What Sustainability Means to the Next Generation of Business Professional
Before studying business, I thought sustainability/Corporate Social Responsibility was mainly about the commitment businesses made to positively serve their communities and protect the environment. Through my studies at Avondale, I have come to see that the responsibility extends further than that. It also involves how organisations treat their workforce, the decisions they make and whether they operate with transparency and integrity. The idea that has particularly stood out to me is that corporate responsibility starts from within an organisation, a business cannot genuinely claim to act responsibly if those same values are not reflected in how it treats its own people and conducts its operations.
Studying both Marketing and Human Resource Management has helped me see sustainability from two different but connected perspectives. From a marketing perspective, I have learned that building customer trust is important for creating sustainable, long-term relationships. For example, businesses need to think about delivering on the values and promises they communicate to customers rather than simply focusing on profit and short-term sales. From an HR perspective, I have learned that organisations have a responsibility to look after their workforce by providing the support, resources and services employees need
to perform and develop. Together, these perspectives have shown me that a business's responsibility extends to both its employees and customers, and that long-term success depends on how well it supports, values and builds trust with these groups.
As I prepare to enter the workforce, I think one of the biggest challenges for organisations will be making decisions that create long-term value, particularly when doing so may come at a greater short-term cost. Businesses can say they value sustainability or social responsibility, but I think employees and customers will increasingly expect them to demonstrate those values through their actions and decisions. For me, a genuinely responsible organisation would follow through on the values it communicates and earn the trust of its stakeholders through honest and consistent actions.
My education at Avondale has encouraged me to think about business success as more than financial performance. While profitability is important, I have come to believe that the impact a business has and the imprint it leaves on the world are also important measures of success. As I move into my career, one principle I want to carry with me is the biblical principle of service: choosing to do what is right, putting the needs of others before my own and ensuring that my work positively impacts those around me. Ultimately, I think businesses can create long-term value for people, profit and the planet when success is pursued with responsibility, integrity and a genuine commitment to serving others
Photo by Alena Koval on Pexels
Graham Su'a is a third-year Business student at Avondale University, majoring in Human Resource Management and Marketing.
Why sustainable value creation requires the whole marketing mix.
I could write you the standard sustainability article. Greenwashing is bad. Do not do it. Be authentic. You would agree, nothing would change, and we would both have wasted ten minutes.
The more useful question is structural: why do organisations that sincerely want to do the right thing so often produce a campaign instead of a change? The answer has less to do with whether leaders care than with a quiet mistake many businesses made years ago. We broke marketing into pieces, kept the loudest one, and started calling it the whole discipline.
Marketing has been mistaken for its smallest part
Ask a room of business owners what marketing is and most will describe advertising, perhaps social media. Almost none will mention product design, pricing, distribution, packaging, customer service or after-sales support, though every one of those decisions influences whether a customer buys, returns and recommends.
This is not a semantic argument. McKinseyโs global research with the Association of National Advertisers found the share of CEOs who believe marketing has a clearly defined, well-understood role fell from 90% to 70% in a single survey cycle, and that only half of chief marketing officers were involved in strategic planning at all. Organisations with a single customer- or growth-oriented executive achieved up to 2.3 times more growth than those fragmenting accountability across several roles (Bettati et al., 2025). When everyone owns the customer, no one does.
The problem also exists inside the profession. Research developed by Mark Ritson with Ipsos across 1,226 practitioners in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Australia found only 35% met the benchmark for foundational marketing knowledge (The Drum, 2026). A discipline that has forgotten its own scope is poorly positioned to defend its place in strategic decision-making.
Which is precisely why sustainability keeps becoming a campaign
If an organisation has already reduced marketing to promotion, handing it sustainability will reduce sustainability to promotion too. The campaign gets made. The supply chain, pricing model, packaging specification and expected product lifespan remain untouched, because those decisions sit in functions that were never in the room.
Greenwashing may look like a communication failure, but it often begins as a structural one. Deliberate deception occurs and should be treated accordingly. Many weaker claims, though, come from something more ordinary: wanting to say something responsible before building enough responsible practice to support it.
Responsibility has to shape value, not decorate it
CSR and sustainability are related but not identical. CSR concerns the responsibilities an organisation carries toward customers, employees, communities and the environment. Sustainability asks whether it can keep creating that value without exhausting the systems it depends on.
