Many companies want to contribute to sustainable development, but their efforts often have limited impact.
– Many of the companies I studied focused, for example, on putting ‘recycled material’ on a package, says Kristin Caravelli-Svärd. Such an initiative is often very small in relation to the company’s actual impact.
In her dissertation, Un/sustainability: Why Business Sustainability Efforts Are Systemically Insufficient, Kristin Caravelli-Svärd, who recently earned her PhD in Business Administration at the School of Business and conducted research at the Service Research Center (CTF), demonstrates that many companies today actively address sustainability issues while environmental and social problems continue to worsen globally.
Why is that?
– Because many sustainability initiatives fail to address the underlying mechanisms that drive these problems, says Kristin Caravelli-Svärd. Companies often struggle to identify their actual contribution to sustainability challenges, partly because they operate at a relatively limited micro level, while many sustainability problems manifest themselves at a macro level.
This creates a systemic disconnect. As a result, companies risk addressing symptoms rather than root causes and developing solutions that are easy to implement and communicate but have only a limited impact on larger sustainability challenges. Kristin Caravelli-Svärd has identified five underlying mechanisms that, from a business perspective, contribute to the creation and reproduction of unsustainability.
– To seriously address sustainability challenges, we must also understand and change the systems that generate them, she says. No single actor can do this alone. It requires collaboration among companies, public-sector organizations, investors, consumers, and many others.
In your research, you argue that we need to study unsustainability rather than sustainability. What is the benefit of this shift in perspective?
– Sustainability has become a rather diffuse and diluted concept, says Kristin Caravelli-Svärd. It is often used to describe everything from small incremental improvements to broad and often vague aspirations. Even within business research, we have sometimes jumped on the sustainability bandwagon by focusing on solutions without first carrying out a sufficiently clear problem identification. At the same time, unsustainability is something we can actually observe and study in today’s society.
Sustainability remains, to a large extent, an aspiration. If we focus too much on identifying and communicating small steps in the right direction, there is a risk that we create an illusion of progress while the underlying problems remain unchanged or even worsen.
– By starting with unsustainability instead, we adopt a more problem-centered perspective. We begin by asking: What is actually creating the problem? What mechanisms are driving it? And how are we ourselves part of the system that generates unsustainability? Only then can we start considering solutions that may genuinely make a difference.
Can you give a concrete example of how a company may want to do the right thing from a sustainability perspective but still contribute to unsustainable development?
– Many of the companies I studied worked actively with sustainability but focused on initiatives that were easy to communicate to customers, says Kristin Caravelli-Svärd. For example, they wanted to be able to write ‘recycled material’ or ‘recyclable’ on their packaging. Others sought to build a sustainability profile by making charitable donations.
– This does not mean that such initiatives are without value. The problem is that they are often very small in relation to the company’s actual impact. They are attractive because they are relatively easy to implement and communicate, may involve little or no additional cost, and can help the company appear more sustainable.
At the same time, Kristin Caravelli-Svärd observed companies attempting to challenge established ways of working and develop radically new business models. In these cases, difficulties often arose when companies tried to scale their solutions in markets that were still strongly shaped by the mechanisms that create unsustainability.
– That is precisely why I argue that we should avoid placing the entire responsibility on individual companies. An individual actor can do a great deal, but cannot transform a system on its own. Real change requires multiple actors to change their ways of operating simultaneously and collaboratively.
Which of the mechanisms you identified do you see as most prominent in society today?
– It is difficult to rank them because they are deeply interconnected and reinforce one another, says Kristin Caravelli-Svärd. But the most fundamental one is what I call the unsustainable paradigm.
– This refers to the way unsustainable thinking permeates modern society and influences what we value, what we see as desirable, and how we view ourselves as consumers, businesses, and citizens.
A cultural shift in values, mindsets, and ultimately lifestyles is essential if broader systemic change is to occur. If such change does not happen voluntarily, it will likely be driven by necessity as the consequences of current systems become increasingly difficult to manage.
