Busy, But Not Moving: Sustainability’s Uncomfortable Year

Why honesty beats optimism when things are not working

Before we rush to solutions and soundbites for what is already an overloaded feed of waffle and AI work slop on Linkedin; and yes Satya Nadella; people need to get use to this term in 2026, it is worth pausing to look at what actually happened last year. Not what we hoped would happen, and not what looked good in a slide deck, no more condescending bullshit, but look at what showed up in the results.

Now, I’m not going to lie, 2025 was not a disaster. And that is precisely the problem. It was a year where nothing quite failed badly enough to force change, and nothing quite worked well enough to justify confidence. Targets remained intact, but delivery slipped. Emissions edged down, but not at the speed required. Nature and adaptation stayed underfunded. Inequality continued to chip away at trust. Reporting expanded, but outcomes stubbornly refused to follow.

This kind of year was dangerous because it created the illusion of progress without the substance. In reality, much of the effort went into managing appearances rather than shifting outcomes.

Now, the sustainability agenda doesn’t stall because people lack concern or good intentions. It stalls because the system quietly makes the wrong behaviour easy and the right behaviour awkward. The ten issues that follow are not a critique of motivation. They are an audit of how the system performed when it mattered.

So let’s get to the heart of the matter, and the current status quo after 2025.

1) Targets and delivery still do not line up

Why ambition continues to outrun real-world progress

The UN’s own monitoring makes this problem explicit. Across multiple SDG reports, progress is described as fragile and unequal, with gains slowing or reversing under the combined pressure of conflict, climate impacts, and economic instability. These pressures are not peripheral; they now shape the operating reality for most countries.

The scale of the gap is clear. The UN has confirmed that only around 17% of SDG targets are currently on track. This is not a marginal shortfall. It shows that commitments, pledges, and frameworks are still failing to translate into delivery at the pace required to meet the 2030 deadline.

2) Emissions outcomes are still not matching the 1.5°C pathway

Why system-level emissions continue to resist policy intent

The emissions gap remains stubborn. UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2025 projects warming of around 2.8°C under current policies, confirming that existing national commitments are not aligned with a 1.5°C-compatible trajectory.

This is reinforced by energy demand trends. The IEA reports that global energy demand grew by 2.2% in 2024, with increases across most fuels and sectors. This helps explain why emissions reductions are not locking in at the system level, even as clean energy deployment accelerates.

3) Net-zero claims are still easy to overstate

Why credibility depends on boundaries, timing, and honesty

Net-zero integrity varies widely. Many organisations continue to use the term as a communications label while avoiding near-term, absolute emissions reductions. The UN High-Level Expert Group has been explicit on this point, warning against substituting offsets for real cuts and against excluding major emissions sources, particularly across value chains.

Scope 3 exclusions remain a recurring weakness. Civil society submissions to UN processes document cases where net-zero targets cover only a small fraction of total emissions. In these cases, the public claim looks strong, while the real-world boundary remains narrow.

There is also a standards tension. ISO 14068-1 sets out a reduction-first hierarchy for carbon neutrality but still permits offsetting. This creates confusion when carbon-neutral claims are treated as equivalent to net zero, even though the underlying expectations are different.

4) Nature protection is still treated as secondary infrastructure

Why biodiversity remains underfunded despite global agreement

The global biodiversity framework makes the constraint clear. UNEP estimates an annual biodiversity finance gap of around $700 billion under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This signals that commitments exist, but resourcing still falls well short of what delivery requires.

Recent biodiversity negotiations reinforce this point. Much of the focus has been on finance mobilisation mechanisms rather than new targets, which underlines that the primary barrier is implementation capacity and funding, not ambition.

5) Adaptation remains underfunded relative to need

Why resilience planning continues to lag behind risk

The adaptation finance gap is not disputed. The IPCC’s AR6 synthesis states clearly that current global adaptation finance flows are insufficient and that this shortfall directly constrains planning and implementation, particularly in developing countries.

UNEP’s Adaptation Gap Report confirms the same pattern. Finance is not increasing fast enough to close the gap between rising climate risks and available resources, leaving many regions exposed to impacts they are poorly prepared to manage.

6) Inequality is still blocking durable progress

Why uneven outcomes undermine long-term stability

The UN’s SDG reporting consistently links stalled progress to inequality. The SDG Report 2025 describes global progress as fragile and unequal, with systemic disadvantages continuing to slow advancement for marginalised populations.

