The systems change we need: There’s still time to lead and futureproof on sustainability

Sustainability is happening. Too slowly, but it is happening.

Businesses don’t get to choose whether that change happens. Just as they don’t with changes driven by emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. But businesses can decide how change happens. And individuals can choose whether they want to lead—personally and through their organizations—or be pulled along after the inevitable tipping point. There is still time to be the leader who reaches out across your organization and your ecosystem. There is still time for your organization to be part of the critical mass that shows sustainability works across its environmental, social, and economic spectrum.

Those businesses that set the new sustainable standard will be the ones policymakers, consumers, and industry peers look to as they are brought into alignment with the trajectories the climate and broader sustainability emergency demand.

The HFS Research Sustainability Framework (see Exhibit 1) consolidates our view. It incorporates organizational dynamics, collaboration, and systems change. The framework offers interconnected ways to assess sustainability progress and determine the most relevant goals and spheres of influence for individuals, teams, organizations, and policymakers.

Exhibit 1: The HFS Research Sustainability Framework

Source: HFS Research, 2025

Sustainability is happening…

Every business leader, from the CEO and board down, must decide whether to be sustainability champions in 2025 or make silent progress. The long-term direction of sustainability hasn’t changed. Individual leaders still have time to lead and futureproof themselves.

Sustainable finance, regulation, hiring, dealmaking, and executive priority all flow in one direction. But the next few years will be turbulent—as sustainability faces an increasingly uphill battle. But we weren’t doing enough anyway. Look beyond political rhetoric; sustainability is still a differentiator (see more in our outline). We also explored how much of the perceived “greenlash” is a mist driven by narrative alone. It’s time for business leaders to be brave.

…But collaboration hasn’t found its best self yet

We know many ways to solve sustainability problems, including breaking down the global context, planning transitions, and proving that sustainability works, whatever the underlying motivation to generate positive tipping points. Our separate report covers this process.

As a sustainability movement, we’ve long believed that a significant climate event might occur and change the behaviors of politicians, consumers, and businesses. But perhaps we need to take a long look at ourselves and realize that the global context has become so dire that we need to change how we communicate the positivity of what a sustainable future would look like…

Less anxiety. Better health. Less commuting. Better diets. Less anger. Better sleep. Less poverty. Better jobs. Less inequality. Better communities. Less waste. Better environments. Less danger. Better news. Less hatred. Better relationships.

Long ago, we covered the power of communication and how the media and communications industry might be the only sector able to achieve the systemic impact sustainability needs to reach politicians, people, and businesses. We also covered the woeful state of collaboration—inside and outside organizations—regarding the energy transition. We haven’t made enough progress.

Collaboration doesn’t just happen. Find as many partners as possible and act on your spheres of influence. Align around shared outcomes. Bring the finance sector into your ecosystem where possible. Find your way into policymaking. Create and lobby for aligned transition plans (see our comments on the need for positive lobbying after a disappointing COP29 UN summit).

The HFS Research Sustainability Framework begins with a clear outcome-focus

The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) cover the environmental, social, and economic factors that will transform a sustainability emergency into a positive—not merely sustainable—future for the planet, people, and businesses. Focusing on the most material spheres of influence as an individual, team, or organization will clarify where to spend time, energy, and resources to meet these goals.

Regulation and finance are layered into our framework, affecting what organizations must do—and what they might want to do. 2025 will be the year of CSRD, the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. But it must be more than that in the following ways.

Systems change through a critical mass and positive collaboration

Beyond the initial proof that sustainability works, businesses must lobby positively for regulation and be ready to compete at that new sustainable standard. Showing sustainability works will give regulators confidence. Get your ecosystem partners to help as a collective and your competitors where you can. Advocate for a mix of incentives and tariffs that align with the global sustainability context—and new goals that go beyond focusing on GDP and growth alone. Lobby for phased implementation. A phased transition for positive outcomes will be better for everyone than a frantic reaction to harsh penalties when no other policy option exists.

Embedding sustainability means preparing for the future as an individual, team, organization, and ecosystem

The OneOffice and OneEcosystem capture alignment to shared outcomes: HFS’s long-standing visions of cross-organizational and ecosystem collaboration connecting employees and customers aligned around shared goals—breaking down the proverbial silo.

We will write more over the next year about enterprise debts related to sustainability. These barriers to change accumulate over an organization’s history of strategy, processes, technology, data, culture, and skills.

The Bottom Line: HFS Research and our most ambitious partners will collectively advocate for the systems change sustainability needs.

We must simultaneously leverage and change our current systems to meaningfully realize sustainability. Too many businesses still use systems and policy failure as an excuse. Despite the economic and conscientious cases for sustainability becoming clearer, most governments and industries cannot be confident in moving first until there is deep alignment and regulation to guide them. Instead, they sit back and wait. The reality is that regulation and a tipping point of public pressure are coming. But no one knows when. We must make the case for being ahead of the curve versus frantically reacting to catch up. And in doing so, we will stand a better chance of avoiding the need for something far more disastrous than anything we’ve yet seen to force that change to happen.