Sustainability in 2024: How to stay sane and effective

Experts share their tips, from mentors and personal habits to looking at the data.

At the end of last year, Lotti Hawkins asked her networks about burnout.

Hawkins, who spent more than five years as a recruiter in the ESG space, set up a LinkedIn poll to see how her connections were feeling going into 2024.

Half of the 400+ respondents ticked the “Bad: Burnt out” box. Just 17% said they felt “Good: Energised”.

While un-statistical, the results echo a growing number of headlines about sustainability taking its toll on those tasked with implementing it.   

Hawkins, who is now head of academy & community at AI specialist Datamaran, says the challenges are various and include “pushback on ESG strategy-setting, hiring freezes, redundancies, new regulation that causes more compliance and reporting and less innovation, and ESG skills gaps”.

An article published in Eco-Business last month identified some drivers of frustration for Chief Sustainability Officers in particular, ranging from confusion about their role, difficulty finding competent staff and the sometimes tenuous business case for pursuing environmental and social good.  

There’s also been the high-profile political and legal pushback against ESG in parts of the US, and the introduction of rules to clamp down on greenwashing in Europe and across North America.

“ESG is said not to be that much fun anymore,” says Hawkins. “Firms are terrified of getting sued, and that means the ESG team has often become more of a compliance function.”

So what can sustainability folk do to feel effective and energised during 2024?

Be honest

The first thing, according to Robert Eccles, is to set more realistic expectations.  

“We need to be more honest about what’s achievable through the private sector,” says Eccles, a visiting professor of management practice at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.

“If people feel like they’re working harder than ever and accomplishing less than they used to, then the first question is What is it we’re trying to accomplish? Maybe it’s the wrong thing – maybe we’ve created false expectations about how influential people within companies can be at making the world a better place while they’re at work.”

There’s also a need for more intellectual honesty, he adds. The pushback against ESG in the US has created some pressure to ‘pick a side’ and publicly admonish the opposition.

“We need to stop all the weeping and gnashing of teeth, and excommunicating people who don’t adhere to every part of the scripture. It’s not helpful,” argues Eccles, suggesting that instead, sustainable finance people should spend more time in 2024 engaging openly with the criticism that’s being levelled at the industry.

“There are some legitimate criticisms we need to work through. Not the ones about ESG being a satanic cult – those ones we can ignore – but questions about the value of net zero collaborations and proxy voting practices, and the limits of the private sector… they’re fair.” 

Practice what you preach

Corporate sustainability specialists generally earn more money than the broader population, so they’re likely to have higher-carbon lifestyles and more consumer choice.  

“It’s important to speak about that, because we want to do a lot in our professional lives, but we can often enhance that impact through our personal choices,” says Carole Crozat, the former head of fundamental research for BlackRock Sustainable Investing, now an independent consultant.  

Within her own networks, Crozat has observed a disconnect between people’s values, their personal choices, and their work.  

“We know it’s not sustainable for someone’s mental health to have a meaningful misalignment between acts and thoughts, or behaviour and values, so one way to avoid this burnout we’re hearing about is to strive to better align those dimensions.”

She insists it’s not about “making people feel guilty about their lives” and that small changes like reducing meat consumption, using a bicycle or flying less are sensible starting points.

These changes could also make you more effective at work, she suggests: “Being able to speak with the people who make decisions is a very powerful thing, but when you can back those conversations up with your own actions, they become much more credible.”

Make new connections

Hawkins notes that more people are skipping sustainability conferences because of mounting workloads, changes to travel policies and increasingly dull agendas. That means missing out on networking and catching up with old colleagues at a time when it’s especially important.

“People are craving more authentic connections and community within ESG,” she says. “Especially if they are feeling burnout and have no one to talk to internally that actually ‘gets it’.”

Crozat also believes there’s a need for more human engagement, saying that “a lot of sustainability professionals within big institutions can find themselves quite isolated from the rest of the business”.

For her, the solution can be found by connecting with people outside of work. Crozat volunteers as a facilitator with the initiative Climate FRESK, a non-profit that promises to “teach you the fundamental science behind climate change and empower you to take action” through short workshops.

“Connecting with the general public on these issues is very energising,” she says. “You come away after three hours feeling like you’ve made 15 people more aware, which is usually more than you can achieve at work.”

For Ben Yeoh, a senior portfolio manager and sustainability expert at RBC Global Asset Management, the answer can be found in professional networks.

“Find like-minded peers,” he advises. “Then find a mentor and find a mentee. If you can do that, you’ll have people on your own level, but you’re also learning from another generation and enabling the next one.”

In recent months, sustainable finance specialists James Corah and Neil Farrell have begun match-making mentors and mentees in the industry. Nearly 100 partnerships are already agreed, and the pair say they are “very open” to a second round if there is demand.  

Stay optimistic

With most planetary boundaries already exceeded and tardy progress on all of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, there is no shortage of reasons to feel gloomy about the state of real-world sustainability, but Yeoh says it’s important to stay positive.

“If you’re dealing with sustainability every day it’s going to feel really tiring, because these things don’t show up quarter to quarter, or even annually. But if you look at the data over five years, you can’t honestly say we haven’t made good progress.”

Exact numbers are hard to pin down, but research from organisations like Climate Action Tracker and Theia Finance Labs suggest the world’s temperature trajectory has shifted from roughly 4 °C to closer to 3 °C over the past 10 years.

“Sure, it’s not 1.5 °C, but it would have seemed extraordinary and impossible a decade ago,” Yeoh says.

The same goes for Yeoh’s specialism: health. Life expectancy continues to rise almost everywhere in the world; there’s been a reduction in poverty, and an increase in access to education, clean water and sanitation.

“There are legitimate concerns about the speed, but progress is almost certainly going to continue, and it’s up to people like us to maintain the rate of change, or accelerate it,” he says. “That’s going to be harder if you see going from 4 °C to 3 °C as a failure, because that’s the change we’ve got to repeat.”

Don’t fight to win

Crozat warns that, on climate change, “things are going to get worse before they get better”.

“The actions we’re making today won’t show up as benefits for another decade, so if you’re looking for your impact now, you’re going to be frustrated,” she says.

“Do not fight to win, because it will never feel like a victory. Instead, plant seeds and trust that others will water them. But, whatever happens, just keep on planting seeds.”

Featured image, clockwise from top left: Lotti Hawkins, Carole Crozat, Robert Eccles, Ben Yeoh