The strategy stall: why good intentions aren’t translating into traction
Key takeaways:
Many sustainability strategies stall despite ambition and public commitments.
Common blockers: outdated plans, issue-focused structure, weak business translation, limited authority, reporting over delivery, and missing organisational capabilities.
Highlights how to identify gaps and guide your strategy toward real-world impact.
Sustainability teams are busier than ever. Strategies are in place, commitments are public, reporting cycles are running. And yet, things feel slow.
After a turbulent 2025 – regulatory shifts, political headwinds, evolving stakeholder expectations – many organisations are finding that strategies which felt robust even a year ago now feel out of step. It’s not for lack of effort or ambition. But somewhere between the strategy document and the day-to-day reality of the business, momentum has stalled.
If this sounds familiar, here are six places to look.
1. The strategy was built for yesterday's landscape
The regulatory and stakeholder environment has shifted dramatically. CSRD, ISSB, double materiality, transition planning requirements, enhanced assurance expectations — what counted as an enabling and credible strategy five years ago, or even last year, now has significant gaps.
Strategies built in that earlier era often share common features: broad focus and commitments, far-off target dates, and a focus on demonstrating direction rather than proving progress. That was appropriate for where we were. But expectations have moved on.
What’s now required is different: strategies grounded in issues that genuinely protect or create value, with quantified pathways, auditable data, and disclosure that connects sustainability performance to business performance.
The gap between “we have a strategy” and “we have a strategy that we can credibly deliver” is where many organisations are stalling. And without closing that gap, teams find themselves constantly explaining why progress feels slow, why data isn’t ready, why the strategy doesn’t quite answer the questions being asked.
What this looks like: Your strategy covers everything but prioritises nothing. You’re trying to respond to shifting expectations across climate, nature, social, and governance simultaneously — and making limited progress on all of them. There’s no shortage of things to do, but no clarity on what matters most or where to focus first.
Ask yourself: “If your strategy was stress-tested against today’s regulatory and stakeholder expectations, where would the gaps show up?”
Aspiration is table stakes. What separates strategies that deliver:
- It’s structured for topics, not business choices
- Grounded in today’s expectations – not yesterday’s
- Connected to how the business decides – not just what sustainability reports
- Built for delivery – with the capabilities and authority to make it happen
2. It's structured for topics, not business choices
Most sustainability strategies are organised around issues — climate, nature, social, governance. That’s logical: it mirrors reporting frameworks, stakeholder expectations, and how sustainability teams are often structured.
But this creates a gap. Reporting frameworks ask: what are you doing about carbon, water, human rights? Business strategy asks different questions: where should we invest? Which products have a future? What’s our exposure? How do we create value?
A strategy built only around issues answers the first set of questions well. But it doesn’t naturally connect to the second. The sustainability team can describe progress against targets but can’t easily show how sustainability is shaping the choices that drive the business.
The fix isn’t abandoning issue-based structure. It’s building a second view: one that maps sustainability priorities onto business decisions, showing where they intersect with capital allocation, product strategy, market positioning, and operational choices.
Without that translation layer, there’s a strategy for sustainability, but sustainability isn’t in the strategy.
What this looks like: Your sustainability report is comprehensive and well-structured. But when the CFO asks how sustainability affects the five-year investment plan, or when product teams ask which lines to prioritise, the strategy doesn’t have a ready answer.
Ask yourself: “Does your strategy only describe what you’re doing about sustainability issues? Or does it also show how sustainability connects to the business decisions that matter most?”
3. You're making the case in a language the business doesn't speak
The sustainability narrative is often framed around values, commitments, and aspirations. “We’re committed to net zero.” “We believe in responsible business.” “We’re working towards a sustainable future.”
This language resonates with sustainability teams and external stakeholders. But inside the organisation – in the boardroom, in product and market decisions, in supplier negotiations – it lands flat.
These decision-makers respond to risk, return, and resource allocation. They’re asking: What happens to our cost base if we don’t act? Where’s the competitive advantage? What risk are we protecting ourselves against? If we are speaking in vague or far off language, while the business is focused on consequences, then the requirements of sustainability will be overlooked.
But there’s a second translation problem that’s often a crunch point. Even when the C-suite case is clear, the strategy still needs to be translated into the specific language of each function. What does net zero mean for procurement criteria? How does it change buying decisions? What are the implications for product development briefs?
The real work comes in building bridges between enterprise-level outcomes and department-level plans and requirements. Without that translation, the strategy stays abstract – something the sustainability team owns but the rest of the business doesn’t know how to act on.
What this looks like: The board presentation lands well, but nothing changes in how procurement runs its supplier reviews. Business units say they support the strategy but can’t articulate what it means for their priorities.
Ask yourself: “Can every function in your business describe – in their own terms – what the sustainability strategy requires of them?”
4. You have visibility but not influence
Sustainability is visible in most organisations now. There’s a team, perhaps a Chief Sustainability Officer, regular board presentations, maybe a dedicated committee. From the outside, it looks embedded.
But being seen isn’t the same as being heard. And being heard isn’t the same as shaping what happens next.
Influence means having the authority to approve, shape, or block choices that affect sustainability outcomes. It means being in the room when capital allocation is discussed, when supplier selection happens, when product portfolios are reviewed. Being part of operational reviews, not just sustainability updates. Sitting in the meetings where business priorities are set, not just the meetings where sustainability progress is reported.
Most sustainability functions are asked for input but don’t hold authority. They’re consulted – sometimes late, sometimes not at all – but the decisions that determine whether the strategy succeeds get made elsewhere.
