402 | Coming of Age Loudly: The Teenage Era of Sustainability with Sandhya Sabapathy

So you've described sustainability as entering its teenage era.

I love that, right? What do you mean by that? And what are some of the growing pains? Like, I don't know about you, but teenage, you know, it wasn't the easiest time in my life.

There were growing pains.

Like, what are some of the growing pains? pains that you're seeing as this era of ESG and sustainability comes of age.

Yeah.

And so this is actually the first chapter in my new book that is out called Burn Bright, Go Slow.

And the reason why I call it the teenage years of sustainability is very much what you said.

There is An acceptance that it's not a nice to have and it's not trying to figure out if it needs to exist quite yet anymore, which is great.

So it's no longer a toddler or a child.

And it's in its teenage years for a couple of reasons.

One, because it is growing.

growing through what works and what doesn't.

And it's entering an era where it is moving closer to regulation and implementation of regulation, whereas in the past it was voluntary led or kind of legal led.

And then the final bit I would say with all of the teenage years is there's a lot of passion and a lot of conflicting debate in this space.

And yeah, you know, again, better than anyone else, the impact the Trump government has had in the sustainability space.

So I think what has resulted in quite a movement around this area is the focusing of what sustainability actually means and what it's not.

So companies are doubling down on the how and are looking are dropping their vocabulary if it's just that, right? So the architecture behind sustainability is now becoming much more rigorous.

And this means that organizations that were already doing it well are doubling down and doing it better and are leading the market and have understood that there's a value creation aspect.

and then the other organizations that essentially just kind of set their targets and said they are really struggling right now because they don't have that kind of free momentum and that they have to kind of explain themselves as they go along.

So that's why teenage years.

So there is a lot of growing pains, but teenagers are very necessary before you...

Before you become an adult, I think, you know, an ugly teenager makes a beautiful adult.

So maybe that's exactly what sustainability needs.

And I don't mean ugly in the sense of, you know, aesthetics.

I just mean in how you kind of develop and grow as a person.