiative, the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the United Nations Global Compact are pushing organisations toward greater accountability across their full value chains. But compliance alone will not solve the problem. The organisations that will thrive are those that recognise sustainability as a systems challenge, not just a reporting requirement.
Critically, this is how sustainability connects directly to financial performance and resilience. When organisations understand and manage impacts across their full ecosystem, they are better able to anticipate risk, reduce volatility, secure supply and unlock new sources of value. In contrast, those that focus only on their own operations leave themselves exposed to disruptions, hidden costs and missed opportunities.
So, are you optimising your organisation, or are you redesigning the system you are part of? Because in a world defined by interdependence, your results will not be determined by what you control. They will be determined by how well the system around you works.