Carrollโs (1991) pyramid of corporate social responsibility places economic responsibility at its base: a business must remain viable before it can sustain its legal, ethical and philanthropic commitments. Kotlerโs (1972) societal marketing concept supplies the balance: organisations should serve customersโ long-run welfare and societyโs, not only their immediate wants. Together they make one point. Profit and responsibility are not opposites. Long-term value requires both.
Put plainly: can a product be considered valuable if it satisfies the customer while imposing substantial costs on workers, communities or the environment?
Kellerโs (1993) work on customer-based brand equity explains why communication alone cannot answer that. Brand value lives in what customers know and believe, formed through every encounter rather than advertising alone. A repair policy is a brand association. A supplierโs labour practice becomes one the moment it surfaces. A failed delivery promise communicates something whether marketing approved it or not. Operations are brand communication.
This suggests a maturity continuum:
Communication is legitimate when it accurately reflects practice. But only value creation is durable, because it no longer depends on a campaign budget or one leaderโs priorities.
Where sustainability actually lives in the marketing mix
For Australian organisations, especially small and medium businesses, this is where the issue stops being philosophical:
The commercial opportunity is real, although it should not be overstated. Products marketed as sustainable reached 25.4% of United States consumer packaged goods dollar share in 2025, with five-year compound annual growth of 10.9% against 4.0% for the total market and 2.2% for conventionally marketed products (NYU Stern CSB & Circana, 2026). That does not prove the claim caused the growth, nor that every product delivered genuine benefit. It does show responsible attributes can contribute to customer value when they are relevant, credible and supported by the offer itself.
The yoghurt test: salience without overstatement
Even after a genuine improvement, marketing retains one essential responsibility: describing it accurately.
Over three decades, yoghurt has been sold on low fat, then live cultures and gut health, and now high protein; a shift clearly visible in the Australian market (Euromonitor International, 2025). These are real attributes brought forward because shoppers currently care about them. Highlighting a genuine feature that has become salient is not deception; it helps a busy customer recognise relevant value quickly.
Now the same aisle. In November 2023 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission accepted a court-enforceable undertaking from yoghurt manufacturer MOO Premium Foods over packaging claiming โ100% ocean plasticโ. The resin had been collected from coastal areas in Malaysia, not from the ocean. The more precise phrase โocean bound plasticโ was not treated as misleading (ACCC, 2024). The difference was not whether sustainability was mentioned, but whether the claim was true, specific, substantiated and proportionate to the attribute behind it.
The problem is widespread. An ACCC sweep of 247 Australian businesses found 57% making concerning environmental claims, with food and drink among the worst at 64% (ACCC, 2023). In April 2025, the Federal Court ordered Clorox Australia to pay $8.25 million over misleading โ50% ocean plasticโ claims used on more than 2.2 million GLAD products (ACCC, 2025).
The damage extends beyond one fine. Chen and Chang (2013) found greenwashing erodes trust directly and through consumer confusion and perceived risk. Once customers distrust the category, honest organisations lose part of their differentiator too. A competitorโs shortcut becomes a shared market cost.
Changing consumption, not simply increasing it
If marketing influences demand, can it responsibly reshape it? Kotler and Levy (1971) argued half a century ago that demarketing is a legitimate marketing task, not to make organisations weaker, but to manage demand in ways that protect long-term value.
The modern forms are practical: refill systems, trade-in programs, repair services, resale platforms, subscription servicing and maintenance education. These generate revenue from relationships, service frequency, margin and retention rather than rising unit volume alone.
White, Habib and Hardistyโs (2019) SHIFT framework offers evidence-based guidance for changing behaviour through social influence, habit formation, appeals to the individual self, feelings and cognition, and tangibility. Its value is moving sustainability away from moral instruction toward how people actually decide.
But purpose alone will not save you
Zero Co attempted the hard version. Refillable โforever bottlesโ, returnable pouches and reverse logistics embedded circularity in the business model rather than the communications plan. It reported revenue of approximately $10.8 million in FY24 and ceased trading in April 2025 after packaging failures, delivery delays and an inability to reach profitability (SmartCompany, 2025).
The lesson is not that circular models cannot work. It is that a responsible business model does not exempt anyone from getting product engineering, distribution reliability, service recovery, pricing and unit economics right. Carrollโs economic base is unforgiving: a business that cannot sustain itself ultimately serves no one.
