Why Sustainability Isn’t a Department (and How to Embed It Everywhere)

Now, we’re witnessing the same transformation with sustainability. Yet many businesses still approach it as if it were 2004; assigning one person or department to handle “all things green” and expecting that to be enough.

Companies that embed sustainability across their operations rather than treating it as a functional silo are seeing a 16% higher rate of revenue growth, with 75% more likely to attribute their revenue growth to sustainability improvements. It’s just good business.

“Private equity firms implementing advanced ESG can achieve a 6-7% increase in exit multiples and 6% revenue growth in portfolio companies.” – (Bain/PRI report 2025)

Sustainability today covers a rapidly expanding range of regulations, frameworks, and sector-specific challenges that would be overwhelming for any single individual. Carbon accounting, supply chain due diligence, social impact measurement, governance structures, regulatory compliance across multiple jurisdictions, stakeholder engagement, and risk management. The list keeps growing.

More than half of CEOs expect to see real returns from sustainability by 2030, but they’re often relying on someone who’s trying to do sustainability on top of their day job. It becomes the impossible task of the ‘two-hatter’; the compliance or legal director who is given sustainability as it is regulatory, the HR manager whose DEI strategy expands include Environmental as well as Social measures. This approach just doesn’t work when you understand what successful sustainability implementation requires.

The businesses achieving genuine sustainability success recognise that it’s not a traditional linear function like marketing or finance, where you simply scale up the team as the business grows. Instead, like digital transformation before it, we need to embed sustainability capabilities across every department and function.

When sustainability is properly embedded, every department has clear responsibilities and knows what they need to do:

• Finance teams track carbon data the same way they track financial data. They have data quality improvement plans. They’ve built sustainability metrics into their regular reports and have established KPIs that track environmental and social performance alongside financial metrics.
• HR departments are measuring diversity, checking pay gaps, and making sure sustainability goals are part of people’s performance reviews. They’re not just hiring sustainability experts – they’re making sure every job description includes the relevant ‘green’ skills.
• Procurement teams have mapped sustainability criteria across all major suppliers and tenders. Rather than scrambling to answer sustainability questions in bid responses, they have all the data ready to go. Procurement strategies include climate and sustainability risks as part of assessment criteria, using sustainability knowledge to identify and mitigate risks that could impact operational continuity and business growth; from supply chain disruptions due to extreme weather events to regulatory compliance issues and reputational damage from unsustainable supplier practices.
• Marketing teams make sure everyone in the company can talk about sustainability confidently without greenwashing. They’ve created tools to help sales teams discuss sustainability successfully and publish authentic reports about what the company is actually achieving, improving reputation.
• Legal teams are tracking regulatory changes proactively, preparing for incoming legislation rather than reacting to it. They make sure contracts include appropriate sustainability clauses and compliance requirements.

1. Adopt a Comprehensive Framework

Established frameworks like B Corp certification provide a high-standard, holistic approach that shows you how to address all aspects of sustainability systematically. These frameworks have already done the work of identifying what comprehensive sustainability looks like across different business areas, with over 300,000 businesses using the B Corp framework to measure their impact.

2. Map Where You Are Now

Conduct an honest audit of where sustainability currently shows up across your departments. Most businesses discover significant gaps – areas where sustainability considerations should be embedded but currently aren’t. This exercise shows you the real scale of what you’re dealing with and where to focus first.

3. Establish Proper Governance Structures

Create cross-departmental sustainability committees with representatives from different levels and functions of your business. You need buy-in from the top and people who can actually do the work at the bottom. Without proper structure, sustainability efforts stay scattered and don’t have enough weight to drive real change.

4. Refreshed Sustainability Strategy

Successful embedding also requires an annual sustainability strategy that’s proactive rather than reactive. This strategy should be bespoke to your business and sector, providing the North Star that guides embedded delivery across all departments. It needs board level endorsement that requires framing sustainability in commercial terms.

5. Embed in Your Company’s DNA

Build sustainability into your mission, vision, purpose, and values – not as an add-on, but as a core part of what your business stands for. It’s about establishing a moral code that guides decision-making across the organisation.

Shift your language from “green initiatives” to “commercial imperatives”. Frame sustainability as a commercial opportunity in every department. When teams understand that sustainability helps the bottom line instead of competing with it, resistance disappears, engagement increases.

6. Invest in Internal Communication and Training

Remember that any message needs 10-13 touchpoints to truly land. One presentation at your annual company conference will not embed sustainability thinking. You need systematic communication across multiple formats, channels, and conversations.

Give each department specific training about how sustainability matters to their actual work. Generic awareness sessions miss the point; people need to understand their specific role in the bigger picture.

7. Use Outsourcing Strategically

External sustainability support works best when used as an extension of your internal team rather than a replacement for internal capability. The goal should be to build internal competency over time, not create ongoing dependency on external resources.

Focus on getting help to train your people and embed knowledge, rather than simply to deliver. The most successful partnerships aim to make you less dependent on outside help over time.

Global ESG-focused investments are projected to reach $33.9 trillion by 2026, and investors are making decisions based on sustainability credentials. This isn’t future planning – it’s happening now.

Businesses that embed sustainability proactively position themselves to capitalise on regulatory changes while their competitors scramble to catch up.

The global market for green technology and sustainability is projected to grow from $20.90 billion in 2024 to $105.26 billion by 2032. Companies that have sustainability properly embedded are better placed to grab those opportunities.

Successful embedded sustainability is about strategically identifying the opportunities, alongside the actions by function needed to achieve them, making sustainability work with your business goals, not against them. It creates businesses that are both genuinely impactful and commercially successful.

The companies that understand sustainability needs to be woven throughout the business rather than siloed are the ones seeing real growth. They’ve figured out that sustainability isn’t a department you can hire. It’s a core skill that everyone in the business needs to develop.

Ready to make the shift? Speak to our Embedded Sustainability Team to get started.