The reasons are often structural. Sustainability was introduced in many organisations as a response to external pressure – stakeholder questions, emerging regulation, reputational concerns – and was positioned accordingly.Where the function reports matters: teams that sit within communications, legal, or HR tend to inherit the limited authority of those functions. Teams closer to strategy or finance operate with different leverage.
There’s also a governance dimension. Many organisations have built linear governance for sustainability: teams report up, often all the way to a Responsible Business or Sustainability Committee. But this creates a separate lane.
Sustainability has its own governance – disconnected from, rather than integrated with, the forums where actual business decisions happen. It rarely flows seamlessly and horizontally into business unit leadership teams or executive committees.
Similarly, sustainability risks often sit outside mainstream risk management. They’re tracked separately rather than embedded in enterprise risk management systems or business unit risk processes. And even when sustainability does appear in the risk register, it’s often inadequately referenced and poorly understood. When sustainability isn’t genuinely integrated into how the organisation identifies, assesses, and manages risk, it remains an add-on rather than a core consideration.
Until sustainability has genuine authority – not just visibility – the strategy will remain advisory, and the ability to drive change will be slower going.
What this looks like: You update the board periodically but aren’t part of quarterly business reviews. Significant decisions get made and you learn about them afterwards. The Sustainability Committee meets regularly but has no direct connection to capital allocation or business unit plans.
Ask yourself: “What decisions does your sustainability function have genuine authority over – not input, but authority? And where are the forums where business priorities actually get set?”
5. You have a reporting operating model, not a delivery operating model
Many organisations have built robust infrastructure for sustainability reporting. There are data collection cycles, disclosure timelines, assurance processes, and clear accountabilities for getting the report out the door. The reporting machine works.
But reporting is not delivery. And most organisations haven’t built the operating model for actually executing the strategy.
A delivery operating model answers different questions: Who makes which decisions, and at what level? Where does coordination happen across functions? What are the escalation paths when something is blocked? How do sustainability priorities get embedded into business unit planning cycles? Who is accountable for action, not just for reporting progress?
Without this infrastructure, you have a strategy document but no system to deliver it. Work happens through individual relationships and goodwill rather than through defined processes. Progress depends on who has capacity and enthusiasm rather than on clear accountabilities. Things stall and there’s no mechanism to unblock them.
Consider what happens when a sustainability initiative requires action from procurement, finance, and operations. Without a delivery operating model, there’s no forum where those three functions come together to coordinate. No agreed timeline. No clarity on who owns the outcome versus who contributes.
The sustainability team ends up chasing each function separately, relying on personal relationships to make progress. It works – until someone’s priorities shift, or a key contact moves on, or the initiative reaches an impasse that no one has authority to resolve.
What this looks like: Your reporting cycle runs smoothly but your delivery against strategy targets is inconsistent. When you need something from another function, it depends on relationships not process. Issues get escalated but there’s no clear path to resolution.
Ask yourself: “If you mapped the operating model for reporting and the operating model for delivery, which one actually exists?”
6. The organisation lacks the capabilities the strategy demands
This isn’t about the sustainability team’s expertise. Most sustainability professionals know the frameworks, the science, the regulatory landscape. The question is whether the organisation as a whole has the capabilities to deliver what the strategy requires.
Some of these are systemic. Can the business make decisions under uncertainty, or does it wait for perfect data before acting? Can it work across silos, or do functions protect their territory? Can it hold tension between competing priorities – short-term margin versus long-term resilience – or does one always win by default?
Some are cultural. Is there permission to raise difficult trade-offs, or does the organisation prefer comfortable consensus? Can leaders have honest conversations about where the business model is misaligned with sustainability goals, or are those topics undiscussable?
Some are practical. Does finance have the capability to model sustainability scenarios and integrate them into business cases? Can procurement translate sustainability requirements into supplier criteria and hold vendors accountable? Does product development know how to design for sustainability outcomes, not just compliance?
Sustainability strategies often require capabilities that don’t sit neatly in any one function: translating impact into commercial terms, building coalitions across the business, designing for behaviour change, making decisions without perfect information, managing trade-offs that don’t have clear right answers.
These aren’t technical skills that can be fixed with training. They’re organisational capacities, ways of working, deciding, and collaborating that either exist in the culture or don’t. And if the business hasn’t developed them, the strategy will stall regardless of how good it looks on paper.
The sustainability team can’t compensate for this alone. They can advocate, facilitate, and push but if the organisation around them can’t work with complexity, tolerate ambiguity, or act without complete information, progress will be limited.
What this looks like: Initiatives that require cross-functional collaboration consistently stall. Decisions get deferred waiting for more data. Trade-offs between sustainability and short-term performance always resolve the same way. Functions say they support sustainability but can’t change how they operate.
Ask yourself: “If you were honest about your organisation’s ability to work across silos, make decisions under uncertainty, and hold difficult trade-offs, how would you rate it? And what would need to change for the strategy to be deliverable?”
What now?
- If you recognise your organisation in any of this, the good news is: these are structural problems, not personal ones. They can be diagnosed and addressed.
- You don’t need to fix everything at once. You need to know where to focus. Which of these six is the real blocker? Answer that honestly, and the path forward gets clearer.
- The ground may have shifted and delivery remains complex. The question is whether your strategy – and your ability to deliver it – can respond.
If you need a rapid diagnostic to surface what’s holding you back, the Strategy Sharpener can help.
And if you’re ready for a deeper conversation — whether that’s a full strategy rewrite, strengthening your operating model, or building the internal case for change — we’d be happy to talk.