Fragmented marketing makes both failures possible: promoting responsibility you have not built, or building it without ensuring the rest of the value proposition can hold. Purpose does not substitute for execution across the mix. It raises the stakes on it.
What this means for business
Sustainability is not a campaign, because a campaign can only describe value an organisation has already chosen to create. The real work happens earlier, in the offer, the operating model, and the decisions that determine whether people, profit and planet keep benefiting long after the advertisement has ended.
References
Australian Accounting Standards Board. (2024). AASB S2 climate-related disclosures. https://www.aasb.gov.au
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (2023, March 2). ACCC โgreenwashingโ internet sweep unearths widespread concerning claims [Media release]. https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-greenwashing-internet-sweep-unearths-widespread-concerning-claims
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (2024, April 18). GLAD bags manufacturer in court for โ50% ocean plasticโ claims [Media release]. https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/glad-bags-manufacturer-in-court-for-50-ocean-plastic-claims
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (2025, April 14). Clorox ordered to pay $8.25m in penalties for misleading โocean plasticโ claims about certain GLAD products [Media release]. https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/clorox-ordered-to-pay-825m-in-penalties-for-misleading-ocean-plastic-claims-about-certain-glad-products
Bettati, A., Jacobs, J., Robinson, K., & Tas, R. (2025, June 16). The CMOโs comeback: Aligning the C-suite to drive customer-centric growth. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-cmos-comeback-aligning-the-c-suite-to-drive-customer-centric-growth
Carroll, A. B. (1991). The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders. Business Horizons, 34(4), 39โ48. https://doi.org/10.1016/0007-6813(91)90005-G
Chen, Y.-S., & Chang, C.-H. (2013). Greenwash and green trust: The mediation effects of green consumer confusion and green perceived risk. Journal of Business Ethics, 114(3), 489โ500. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1360-0
Euromonitor International. (2025). Health trends in focus for dairy products in Australia. https://www.euromonitor.com/article/health-trends-in-focus-for-dairy-products-in-australia
Keller, K. L. (1993). Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity. Journal of Marketing, 57(1), 1โ22. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299305700101
Kotler, P. (1972). What consumerism means to marketers. Harvard Business Review, 50(3), 48โ57. https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/research/detail/1972/what-consumerism-means-to-marketers
Kotler, P., & Levy, S. J. (1971). Demarketing, yes, demarketing. Harvard Business Review, 49(6), 74โ80.
NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, & Circana. (2026). Sustainable Market Share Index 2025: Sustainability in U.S. CPG โ Inside the consumer mindset. New York University. https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/about/departments-centers-initiatives/centers-of-research/center-sustainable-business/research/csb-sustainable-market-share-index
SmartCompany. (2025, April 23). Australian circular economy pioneer Zero Co is shutting down. https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/zero-co-closing-down-mike-smith-sustainability-startup/
The Drum. (2026, March 23). Ritson calls for end to โmarketing savant mythโ as Ipsos lays bare knowledge gaps. https://www.thedrum.com/news/ritson-calls-for-end-to-marketing-savant-myth-as-ipsos-lays-bare-knowledge-gaps
White, K., Habib, R., & Hardisty, D. J. (2019). How to SHIFT consumer behaviors to be more sustainable: A literature review and guiding framework. Journal of Marketing, 83(3), 22โ49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242919825649
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Not long ago, sustainability reporting was largely a voluntary exercise. Today, it sits firmly on boardroom agendas, with organisations publishing increasingly detailed accounts of their environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, sustainability strategies and future commitments. Yet reporting sustainability and managing sustainability are not the same thing.
The Rise of Sustainability Reporting
The growing emphasis on sustainability disclosures has undoubtedly improved transparency. Investors, regulators, employees and customers now have greater visibility into how organisations manage environmental and social issues. The introduction of global reporting standards by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has further strengthened expectations around consistency, comparability and accountability in sustainability reporting (IFRS Foundation, 2026).
As a result, sustainability reporting has become an essential component of corporate communication. Organisations are increasingly expected to disclose not only their financial performance, but also how they manage issues such as climate risk, resource consumption, workforce diversity and community impacts. These disclosures provide valuable insights into an organisation's priorities and long-term ambitions.
