The Future is Unwritten...

By KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz | Published 9 hours ago | About a 6 minute read

Twenty years ago, when we launched Sustainable Brands, the very idea that business could turn increasingly pressing environmental and social pressures into an engine for innovation and good growth was still a fringe notion. Sustainability professionals were mostly compliance officers, tucked away in the organizational chart, making sure the company didn't run afoul of environmental regulations. The phrase "Chief Sustainability Officer" barely existed.

A lot has changed in two decades. And yet, as we prepare to gather for our 20th anniversary flagship conference this June, I find myself thinking first about how far we've come (this can get lost in the challenges of the moment) and then, about the weight of the time we're standing in and where we go from here.

We find ourselves in an in-between moment — ripe with both uncertainty, and always alongside it, possibility.

The Patterns History Teaches

If you study the lead-up to major historical shifts — revolutions, collapses, paradigm changes — a remarkably consistent pattern emerges. Rising instability, eroding foundations, and economic inequality fracture social cohesion. Institutions lose their legitimacy, and old solutions simply stop working.

These transitions are not quick. Scholars describe paradigm shifts as "wrenching" processes that typically span 25 to 30 years — long stretches during which the old order can no longer solve critical problems, but the new order has yet to take shape. Public uncertainty runs high, but the outcome is never predetermined. Sound familiar?

For anyone paying attention, it seems clear we are living through such a time. We are witnessing increasing geo-political and economic instability. We are watching trust in institutional legitimacy erode across sectors. We are experiencing the ideological and cultural disorientation that comes when shared values become deeply contested. And we are feeling the external pressures — climatic stress, technological disruption, the sudden shocks that can push fragile systems past their tipping points.

The question is not whether we are in a paradigm shift. The question is: What choices will we make now that define its outcome?

Twenty Years of a Profession Finding Its Footing

It's fitting that the 20th anniversary of the launch of a global SB community coincides with the 20-year mark of sustainability management becoming a recognized profession.

— In the 1980s, “sustainability” was about compliance, meeting regulatory requirements for waste, water, and air.

— By the 1990s, some companies began moving beyond compliance toward proactive environmental management.

— In 2004, when the groundwork was being laid for the launch of SB, DuPont appointed the first known Chief Sustainability Officer in the U.S.

— By 2009, over 60% of large firms had dedicated sustainability leads, double the number from three years earlier.

— And in 2015, after the Paris Agreement, the CSO role moved from the server room to the boardroom.

Over 90% of CEOs now consider sustainability critical to their company's success, which is extraordinary progress by any measure. And yet, while conviction remains high the pace of progress has slowed.

Macroeconomic uncertainty, high investment costs, and a thicket of complex and ever changing local and global regulations have created what some are calling a "maturity plateau." At the same time, we're facing a backlash of skepticism about ESG, political pushback, and fatigue among leaders who've been fighting for better for all of us for decades.

This all raises an uncomfortable question: What did we miss?

What might we have done differently over these 20 years that could have helped us avoid, or at least better weather, the resistance we're facing now?

From Sustainability to Thriveability

One of the most important evolutions in our field is the growing recognition that there is a fundamental difference between an ESG strategy and a sustainability strategy. ESG is a financial tool, a way to manage risk and meet investor expectations. Sustainability strategy is a long-term transformation roadmap aimed at aligning business activities with environmental and social boundaries. Both matter. But conflating them has cost us.

When sustainability is reduced to risk management or maintaining the status quo, it becomes something companies do defensively — but defensive strategies are ill equipped to lead us through to better. The real frontier — the one that will carry us through this paradigm shift, is what lies beyond "less bad." What lies beyond is a vision for a thriveable future where all systems align with nature and a healthy planet.

How do we get to a future we can be inspired by and hopeful for? Instead of responding to pressure and fear by falling back to defensiveness, we must move beyond settling for sustaining what we have, to recommitting to our quest to create conditions where business, society, and nature can genuinely flourish together. We must continue designing products and business models backed by stories that demonstrate that prosperity and planetary boundaries aren't in tension. We need to continue retooling our economic ecosystems so that they create opportunity for all and thrive in harmony with nature.

An Invitation to the Conversation

During our opening plenary session of SB'26, I'll be moderating a panel with four leaders who have lived this 20-year journey from different vantage points:

Andrew Winston, whose work on the business case for sustainability has shaped how a generation of executives think about the intersection of profit and purpose
Sol Salinas, Global Sustainability Practice Lead at Capgemini, who brings the perspective of advising the world's largest organizations through transformation
Sheri Flies, CSO at Costco, who operates at the scale of one of the world's most consequential retailers -- one that is proving how to successfully navigate the challenges of our time
Jenn Huffstetler, CSO at HP, who sits at the nexus of technology, supply chains, and global impact

We'll explore the questions that are relevant for all of us right now: What have we collectively learned that is unshakeable? What did we miss? Where might we find ourselves 20 years from now if we build a shared vision and march together toward it? And perhaps most importantly — what can each of us focus on right now to create the most potential for the future we want?

I don't pretend we'll answer all of these in a single conversation. Our dialogue is just the beginning of an activation that will take place throughout SB’26 -- to build a shared vision for the future and to recommit as a community of future-focused innovators to making that vision real. I deeply believe that the quality of the questions we ask in moments like this determines the quality of the path we walk next.

During our 20th flagship conference, under the banner theme All Rise, our goal is to make sense of where we've come from, where we are now, and where we see the potential to go on our journey. The outcome of the moment we are in will be defined by the choices we make now, and in the coming days. I hope you'll join committed leaders from national and multi-national companies like Walmart, Amazon, Target, Proctor & Gamble, Sephora, Petsmart, Henkle, The Walt Disney Company, disruptive innovators like Oatly, Ben & Jerry’s, Silver Fern Farms and Babcock Ranch, enabling eco-system contributors from organizations like WWF, IDEO, Capgemini, Biomimicry 3.8, Finn Partners, Kantar, and hundreds more. Together we’ll develop a deeper understanding of where we are now, and how we got here -- but most importantly, we will re-imagine the next 20 years together and recommit to the journey ahead.