Persistent extreme poverty remains widespread. This is not only a social failure, but it also weakens the foundation needed for stable, long-term sustainability transitions that require public trust, participation, and shared benefit.

7) Finance is still not flowing on fair terms to where it is most needed

Why capital access continues to shape who can act

The IPCC identifies fundamental inequities in access to finance, including cost and terms, as a key barrier to a just transition. These inequities affect both countries and projects that face the greatest climate and development pressures.

The SDG Report 2025 highlights soaring debt-servicing costs and an estimated $4 trillion annual SDG financing gap. UNCTAD further documents how high debt burdens divert resources away from development and climate priorities, limiting investment capacity where it is needed most.

8) Reporting has expanded fast, and many firms struggle to convert it into operational change

Why disclosure risks outpacing decision-making

Mandatory sustainability reporting has expanded rapidly, particularly through the EU CSRD and the global uptake of ISSB-aligned standards. Many organisations are now building new systems, controls, and governance structures simply to keep pace with disclosure requirements.

Surveys summarised by Business at OECD show that complexity and compliance costs are repeatedly cited as major challenges, with most firms expecting these costs to rise further. The European Commission’s active discussion of administrative burden reduction reflects growing recognition that reporting load has become material.

9) Supply chains remain a key accountability gap

Where the largest impacts still sit out of direct view

International standards are clear on this point. OECD Due Diligence Guidance states that adverse impacts may arise through operations, supply chains, and business relationships, and that responsible conduct requires identifying and addressing harms beyond direct control.

10) Direction is fragmented because the wider context is fractured

Why sustained focus has become harder to hold on to

The Global Risks Report 2025 describes an increasingly fragmented global landscape, shaped by overlapping geopolitical, societal, environmental, and technological pressures. These pressures compete for attention and resources, often at the expense of long-term planning.

UN SDG reporting frames slow progress as a result of multiple overlapping shocks. At the same time, surveys from The Conference Board show that many organisations are recalibrating sustainability strategy and language, including distancing themselves from the term “ESG,” in response to political and economic pressure.

From diagnosing failure to redesigning behaviour

So, how do we feel after this little dose of a reality check? Numb, Fed-up, a little defeated perhaps? I’m sure uneasiness, disappointment and discomfort are abound.

That is why 2026 is not about stronger arguments or better storytelling. It is about redesign. The question is no longer whether people care enough. It is why the system continues to make the wrong choice cheaper, easier, and more defensible than the right one.

The shift that follows is not ideological. It is practical. It is about changing the conditions under which decisions are made, so better outcomes require less effort and fewer acts of will.

A note on the United States stepping away

Why absence does not stop momentum

It is worth addressing the obvious distraction. The United States has announced its withdrawal from the UN climate architecture, including the UNFCCC and the IPCC, alongside plans to exit dozens of other international organisations and agreements. The justification is familiar. Climate action is framed as ideological. Multilateral cooperation is framed as a threat to sovereignty. Coordination is treated as a weakness.

This posture is not new, but the scale is. The result is that the United States now chooses to sit alone, outside a system that 197 other countries remain part of. That is not leadership. It is self-exile.

What matters more is what this does not mean. It does not mean climate action stops. It does not mean energy transition slows to a halt. It does not mean global coordination collapses. It simply means one large country has decided not to be in the room while decisions continue to be made.

There is a tendency to overestimate how much progress depends on loud confidence rather than quiet capability. The rest of the world still contains the bulk of the population, the majority of future growth, and a deep reservoir of technical skill, institutional experience, and practical concern. There is no shortage of care. There is no shortage of talent. There is no shortage of capital looking for direction.

Coordination will continue because it is useful. Standards will continue because they reduce friction. Climate science will continue because physics does not negotiate. Energy transition will continue because it makes economic sense in more places each year.

The absence of the United States is not a moral shock. It is a practical inconvenience, and a temporary one. The system does not need bravado to function. It needs alignment, repetition, and persistence.

The mistake would be to treat this moment as a reason to pause. It is a reason to simplify, normalise, and get on with the work. Progress has never depended on everyone agreeing at once. It depends on enough people designing systems that keep moving even when someone decides to leave the table.

So now it’s time to shift gears…

The 2026 Shift

Stop treating sustainability like a belief system and start treating it like a design problem.

