Why Your Sustainability Strategy Isn’t Working (And What to Do Instead)

This article by Benjamin Laker, Professor of Leadership at Henley Business School, University of Reading, was originally published on Inc.com. 

Most founders think sustainability is a strategy decision. It’s not. It’s a hiring, incentive, and behavior problem. 

That’s why so many small businesses struggle to turn good intentions into meaningful change. The plan exists. The ambition is there, but day-to-day decisions tell a different story. Teams prioritize speed over impact. Cost over responsibility. Convenience over long-term thinking. Slowly, sustainability becomes something the company talks about rather than something it does. 

A new article in the German Journal of Human Resource Management by Douglas Renwick makes a similar point from inside larger organizations. It argues that companies often underestimate the role of people management in delivering sustainability. The strategy might be sound, but without changes to how people are hired, managed and rewarded, little shifts. 

For small businesses, this problem is even more direct. You may not have a formal human resources (HR) function. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a people system. It just means you are running it yourself. 

Why sustainability stalls in small businesses 

Sustainability feels harder than it should because it’s treated as an add-on. It sits alongside the work of running the business rather than inside it. Founders define goals, make commitments, and perhaps launch a few visible initiatives. Internally, however, the way work gets done stays the same. 

People are still hired for speed and output. Teams are still rewarded for hitting targets at the lowest cost. Under pressure, decisions default to what is quickest and easiest. This creates a predictable pattern. When trade-offs appear, sustainability is lost. 

This is not because people don’t care, but because the system they are working in tells them what matters most. If you want sustainability to stick, you must change that system. 

Start with hiring, not messaging

Most founders try to signal sustainability through branding or communication. However, behavior is shaped much earlier, at the point of hiring. Ask yourself a simple question: Are you hiring people who can deliver sustainably, or people who can deliver fast? 

In small teams, this distinction matters immediately. One hire can shift how decisions are made across the business. 

Make sustainability explicit in your hiring criteria. That doesn’t mean only recruiting specialists. It means looking for people who can balance trade-offs, think long term, and challenge decisions that undermine your stated priorities. If you hire only for speed, you will get speed. Everything else becomes secondary. 

Define what “good” looks like

Vague expectations are one of the biggest barriers to progress. If sustainability is described as an aspiration, people will treat it that way. If it is built into what good performance looks like, behavior changes. Be specific.  

What does sustainable decision-making actually mean in your business? Does it affect how suppliers are chosen, how projects are scoped, or how success is measured? 

Translate sustainability to everyday standards. For example, instead of saying “we care about sustainability,” make it clear that good work involves balancing cost, speed and impact. Then reinforce that consistently. People don’t follow values. They follow expectations. 

Align incentives with what you say matters

One of the fastest ways to undermine sustainability is to reward the opposite. If your team is praised for delivering quickly at the lowest cost, that is what they will optimize for. Even if your strategy says something different. 

Review how you recognize performance. What gets attention in meetings, rewarded informally, and discussed in one-on-ones? You don’t need complex systems. In a small business, signals travel fast. A single conversation can reinforce what matters. If sustainability never features those conversations, it will never become real. 

Build it into everyday decisions 

Sustainability fails when it is treated as a separate initiative. It succeeds when it becomes part of how decisions are made. 

That means bringing it into trade-offs. When choosing between two suppliers, does sustainability factor into the decision? Is there space to do things properly when setting deadlines? When evaluating success, is impact considered alongside output? 

These moments are where strategy becomes behavior. You don’t need a framework to do this. You need consistency. 

Accept the trade-offs 

One reason founders avoid embedding sustainability is the fear that it will slow the business down or increase costs. Sometimes it will. 

But avoiding the trade-off doesn’t remove it. It just pushes it into the background, where it shows up later as risk, inefficiency or reputational damage. The more effective approach is to be explicit. Decide where sustainability matters most and where you are willing to compromise. Then communicate that clearly to your team. 

Clarity reduces friction. It allows people to make better decisions without constant oversight. 

You are the system

In larger organizations, sustainability is often delegated. In small businesses, it can’t be. Your behavior sets the standard. If you override sustainable decisions under pressure, your team will notice. If you consistently reinforce them, your team will adapt. Culture is not what you write down. It is what you repeat. 

This is where small businesses have an advantage. Change does not require layers of approval. It happens through daily interactions. When sustainability is embedded into hiring, expectations, and incentives, it becomes part of how the business operates. 

Not a separate initiative. Not a future goal. Just the way work gets done. Sustainability doesn’t become real when it’s written into a plan. It becomes real when your team can see it in the decisions you make every day.