The Gap Between Reporting and Reality
However, an important question remains: does reporting sustainability automatically make an organisation more sustainable? For many organisations, the answer is no. A company may publish ambitious climate targets, highlight diversity initiatives and celebrate community partnerships, yet continue to make investment and operational decisions based primarily on short-term financial outcomes. In these situations, sustainability exists within the report but not necessarily within the decision-making process.
The distinction is critical. Sustainability reporting communicates intentions and performance, but it does not automatically influence behaviour. The true test of an organisation's sustainability commitment occurs when leaders face difficult decisions involving profitability, environmental impacts and social responsibilities. It is these decisions, rather than the report itself, that ultimately shape outcomes.
Moving from Disclosure to Decision-Making
The challenge for organisations is to move sustainability beyond disclosure and embed it within management processes. Sustainability creates value only when it influences how organisations allocate resources, evaluate projects, manage risks and define success.
Increasingly, leading organisations recognise that long-term business performance depends on more than financial results alone. Climate change, resource constraints, regulatory pressures and changing stakeholder expectations create risks and opportunities that can significantly affect organisational performance. Integrating sustainability considerations into strategic planning and operational decision-making helps organisations build resilience and improve their capacity to create long-term value.
This shift represents a move from asking, "What should we report?" to asking, "How should sustainability information influence our decisions?"
The Critical Role of Accounting
Accounting plays a central role in this transition. Traditionally focused on measuring financial performance, accounting is increasingly being used to capture environmental and social impacts alongside economic outcomes.
According to the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC, 2026), accountants are uniquely positioned to help organisations integrate sustainability into planning, performance measurement and strategic decision-making. Their expertise in measurement, assurance and governance enables organisations to generate reliable sustainability information that supports better decisions.
For example, organisations can use accounting systems to monitor carbon emissions, energy consumption, waste generation, employee wellbeing and other sustainability-related metrics. When these measures become part of routine management reporting, sustainability is no longer treated as a separate reporting activity. Instead, it becomes an integral part of how organisational performance is assessed and managed.
What Gets Measured Gets Managed
One of the most powerful drivers of organisational behaviour is performance measurement. If managers are evaluated solely on short-term financial targets, financial outcomes will inevitably dominate decision-making. However, when sustainability objectives become part of performance evaluations and executive remuneration, organisational priorities begin to shift.
Many leading organisations are embedding sustainability metrics into governance frameworks, risk management systems and executive incentive structures. This approach recognises a simple but powerful principle: what organisations measure and reward ultimately drives behaviour.
By aligning incentives with sustainability objectives, organisations create stronger accountability and encourage managers to consider long-term environmental and social impacts alongside financial results.
Creating Long-Term Value
The World Economic Forum (2026) argues that sustainable growth requires organisations to rethink how value is defined and measured. Long-term success depends not only on profitability, but also on resilience, innovation, stakeholder trust and the ability to adapt to changing conditions. Organisations that integrate sustainability into everyday decision-making are often better positioned to identify emerging risks, respond to stakeholder expectations and maintain their competitive advantage. Rather than viewing sustainability as a compliance requirement, they see it as a strategic capability that supports long-term value creation.
Sustainability reporting is an important starting point, but it is not the destination. Transparency matters, and reporting plays a critical role in communicating organisational commitments and performance. However, reporting alone does not create impact. The organisations that will thrive in the coming decade are unlikely to be those producing the most polished sustainability reports. Instead, they will be those that use sustainability information to guide decisions, shape strategy and drive organisational behaviour. Reports communicate intentions, decisions create impact.
Implications for Business
References
IFRS Foundation. (2026). ISSB Updates and Guidance.
International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). (2026). Into New Spaces: How the Accounting Profession is Evolving.
World Economic Forum. (2026). Coming Together: Sustainable Growth Means Rethinking Value.
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The most revealing thing about how organisations talk about sustainability is the word "initiative." An initiative is something you launch, resource for a while, congratulate yourself on, and quietly retire when priorities shift. It sits alongside other initiatives, competing for attention and budget. The moment sustainability is framed this way, as one project among many, an organisation has already told itself that this isnโt any more important than anything else. And it is. This is the planet we live on, the place our children will live when we leave โ it isnโt trialling standup desks or a brand partnership.