If 2025 proved anything, it is not that people don’t care. It is that most people are operating inside systems that make the wrong option cheap, normal, and effortless. In that context, asking for better behaviour is like asking water to flow uphill. People do what fits the day, what fits the budget, and what does not create friction with their boss, their customers, or their household.

The task for 2026 is simpler and harder at the same time. Stop trying to persuade people and start redesigning the environment they act within. Make the decent option the easy option. Make the empty option harder to justify. This is not about blaming individuals for inconsistency; it is about accepting how human decision-making actually works in organisations and in daily life.

The problem is not a lack of principles. The problem is that we keep building sustainability on effort. We treat it as something you add on after the real work, as if it is a fitness plan for the conscience. Then we act surprised when it collapses under pressure. In 2026, the shift is to treat sustainability as operational design. If the system rewards the wrong behaviour, you do not need better speeches. You need better settings.

What follows is not a new framework. It is a practical reset. Ten moves, each grounded in what actually drives action: ownership, routines, incentives, and credibility.

1) Make delivery the product

Plans do not fail because they are wrong; they fail because they are not operational.

For too long, sustainability has been judged by the quality of its promises rather than the reliability of its execution. The language is often excellent. The slide decks are clean. The ambition looks impressive. Then it meets procurement rules, budget cycles, and competing priorities, and it fails quietly.

A vision is not a delivery system. A set of targets is not a plan. A strategy that cannot survive a Tuesday morning is not a strategy; it is a statement.

In 2026, every sustainability strategy needs to collapse into a delivery dashboard. That phrase matters. A dashboard implies visibility, ownership, and routine. It implies that the information is used to run decisions, not simply to write reports. It means the plan is built for the conditions it will face: delays, objections, trade-offs, and limited capacity.

What must happen in practice is simple and uncomfortable.

First, the priorities must shrink. If everything is a priority, nothing is. Pick the few actions that do most of the work. Not the ones that sound good, the ones that change the numbers.

Second, each priority needs a named owner with authority and a budget. Not a “sponsor” who appears in a foreword. An owner who can approve spending, change process, and remove blockers. Ownership without authority is performance theatre.

Third, deadlines must exist, and they must be near-term enough to create momentum. A 2030 goal can inspire, but it cannot manage. Delivery lives in weeks and months.

Finally, the plan must pass a test that most organisations avoid: what stops this on Tuesday? Not what could theoretically slow it down. What will actually stop it when the week gets busy? Which supplier terms block it? Which internal policy contradicts it? Which operational team does not have time? If you cannot answer that, you have not designed for reality.

Progress will come from fewer priorities, not more. From clarity over intention. From delivery maps that show what is happening this month, not what is hoped for in five years.

2) Use defaults, not lectures

If people need motivation, the system is badly designed.

Behaviour does not change at scale because of speeches or campaigns. It changes because of defaults. The most effective policies are often invisible because they make the right thing happen without demanding a daily act of willpower.

If sustainability relies on people remembering to do the right thing when they are stressed, short on time, or under scrutiny, it is a fragile system. If it is baked into how choices are presented, approved, and paid for, it becomes routine.

In 2026, low-carbon options should become the standard setting in procurement, travel, catering, and fleet decisions. This does not mean banning alternatives. It means deciding what the organisation considers “normal,” then making everything else an exception that requires a reason.

High-carbon options should remain available, but they should require an extra step and a clear explanation. Not a long essay, just a simple accountability mechanism: why did we choose this option, and what did we reject to do it? The point is not to punish people. The point is to reduce the number of times the wrong choice happens by habit.

The explanation belongs on the exception, not on the default. When the sensible option feels routine, behaviour follows without friction.

3) Turn net zero into a credibility test

The claim is not the achievement.

Net-zero has suffered from being easy to say and hard to prove. In 2026, that must end. The phrase needs to behave like a regulated label. If it is vague, it should not be trusted.

The credibility problem is not that net zero is meaningless. It is that the term has been used to cover too many different realities. Some plans are serious. Some are cosmetic. Without clear boundaries and proof, they can look identical.

In 2026, a net-zero claim should be treated like an audited statement. It should answer basic questions plainly.

What emissions are included, and what is excluded? Does the claim cover the value chain, or only the company’s own operations? If it excludes scope 3, does it explain why, and does it show a plan to include it? If it covers scope 3, does it show how it will influence suppliers and customers, not just measure them?

