Stepping Back from Sustainability Is the Real RIsk

Across global markets, sustainability has entered a more contested and demanding phase. Regulatory rollbacks, geopolitical fragmentation, and heightened expectations for transparency and accountability in ESG have created uncertainty for many organizations.

For senior leaders and executives with international operations, this raises a fundamental leadership question: how do you act responsibly and strategically when the external environment is polarized, politicized, and volatile? Sustainability is no longer about ambition statements or symbolic commitments. It is about exercising sound judgment under pressure — economically, socially, and environmentally.

A Leadership Perspective: Why Sustainability Still Matters

At the  Green Business Forum, just before entering 2026, we asked  Rikke Rønholt Albertsen, PhD  — external lecturer at CBS and faculty member on  Sustainable Business Transformation  — what it truly means to lead with a sustainability mindset.
Her response was clear:

“Leading with a sustainability mindset means recognizing that whatever context you’re leading in is embedded in a broader system — a society that needs to be healthy and a planet that needs to be healthy.”

This systems perspective sits at the core of Sustainable Business Transformation.
Because leadership decisions do not occur in isolation — and neither do their consequences.

Sustainable Business Transformation Strengthens Resilience

In today’s high-risk business environment,  resilience is no longer about efficiency or short-term agility alone. It is about an organization’s capacity to anticipate change, absorb shocks, and adapt strategically over time.

This is where sustainable business transformation becomes decisive.
As highlighted in  Harvard Business Review, embedding sustainability into core strategy requires rethinking business models, governance arrangements, and executive decision-making processes. Organizations that take this approach develop stronger adaptive capacity, a more integrated understanding of systemic risk, and a clearer long-term strategic horizon.
In practice, centering sustainability in strategy enables leaders to:

• Identify and manage interconnected risks across supply chains, energy systems, resources, and regulation

• Integrate long-term environmental and social considerations into strategic and operational decisions

• Build trust and legitimacy with investors, partners, employees, and customers — a critical asset in volatile and contested markets

In an environment defined by uncertainty and polarization, stepping back from sustainability does not reduce risk. It weakens organizational preparedness.