For those of us in communications, this is not a peripheral concern. Communication is sometimes seen as the packaging around a strategy - but it is actually where the value of a strategy is decided and it's sincerity (or lack thereof) becomes exposed. So, the question I am posing here is one that crosses every business school discipline and every part of an organisation: how can we create long term value for people and make a profit that doesnโt cost the earth? And how do we embed sustainability rather than treating it as just another temporary initiative.
The honesty problem
Let me start with something that can be quite uncomfortable. Most of the anxiety around sustainability communication comes from an unspoken tension: the people writing these messages often privately believe things are getting worse, while the messages themselves are relentlessly upbeat. Emissions continue to rise. Biodiversity continues to collapse. The gap between what climate science demands and what economies are delivering is not narrowing and if we are honest when we talk about, the discussion can be bleak.
Pretending otherwise produces a particular kind of communication that audiences have learned to distrust, glossy, aspirational taglines and photos of wind turbines that have nothing to do with the organisation itself. Greenwashing is not usually a lie in the basic sense, it is more of a wild exaggeration of a small, good thing, communicated as though it were large.
The instinct in response is either cynicism or forced optimism. I want to argue for another way โ honest constructiveness. People are complex enough to hold two things at once. Yes, the trajectory of planetary change is alarming, but yes, meaningful action is possible and worth doing well. Despair and denial are actually the same move; both are ways of choosing not to act. Communicating well means refusing that move on your audience's behalf.
Value, and who counts as a stakeholder
Here I want to be careful, because I am about to sneak in an idea that some people will find really natural and others will find quietly radical, so let me say it plainly rather than dress it up. The dominant framework in most business education treats the firm's obligations as running primarily to its shareholders, with everything else (workers, communities, the environment) as a constraint to be managed and minimised. The "triple bottom line" of people, profit, and planet was an attempt to widen that lens. But seriously โ profit was still the real bottom line.
A more serious position, and one with a long intellectual lineage, is that value is created collectively and ought to be accounted for collectively. The worker who builds the product, the community that hosts the factory, the ecosystem that absorbs the waste, these are not externalities to the value equation. They are participants in it. When we speak of "long-term value for people, profit, and the planet," the interesting move is to stop ranking those three and start asking what it would mean to treat them as genuinely co-equal. We may even need to prioritise the planet if we want to keep living on it.
From initiative to identity
So, what does it look like when sustainability stops being an initiative? The shift is from something an organisation does to something an organisation is, and communication is how you can tell the difference.
An initiative generates announcements. An identity generates consistency. If sustainability is genuinely constitutive of an organisation, you see it even in all the boring places: in how procurement decisions are justified, in what gets measured in the quarterly review, in whether your bonus survives a decision that was good for the planet and merely acceptable for the quarter.
For communicators, this has a concrete and slightly deflating implication. The most important sustainability communication is internal, not external. It is the framing that shapes how a mid-level manager understands a trade-off at 4pm on a Tuesday. External communication that runs ahead of internal reality is precisely what audiences have been trained to detect and ignore. The credibility of the message to the outside world is downstream of whether the organisation actually believes it on the inside.
Here are a few principles worth holding onto:
Letโs go back to where we started for a minute, because I don't want to suggest you have to wallow in doom. The reason to be positive is not that things are fine. It is that hopelessness is self-defeating. The historical record is reasonably clear that large-scale change, when it comes, tends to arrive faster than expected. The relevant question for any organisation and communicator, is not whether the situation is dire, but whether you intend to be part of the response or part of the inertia. A communications discipline that can help organisations tell the truth about the stakes and remain capable of action is doing something genuinely valuable, in the fullest sense of that word.
References:
Centola, D., Becker, J., Brackbill, D., & Baronchelli, A. (2018). Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention. Science, 360(6393), 1116โ1119. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aas8827
Global Carbon Project. (2025). Global carbon budget 2025. https://globalcarbonbudget.org/fossil-fuel-co2-emissions-hit-record-high-in-2025/
United Nations Environment Programme. (2025). Emissions gap report 2025: Off target โ Continued collective inaction puts global temperature goal at risk. https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2025
Way, R., Ives, M. C., Mealy, P., & Farmer, J. D. (2022). Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition. Joule, 6(9), 2057โ2082. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2022.08.009
World Wide Fund for Nature. (2024). Living planet report 2024: A system in peril. WWF. https://livingplanet.panda.org/
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Imagine opening the agenda for your next board meeting and seeing the Great Barrier Reef listed as a trustee.