Cuts must be separated from offsets, and the ratio must be visible. If the story is “we offset what we could not be bothered to reduce,” credibility will not survive scrutiny. Offsets still have a role, but only for residual emissions. They are not a strategy.

Near-term absolute reductions must become the main proof of seriousness, not distant targets, or offset-heavy narratives. If the organisation cannot show genuine reductions in the next one to three years, it is not on a credible path.

Net-zero should no longer be a slogan. It should be a test that some claims fail.

4) Build an emissions habit, not a heroic target

Big goals fail when they rely on occasional bravery instead of routine decisions.

Most organisations still treat emissions as an annual reporting exercise. That is too slow and too detached from how decisions are actually made. Emissions are created by routine activity: how buildings run, how equipment is chosen, how goods are transported, how teams travel, and how products are designed.

If emissions are reviewed once a year, they will not change fast enough. If they are reviewed monthly, they can be managed like any other operational outcome.

In 2026, emissions must become a management habit. That does not require perfect data. It requires useful data. Monthly emissions and energy tracking that is good enough to guide decisions, not perfect enough to impress auditors. Perfection is the enemy of momentum. A system that takes six months to validate is a system that cannot steer.

Then the organisation needs a short list of repeatable actions that compound over time, such as efficiency, electrification, and demand reduction. Each should have a simple KPI. Each should be tied to a decision point: procurement, maintenance, capex approval, product design, or customer policy.

Finally, remove the myth that transformation arrives as one big project. It will not. It will emerge from hundreds of small choices, made consistently, and protected from drift when pressures rise.

5) Make nature infrastructure, then fund it like infrastructure

Nature keeps losing because it is treated like charity.

Despite the rhetoric, nature is still positioned as an optional extra. A pledge. A side programme. Something nice to have once the serious business is done. Then budgets tighten, and nature slips down the list.

In 2026, nature needs to move into the core. Into investment decisions, sourcing rules, land use planning, and insurance logic. Not because it is virtuous, but because it underpins resilience, water security, and supply stability. If you depend on water, land, and stable supply networks, you depend on functioning ecosystems. This is not an abstract argument. It is an operational reality.

What must change is where nature sits in decision-making.

Nature impacts should influence capex and site planning. They should influence what suppliers are used and what is demanded of them. They should influence how risk is priced and how resilience is built.

Nature should be funded through procurement and operational rules, not only through voluntary initiatives. If nature is treated as infrastructure, it needs infrastructure funding logic: stable, planned, and tied to risk reduction and resilience outcomes.

6) Treat adaptation like maintenance

If you only invest after the damage, you are not adapting; you are paying late.

Adaptation still sounds like a future expense. In reality, it is upkeep for a harsher climate that is already here. Heatwaves, flooding, drought, and water stress are not rare surprises. They are patterns with growing frequency and intensity.

In 2026, adaptation should look boring and practical. That is the point. The most useful adaptation is not dramatic. It is systematic.

Heat, flood, and water stress plans must include thresholds and triggers. What happens when temperatures cross a certain level? When are water restrictions announced? When flooding disrupts logistics? The plan should not be a document. It should be a set of actions that activate.

Resilience spending should be built into capital planning, not scraped together after an event. When you only invest after a shock, you are not adapting. You are accepting repeated loss and pretending it is unavoidable.

Delivery must be local. Adaptation is experienced locally, and it fails locally first. Partnerships with municipalities, utilities, community groups, and local emergency planning bodies matter because they determine whether a response works on the ground.

7) Make fairness a delivery condition

If the transition feels like a penalty, resistance is inevitable.

Transitions that feel unfair do not stick. This is not a moral argument; it is a practical one. If households and workers experience sustainability as higher costs, fewer choices, and vague promises about future benefits, momentum will collapse.

In 2026, fairness has to be explicit.

Price and policy designs must protect households and workers from taking the first hit. If a change raises costs in the short term, it needs a visible cushion. If a policy changes employment patterns, it needs a pathway, not a slogan.

Jobs and skills pathways must be attached to transition plans, with near-term wins that people can see. Not a distant promise of “green jobs,” but real training, credible hiring routes, and clear timelines.

Who benefits, who pays, and what support exists should be explained plainly. If people cannot see themselves in the future being built, they will push back against it, even if they agree with the headline goal.