– From a business perspective, this kind of change can begin with companies reviewing their core values and formulating goals that focus on creating value for a broader group of stakeholders, beyond the company itself and its direct customers.
– But a set of values must permeate the entire organization and shape how the business is actually conducted. Otherwise, it becomes nothing more than fine words on paper.
How do these mechanisms affect ordinary people in their everyday lives as consumers, employees, or citizens?
– Very much so. We are all both influenced by and involved in reproducing the mechanisms that drive unsustainability because they are deeply embedded in our social, economic, and institutional systems.
– The unsustainable paradigm influences our values, preferences, and ideas about what constitutes a good life, both as consumers and as citizens.
This, in turn, shapes what we demand and what behaviors we consider normal. At the same time, we are influenced by the incentives that systems create. An employee, for example, may want to make more sustainable decisions but be rewarded for short-term sales or efficiency instead. A consumer may want to make more sustainable choices but face a marketplace where the least sustainable options are the cheapest, most accessible, or most heavily marketed.
– It is important to understand that human behavior does not emerge in a vacuum, explains Kristin Caravelli-Svärd. We shape systems through our actions, but systems also shape our actions.
It is often said that consumers can change the world through their choices. How much responsibility actually lies with individuals compared with companies and societal systems?
– It is difficult to quantify how responsibility should be distributed because these actors are mutually dependent. What is clear, however, is that responsibility is shared.
– As consumers, we create incentives for companies. Our demand influences the products and services that are developed. In that sense, consumers can influence markets through their choices.
At the same time, the relationship works in the opposite direction. Consumers often demand what companies offer and promote, and preferences are shaped by the alternatives and norms available to us. Individuals can absolutely make a difference through their own choices, and it is important that every actor does what is within their power.
– But if we want to achieve broader systemic change, we must also acknowledge the complexity of shared responsibility. We need to ask not only what I can do differently, but also which other actors I need to collaborate with to change the structures that make unsustainable behaviors possible and attractive.
If sustainability challenges are embedded in larger economic and social systems, what is required to achieve real change?
– I would highlight three things:
First, we need thorough problem identification before designing sustainability initiatives. We must understand how we ourselves contribute to creating and reproducing unsustainability instead of immediately jumping to solutions.
Second, the initiatives we design must be linked to the mechanisms that actually generate the problems. In my research, I have developed two frameworks that can help businesses identify these mechanisms and design more effective interventions.
Third, collaboration is essential. Sustainability challenges are complex and rooted in larger systems. Solutions must therefore reflect that complexity. This means we need to collaborate across organizational and sectoral boundaries, among businesses, public-sector actors, investors, consumers, and other societal stakeholders.”
What risks do you see if companies continue to work with sustainability without understanding the causes of unsustainability?
– We will likely continue to see local and incremental improvements while system-level unsustainability keeps increasing. Perhaps the greatest risk is that we end up with many initiatives that each appear to represent progress, but collectively fail to change the overall trajectory of the system.
It is possible to become better at recycling a particular package, reduce emissions from a specific process, or compensate for a particular impact while the underlying mechanisms driving broader developments remain intact.
The risk is therefore not that sustainability work is meaningless, but that we settle for improvements that are insufficient to alter the direction of the system.
Three Key Messages
If Kristin Caravelli-Svärd were to summarize her research in a message to policymakers, business leaders, and the public, she would offer three recommendations:
1. Become system literate.
We need a better understanding of how our actions connect to larger systems and how those systems, in turn, influence our actions.
2. Start with the problem.
Before asking which sustainability solution to implement, we should ask: How do we ourselves contribute to creating and reproducing unsustainability? Which mechanisms drive the problem at hand, and how is it connected to related challenges?
3. Collaborate for change.
Once we understand the problem, we can ask what we can actually do to change it and which other actors we need to work with in order to succeed.
– It is about moving from asking ‘What can we do to become more sustainable?’ to first asking ‘What makes us unsustainable, and how are we ourselves part of that