Far-fetched? Perhaps not.
Recently, a Guardian article appeared about the Scottish Association for Marine Science formally appointing the ocean as a trustee on its board. The ocean is represented by environmental lawyer Helen Mitcheson, whose role is to ask how board decisions might affect the marine environment. Importantly, this role has been embedded in the organisation's constitution, making it part of the governance framework rather than a symbolic gesture.
I smiled when I read it. It sounded like one of those wonderfully quirky stories that occasionally captures public attention. But the more I reflected, the more I realised it was really a story about governance and responsibility.
Every board represents someone's interests. Directors routinely consider shareholders, employees, customers and financial performance. Yet every significant decision also affects people and places that are never represented around the board table: future generations, local communities and the natural environment.
The evidence supports this broader way of thinking. Organisations with formal climate governance arrangements produce stronger sustainability reporting and demonstrate superior environmental performance (Farooq & Muhammad, 2025; Fernรกndez-Torres et al., 2025). Australia's first national study of nature-related governance found that more than 80 per cent of directors consider nature-related risks important, although many boards are still developing governance processes to address them (Australian Institute of Company Directors & University of Sydney Business School, 2025).
The ocean cannot speak for itself, yet it bears the consequences of countless human decisions. While CSIRO research reports a 39 per cent reduction in plastic litter along surveyed Australian metropolitan coastlines over the past decade, plastic and microplastics remain widespread (Brodie et al., 2025). More sobering: recent research identified microplastics in approximately one-third of fish collected for consumption across the Pacific, with Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu all significantly affected despite contributing relatively little to global plastic pollution (Dehm et al., 2026).
This broader perspective also reflects emerging values-based leadership research. Organisations demonstrating stronger adherence to Christian values also exhibit higher levels of social and environmental responsibility, suggesting that values have their greatest influence when they shape decision-making rather than organisational messaging (Dimic et al., 2024).
Perhaps giving the ocean a place in the governance conversation is not quite as eccentric as it first appears.
I don't expect Australian organisations to appoint the Great Barrier Reef as their next trustee. But perhaps that isn't really the point.
Whether viewed through the lens of governance, corporate social responsibility, ethics or faith, the story points to a similar conclusion: leadership is not only about representing the people in the room, but also about stewarding the interests of those who will live with today's decisions. That includes people, communities and the natural world, even when they have no voice at the table.
Sometimes an unexpected headline leaves us with a better question for the next board meeting: Who isn't represented when we make this decision?
Dr Monique Moore is MBA Convenor and Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Business at Avondale University.
References
Australian Institute of Company Directors & University of Sydney Business School. (2025). Nature enters the boardroom: Australia's first study of nature-related governance. AICD.
Brodie, S., Willis, K., Barrett, J., Fuller, M., Lawson, T. J., Mackay, M., Miller, M., Moeseneder, C., Roman, L., Schuyler, Q., Wilcox, C., & Hardesty, B. D. (2025). Drivers of environmental debris in metropolitan areas: A continental scale assessment. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 215, 117851. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2025.117851
Dehm, J., Brown, K. T., Drova, E., Varea, R., Botleng, J. V., Fe'ao, S., ... & Ford, A. K. (2026). Considering ecological traits of fishes to understand microplastic ingestion across Pacific coastal fisheries. PLOS ONE, 21(1), e0339852. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0339852
Dimic, N., Fatmy, V., & Vรคhรคmaa, S. (2024). Religiosity and corporate social responsibility: A study of firm-level adherence to Christian values in the United States. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 31(1), 396โ413. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.2576
Farooq, M., & Muhammad, H. (2025). Climate governance and sustainability reporting. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 32, 5430โ5445. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.3259
Fernรกndez-Torres, Y., Gallego-Sosa, C., & Gutiรฉrrez-Fernรกndez, M. (2025). Do women board members contribute to companies' superior environmental performance? A literature review. Review of Managerial Science, 19, 1513โ1565. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-024-00800-x
Kaminski, I. (2026, July 14). Giving nature a say: Why Scottish marine scientists appointed the ocean to their board of trustees. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/14/giving-nature-a-say-why-scottish-marine-scientists-appointed-the-ocean-to-their-board
Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensen on Unsplash
Sustainability and corporate social responsibility are often discussed as environmental or governance priorities, but its foundations are unmistakably human. An organisation can set sustainability goals, publish reports and invest in technologies, but long-term value only emerges when people have the capability, culture, and leadership support to bring those commitments to life. This is the critical intersection between HR and sustainability.
