How can every Tom, Dick, and Harry perceive sustainability merely as a word, when it is actually a complex system?
Increasingly, the field is being overlooked by newcomers who see it as a buzzword—an easy opportunity to position themselves as a sustainability advisor, expert, or startup founder. In the process, misleading statements, overclaims, greenwashing, and "green shifting" are diluting the real conversation.
Over centuries, mankind has lived, survived, adapted, and evolved. As inhabitants of this planet, we have both contributed to regenerating its resources and depleting them. Our relationship with the environment has never been simple.
Yet today, as sustainability enthusiasts and recent activists experience that sudden "eye-opening" moment to save the planet, myself included, there is a tendency to frame the irresponsibility of a community, an industry, or a government as though the problem was only just discovered.
We need to look at the bigger picture.
Before commenting on such claims, perhaps we should first learn what has actually happened in the field of sustainability over time.
- How did the sector evolve?
- What initiatives were taken, and when?
- What worked, and what failed?
- How did countries and industries cooperate, both with and without a complete understanding of the subject?
Yesterday, during my IIT Madras Code Sustainability for Indian Businesses session, E.Nandakumar (CEO of the International Centre for Clean Water) responded to a question in a way that stayed with me. Speaking from decades in the corporate and sustainability sectors, he noted that governments and organizations have historically undertaken monumental, successful initiatives to overcome massive environmental issues.
But what struck me most was his humility. He essentially said that if the tables were turned—if you or I were in that position at that time, working with the exact information, circumstances, and constraints they faced—we do not know whether we would have done a better job.
That made me pause.
It is very easy to look backward with today's knowledge and point fingers. It is much harder to understand the messy realities in which those decisions were actually made.
This takes me back to last week's seminar and study material from my GAUC Climate X Leadership Programme, specifically Howard Bamsey’s analysis on Global Climate Governance. Reviewing the systemic gaps after recent COPs and working on my assignment—Climate Cooperation Challenges: Can effective climate cooperation be found amid ongoing geopolitical rivalries?—has made one thing clear:
Geopolitical rivalry continues to make collective sustainability action extremely difficult.
Unlike many other industries, environmental sustainability requires collective, global cooperation. But the world does not operate as one government, one economy, or one set of priorities.
The European Union, for example, has taken a strong leadership position through ambitious climate and sustainability goals and has played an important role in mainstreaming climate action and the idea of net-zero emissions. At the same time, this raises a broader question for global sustainability:
How do we balance ambitious global goals with the different economic, political, social, and developmental realities of individual countries?
Because ambition is important. But ambition alone does not guarantee execution.
As the world moves closer to, and is increasingly expected to temporarily exceed, the 1.5°C threshold, the gap between ambition and implementation becomes even more critical. The Paris Agreement succeeded as a foundational mechanism for international cooperation, but collective intentions do not automatically create a system-wide execution plan.
The challenge is therefore not simply about setting the right global target. It is also about finding ways for countries with very different circumstances and priorities to move towards meaningful outcomes together.
Meanwhile, as the United States navigates political shifts regarding the Paris Agreement, countries like India, Australia, China, and Japan continue to pursue their own approaches within their respective socio-economic and political realities.
Not every meaningful sustainability transition has to begin with a headline.
Perhaps what matters is not only how ambitious a goal sounds, but how realistically and consistently it can be implemented over the long term.
We cannot suddenly separate humanity into those who caused the problem and those who have just arrived to save the planet. We are all inhabitants of the same system. The question is not simply who is to blame, but how we transition.
And that transition cannot happen overnight. Changing a system built over centuries of industrialization and population growth requires immense patience.
- It requires policy and regulation.
- It requires technology, finance, and infrastructure.
- But fundamentally, it requires a shift in human lifestyle, behavior, and expectations.
We cannot expect strict policies and penalties alone to transform a system built over centuries. At the same time, we cannot expect individual lifestyle changes alone to solve problems deeply embedded in global markets and infrastructure.
Sustainability is a complex system, not a fashionable word.
Before calling ourselves advisors, experts, founders, or activists, we should spend more time understanding the journey that brought us here. Not because past leaders got everything right, but because sustainability is not about finding someone to blame. It is about understanding the system well enough to know where we can actually create change.
Perhaps that begins with a little less certainty, a little more history, and a willingness to ask: What happened before we arrived?
