How Can Sustainability Leaders Speak the Language of Business
One of the biggest barriers to sustainability impact is a lack of translation. Sustainability professionals often operate in a language built around frameworks, standards, and scientific terminology. That language is important, but it rarely moves budgets, shifts strategy, or unlocks executive buy-in. The professionals who drive real change inside organizations are the ones who can connect sustainability to what business leaders already care about: costs, revenues, risks, and competitive positioning.
In this Q&A, Jimena Padilla speaks with David Carlin about why sustainability needs to speak the language of business, what that looks like in practice and how sustainability leaders can move from a compliance function to strategic partners.
Q1. Why do you believe that sustainability needs to speak the language of business?
Too often sustainability speaks a language all its own. Depending on the dialect, that language may be regulatory, such as GRI, TCFD, or ESRS. It may be scientific and technical, with terms like RCPs and SSPs. Or it may lean more toward activist language. Every profession develops its own terminology, but sustainability is fundamentally about impact. If you want to drive change inside organizations, you need to communicate in a way that connects to how those organizations operate.
That means speaking the language of business value. Some people argue that this compromises the purpose of sustainability or reduces it to profit and loss. I would argue the opposite. If sustainability wants to influence decisions, capital allocation, and strategy, it has to connect to the incentives and priorities of the people making those decisions. That is essential for impact.
I’ve seen this firsthand working with clients across financial institutions and corporates. A head of sustainability at one organization told me it was far easier to secure internal buy-in for a low-carbon initiative when it was framed around energy savings and operational resilience rather than carbon reduction alone. The environmental benefit still mattered, but the business case was what unlocked action. That is the reality sustainability professionals need to recognize if they want to move from ambition to implementation.
Q2. What are the biggest mistakes sustainability professionals make when trying to engage businesses?
The first mistake is an unwillingness to adopt business language at all. There can be a perception that talking about revenue, profitability, or competitive advantage somehow weakens the values behind sustainability. But if you want organizations to act, you need to understand how they work and how decisions are made.
The second major issue is not fully understanding the business model itself. The strongest sustainability professionals understand the mechanics of the organization they are working with. Those who struggle often propose initiatives that are disconnected from strategy or operational reality.
I sometimes call this the “jumping elephant problem.” If you tell an elephant to jump, it will say, “I’m an elephant. I can’t jump.” Many sustainability initiatives fail because they ask organizations to make leaps that are fundamentally disconnected from how they currently operate. Real progress usually comes from identifying practical steps that move the business forward while also advancing sustainability objectives.
I’ve seen this dynamic repeatedly in workshops with executives. Sustainability teams may present ambitious ideas that are directionally correct, but business leaders immediately focus on implementation barriers, operational constraints, or commercial realities. The sustainability professionals who are most successful are usually the ones who already understand those concerns and can explain how the initiative aligns with the company’s existing priorities, client demands, or strategic direction.
Q3. What elements of business language should sustainability leaders adopt?
The most important shift is connecting sustainability directly to costs, revenues, risks, and opportunities.
That could mean understanding the costs of reputational damage, carbon pricing, supply chain disruption, or physical climate impacts. It could mean identifying savings from energy efficiency or low-carbon technologies. It could also mean recognizing revenue opportunities from stronger client engagement, new products, market differentiation, or access to growing sectors.
But beyond financial language, sustainability professionals also need to understand incentives. Whenever you are engaging with a board member, executive, or business unit leader, you should ask: what are they responsible for, and how are they measured?
Too many sustainability professionals communicate from their own perspective rather than from the perspective of the person they are trying to influence. As Dale Carnegie famously said, “talk in terms of the other person’s interest.” Effective sustainability leadership means helping clients and colleagues succeed in their roles while also advancing long-term sustainability outcomes.
For example, when I speak with risk teams, the conversation is typically about volatility, resilience, and downside exposure. With commercial teams, it may be about client demand or competitive positioning. With operations teams, it may focus on efficiency or reliability. The underlying sustainability issue may be the same, but the framing changes depending on the audience. That ability to translate across functions is becoming one of the most important skills in the field.
Q4. What advice would you give to sustainability leaders trying to change their approach?
The first step is to ask a very simple question: how does this create value for the organization?
Does it reduce risk? Does it create opportunity? Does it improve resilience, reputation, efficiency, or growth potential?
Once you identify that value pathway, trace it through clearly. What are the mechanisms that connect your sustainability initiative to business outcomes? What changes operationally, financially, or strategically if the initiative succeeds?
When you start thinking this way, two things happen. First, your ideas become more actionable and realistic. Second, you naturally begin to develop the language and arguments that resonate with decision-makers. That is often the difference between sustainability initiatives that remain theoretical and those that actually get implemented.
One of the most effective sustainability leaders I worked with spent very little time talking internally about “doing the right thing.” Instead, she focused on supply chain resilience, future regulation, customer expectations, and long-term competitiveness. The result was that sustainability stopped being treated as a side initiative and became embedded into core business discussions. The values remained exactly the same, but the communication strategy changed completely.
Q5. How do you see the sustainability function evolving in the years ahead?
I think the sustainability function increasingly becomes a strategic intelligence and integration function inside organizations.
Its role is to identify emerging risks, understand systemic change, and help different parts of the organization contextualize what those changes mean for their work. Sustainability teams are often uniquely positioned to look across the organization, connect external developments to internal strategy, and bring in new forms of information and thinking.
That broader, forward-looking perspective is where a great deal of value comes from. The future sustainability leader is not simply a reporting expert or compliance specialist. They are someone who helps organizations navigate change, identify opportunities, and make better long-term decisions in a rapidly evolving world.
I already see leading organizations moving in this direction. The sustainability teams that are most internally influential are already deeply connected to strategy, risk, operations, and product development. They are helping organizations think about geopolitical shifts, energy system changes, climate volatility, AI, supply chain resilience, and changing customer expectations as interconnected business issues rather than isolated sustainability topics.
In many ways, sustainability professionals are becoming translators of the future. Their value increasingly lies in helping organizations make sense of a changing world and positioning them to succeed within it.
Enjoyed this analysis? D. A. Carlin & Company helps clients navigate these turbulent times through strategic briefings, practical capacity-building workshops, and regulatory support. Book a call with us today (info@dacarlin.com) and find out how we can give you and your team the future-ready skills and strategies you need.