The success of sustainability goals depends on more than environmental action plans or token initiatives, and HR contributes in two critical ways.
For a couple of resources that dive deeper into the role of HR in sustainability, I encourage you to read these two short articles: AHRIโs โWhat does sustainable HR look like?โ and Deloitteโs โBuilding a future-fit model for sustainability talentโ.
What becomes clear across these perspectives is that sustainability for impact is not a simple compliance or technical exercise. It is a people practice. The way an organisation recruits, supports, and develops their workforce shapes whether sustainability goals feels achievable or overwhelming. The way leaders behave influences whether long-term thinking is openly encouraged or quietly discouraged. This all feeds into the way culture evolves, determining whether sustainability becomes embedded or remains something discussed only in reports and meetings.
To take this a step further, beyond HR's structural and cultural work, integrating sustainability into everyday practices requires intentional alignment across all touchpoints of the employee experience. From onboarding processes that articulate the organisationโs sustainability vision, to ongoing training that empowers staff to make responsible decisions, HR is uniquely positioned to embed sustainability in ways that feel authentic and, importantly, actionable. For example, performance management systems can include sustainability-related metrics, encouraging individuals to consider the environmental and social impact of their roles. Recognition programs can celebrate employees who champion sustainability, reinforcing positive behaviours and motivating others to follow suit.
Sustainability goals must be supported by both structure and spirit, as with any meaningful organisational change. HR helps provide the structure through capability building, wellbeing, inclusion, and development. Culture provides the spirit that helps people connect their everyday work to broader environmental and social commitments.
Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, the general principle holds that when people have the right environment to thrive, sustainability has room to grow. HRโs influence, both direct and indirect, ensures that sustainability is not just stated but lived and it turns from a token effort to a meaningful impact.
However, the real power of HR emerges when organisations shift from viewing employees as mere resources to recognising them as people with unique needs, aspirations, and potential. This approach is not just a moral imperative; it is a strategic advantage. Treating employees as people fosters trust, engagement, and loyalty, which are directly linked to higher productivity, innovation, and profitability. Research from Deloitte highlights that organisations with inclusive, purpose-driven cultures tend to outperform their peers financially and contribute more positively to society through their environmental and social initiatives. When employees feel valued and supported, they are more likely to go above and beyond, driving both sustainability outcomes and business performance.
Moreover, HRโs influence extends to partnership-building, both internally among teams and externally with the wider community. By promoting collaboration, HR can help break down silos and foster innovation, enabling creative solutions to sustainability challenges. This collaborative spirit is strengthened when people are treated with genuine respect and care, creating a workplace where ideas flourish, and lasting change becomes possible.
Ultimately, when HR and sustainability are woven together, organisations move beyond box-ticking exercises and build a workforce that genuinely contributes to lasting change, benefiting not only the organisationโs bottom line but also the broader community and society as a whole.
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The Urgency for Stewardship in the Business World
An environmental leadership guide to โwhat not to doโ was composed by BP across a decade where the priority of short-term financial gain outweighed the need for adequate safety measures to ensure environmental and human protections. BP touted environmental responsibility, but shortcuts created disasters not only for their bottom line but for their reputation as purported environmental stewards. To understand how organisations can create long-term value for all stakeholders is to investigate the safety failures and catastrophic disasters that created the dire need to ensure sustainability is not only built into policy but actioned.
In 2000, BP sought to establish itself as the environmentally friendly oil company, launching a $200 million (USD) campaign under the slogan โBeyond Petroleumโ and branching out into the manufacture of solar cells and wind farms (Greenpeace, 2010). These initiatives were put into action; however, ethical concerns regarding human and environmental safety were largely ignored. While renewable energy was an excellent marketing strategy for BP, stewardship of human life and environmental safeguarding fell to the wayside in the oil sector of the company.