8) Change finance incentives, then simplify access

Capital moves, but it still prefers what looks familiar.

A great deal of sustainable finance fails not because the money does not exist, but because access is slow, complex, and expensive. This hits SMEs and local projects hardest. These actors often have the clearest opportunities to reduce emissions and build resilience, yet they face the highest friction.

In 2026, finance needs to feel usable.

Standardised, low-friction finance products for SMEs and local projects. Clear eligibility. Clear documentation. Clear timelines. If a business needs a specialist consultancy just to apply, most will not apply.

Blended finance and risk-sharing that lower the cost of capital where it is highest. If the world is serious about the transition, the financing terms for the places and projects that matter most cannot remain punitive.

Faster approval cycles tied to simple, verifiable metrics rather than thick narratives. Finance teams do not need poetry. They need proof. A small set of metrics, verified and repeatable, beats a beautifully written story every time.

Money that is hard to reach does not change systems.

9) Make reporting useful again

Disclosure should support decisions, not replace them.

Reporting was meant to clarify action. In many cases, it has become theatre. Teams build parallel universes: one world where the organisation runs the business, and another world where the organisation prepares sustainability disclosures.

That cannot scale, and it cannot survive pressure.

In 2026, reporting must return to its proper place. A by-product of management, not a separate industry inside the organisation.

One internal operating model should produce both decisions and disclosures. The same data used to steer procurement, capex, and risk should feed reporting outputs. If reporting requires a separate data effort, it will always compete with delivery.

A small set of metrics should be used consistently, linked directly to procurement, capital allocation, and risk. Metrics that teams actually use, not metrics that only exist for publication.

Less time polishing language. More time changing the numbers, the language describes.

That is where credibility breaks first.

10) Fix supply chains by rewarding the right behaviour

If suppliers carry all the cost, change will stall.

Most impacts sit in supply chains, yet incentives remain misaligned. Buyers ask for proof, and suppliers are expected to provide it. Then, suppliers are asked to improve. Yet the commercial terms often remain unchanged, and improvement is treated as a free add-on.

In 2026, supply chain progress must be designed as a contract outcome, not a moral request.

Contracts should reward verified improvements, not just declarations. If a supplier reduces emissions, improves labour practices, or strengthens traceability, the buyer should recognise it in pricing, terms, volume, or duration. Otherwise, the buyer is purchasing proof, not progress.

Shared tools should reduce duplication, not multiply questionnaires. Suppliers are exhausted by inconsistent reporting demands from multiple customers. If buyers are serious, they should align requirements and share infrastructure.

Purchasing rules must value resilience and lower impact, not only unit price. The cheapest option is often cheap because costs are externalised. If procurement does not correct for that, supply chain change will remain slow and superficial.

If improvement costs money, someone has to pay for it.

The story that carries all of this

Make the sensible option feel normal, and the empty option feel awkward.

So, here is the no nonsense narrative for 2026!

We tried persuasion. We wrote better reports. We ran campaigns. We asked for motivation. Then reality intervened. Most people do what is easy, what is normal, and what keeps them out of trouble.

Better choices become the default. Worse choices become slightly inconvenient. Promises stop being celebrated. Delivery starts being rewarded. It should be that simple.

Net-zero becomes a proof standard. Nature and adaptation stop being optional extras and start being treated as foundations. Fairness stops being a footnote and becomes a condition of progress. Finance stops being a maze and starts being usable. Reporting stops being theatre and starts being a management output. Supply chains stop being a blame game and start being properly incentivised.

This is not a lower ambition. It is higher realism. But… if we keep the system and hope harder, and 2026 will look just like 2025, only more exhausting.

What changes if we actually do this

Now if this works, it will not look impressive, and that is the point!

Progress in 2026 will not arrive as a grand announcement or a sudden breakthrough. It will show up quietly in how decisions are made. Fewer exceptions. Fewer workarounds. Less time spent justifying inaction. More routine progress, happening without constant supervision.

When delivery becomes the measure of success, when defaults carry the weight, and when credibility matters more than language, behaviour changes without being forced.

Nothing here depends on new values or greater conviction. It depends on the design. If the system changes, people adapt. If the system stays as it is, optimism will continue to do the work that the structure should have done all along.

2026 is the year sustainability stops relying on goodwill and starts relying on how things are actually set up. When that happens, progress becomes ordinary, and ordinary progress is exactly what has been missing.