Sustainable Sustainability: Why ESG is Not Enough

‘Rajeev provides a compelling argument for the need for genuine stewardship and offers practical steps for businesses to take.’ AHMED MAZHARI, President, Microsoft Asia

‘This is not a crisis of climate change, inequality, or food security. Many will argue that this is a crisis of greed, apathy, and selfishness. Sustainable Sustainability shines light, with some practical examples, on what it takes to be a leader in today’s world.’ Paul Polman, Former CEO, Unilever and author of Net Positive

The cry for a more inclusive form of capitalism is growing. But the irony is we are using the same tools that caused the excesses of shareholder capitalism—incentives and regulations—to drive responsible behavior. Eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith propagated profit maximization as the incentive for businesses to create goods and services that society needs. He argued that free-market competition would ensure consumers get the best quality product at the cheapest price. Two hundred years later, Milton Friedman agreed in his seminal 1970 New York Times op-ed that the sole responsibility of business is to maximize profits ‘so long as it stays within the rules of the game’. Incentives coupled with some regulations were to henceforth safeguard societal interests. Instead, incentives created bad behavior. Regulations were routinely bypassed with intelligent loopholes. Despite this—to encourage sustainability today—we are again using incentives and regulations. That’s predominantly what the ESG framework focuses on. And what do we see? Rampant greenwashing and box-ticking. To address today’s existential challenges, we need innovation of the highest order. Innovation can neither be legislated nor driven by extrinsic incentives alone. We need a values-driven revolution. We need steward leadership—the ability to create a win-win-win future for stakeholders, society, and the environment. ESG must upgrade to ESL, where the ‘L’ stands for Steward Leadership. In ESL, ‘G’ is a subset of ‘L’. Sustainable Sustainability lays out a practical, step-by-step playbook for any commercial entity that wants to succeed at marrying profit and purpose.

Rajeev Peshawaria is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Stewardship Asia Centre (SAC) in Singapore and Founder President of the Leadership Energy Consulting (LEC) Company in Seattle.

Author of the Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller Open Source Leadership (McGraw Hill), Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders (Simon & Schuster), co-author of Be the Change (McGraw Hill) and a regular writer for Forbes, he constantly challenges conventional wisdom on leadership, management, stewardship, sustainability and corporate governance.