Organizing Sustainably: What Business Leaders Need to Know Now

Based on the research of Rick Delbridge, Markus Helfen, Andreas Pekarek, Elke Schüessler, and Charlene Zietsma (Erb Institute Faculty Director)
Published in Organization Studies (2024): “Organizing Sustainably: Introduction to the Special Issue”

Rethinking How We Organize for a Sustainable Future

Climate change is no longer a distant threat—it’s a present, cascading crisis disrupting business, government, and society. In their landmark introduction to Organization Studies’ special issue, a team of scholars—including the Erb Institute’s Faculty Director, Charlene Zietsma—offers a bold call to action: if we want sustainable outcomes, we must rethink not just what we do in business, but how we organize.

This means redesigning the structures, norms, and power dynamics that shape economic life. It also means embracing the reality that sustainability isn’t possible without social justice and collective action.

Four Shifts for Business Leaders

The article outlines four key themes that matter deeply for business practitioners committed to sustainability:

1. Sustainability Requires Social Justice

We cannot build a sustainable future without also addressing inequality—across income, geography, and identity. Businesses must consider: sustainable for whom? This requires transparency about competing values and intentional stakeholder dialogue, especially with those traditionally marginalized.

Actionable Insight: Integrate equity into sustainability strategy—not as a compliance checkbox, but as a core design principle. Use inclusive governance structures and invest in community-driven initiatives.

2. Think Local—and Global

Wicked problems like climate change demand both local experimentation and global coordination. The most effective business responses emerge when grounded in place, culture, and relationships—but they must also be scalable.

Actionable Insight: Pilot sustainable initiatives in specific communities, then invest in learning systems that allow for knowledge sharing and adaptation across regions and sectors.

3. Democratize Decision-Making

The climate crisis exposes the limits of shareholder primacy. To truly organize sustainably, firms must shift toward governance models that include a broader set of stakeholders—workers, communities, and even nature.

Actionable Insight: Explore governance innovations like worker voice, B Corps, or integrated sustainability councils. Treat sustainability not as a siloed department but as an enterprise-wide imperative.

4. Act Collectively

In a world facing multiple tipping points across ecological and social systems, isolated efforts fall short. Business leaders must collaborate—not just within industries, but across sectors and borders—to drive systemic change.

Actionable Insight: Join or support cross-sector alliances focused on climate action, regenerative business models, or just transitions. Collaboration is no longer optional—it’s strategic, and a long term contributor to survival, not only as business entities, but as a species.

Why It Matters

The authors argue that the tools of traditional management are insufficient for the scale of today’s challenges. Instead, we need a new generation of leaders who are willing to step outside disciplinary boundaries, interrogate power structures, and envision bold alternatives.

As Zietsma and colleagues write, sustainability must be organized—through new forms of coordination, participation, and shared value creation. This is a systems-level challenge, but also an opportunity for leadership.

Inaction is no longer a neutral choice. As the climate emergency escalates, how businesses choose to organize—who they empower, what values they uphold, and how they collaborate—will shape our shared future.

Let’s make it a future worth organizing for.