In 2005, at the Texas City Refinery, 15 lives were lost and 180 people were injured in a disastrous explosion. The United States Chemical Safety Board attributed the explosion not to operator error but to organisational and safety deficiencies at all levels of BP (U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2007). BP set aside $1.6 billion (USD) to settle claims brought by victims and their families (Greenpeace, 2010). The initiatives to create a green BP did not extend to safety measures for employees. In terms of an ethical consequentialist model, this was a disaster as the greatest good for the majority of stakeholders was ignored. Despite this event, initiatives remained initiatives without decisive implementation, resulting in the Alaska Prudhoe Bay disaster in 2006 where approximately 757,000 litres of oil from a corroded pipeline oozed into the Bay (Greenpeace, 2010).
It was in 2010 that BPโs negligence led to disaster on a catastrophic scale of human loss and environmental destruction. Six weeks behind schedule and millions over budget, BP proceeded with a single โlong stringโ casing rather than the more protective two-pipe design and installed six centring devices instead of the 21 recommended by its cementing contractor, Halliburton (Wang, 2010). Repeated negative pressure tests indicated that the cement had failed to seal the well (National Research Council, 2012). 11 lives were lost in the resulting gas explosion and the well leaked for 87 days, releasing an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil and polluting some 1,770 kilometres of shoreline (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2017).
Sustainability announced as an initiative was a marketing exercise. In reality BP viewed sustainability as a constraint on decisions otherwise made for speed and cost. Long-term value is created when people and planet take priority over the schedule, however, at BP, the schedule was the priority.
The loss of human life and the destruction of ecosystems should not be the catalyst for the appropriate actioning of lip-service initiatives; rather, initiatives need to drive actions that ensure sustainability.
References
Greenpeace. (2010, May 21). Recapping on BPโs long history of greenwashing. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/recapping-on-bps-long-history-of-greenwashing/
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (2017). Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlements: Where the money went. https://www.noaa.gov/explainers/deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-settlements-where-money-went
National Research Council. (2012). Macondo well Deepwater Horizon blowout: Lessons for improving offshore drilling safety. National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/13273
The Maritime Executive. (2018, January 16). BPโs Deepwater Horizon costs reach $65 billion. https://maritime-executive.com/article/bp-s-deepwater-horizon-costs-reach-65-billion
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. (2007). Investigation report: Refinery explosion and fire, BP Texas City, Texas, March 23, 2005 (Report No. 2005-04-I-TX). https://www.csb.gov/assets/1/20/csbfinalreportbp.pdf
Wang, M. (2010, May 28). Did BPโs acts to save time and money set the stage for the Gulf disaster? ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/did-bps-cost-cutting-time-saving-decisions-set-the-stage-for-gulf-disaster
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Brooke Twine is a lecturer at Avondale University who teaches across the School of Arts and Business. The focus of her PhD is the French Revolution with her knowledge extending to units in English and Business Ethics.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the accounting profession, moving it beyond spreadsheets and into predictive analytics, automated audits and real-time reporting. Yet, as these tools become embedded in everyday business practice, a critical question emerges: just because we can automate, should we?
Recent global conversations around AI governance, spanning regulatory debates in the EU, the rise of responsible AI frameworks, and concerns over โblack boxโ decision-making highlight a growing tension between innovation and accountability. In accounting, this tension is particularly acute. Professionals are not only data interpreters but also custodians of trust.
Generative AI tools can detect anomalies, generate reports and even assist in audit processes. However, their opacity raises concerns about explainability, bias and data integrity. As one industry expert noted, we are often using systems whose internal logic we cannot fully explain (Cain, 2026). This creates a paradox: increased efficiency paired with reduced transparency.
The professionโs long-standing ethical foundations, integrity, objectivity and professional scepticism are now being stress-tested (Muldowney, 2024). Striking the right balance between prescriptive rules and principle-based standards is essential. While detailed regulations provide clarity, it is principled judgment that enables accountants to navigate novel AI-driven scenarios.
Equally important is organisational culture. Ethical AI use cannot rely solely on compliance frameworks. It must be reinforced through leadership, open dialogue and a shared commitment to values. In an era where AI outputs can influence high-stakes decisions, human oversight is not optional; it is indispensable.
Ultimately, AI will not replace accountants, but it will redefine their role. The future belongs to professionals who can interrogate technology, challenge its outputs and ensure that innovation serves, not undermines, public trust.
Implications for Business
โข Embed ethical frameworks alongside AI adoption strategies
โข Invest in training that combines technical AI skills with ethical reasoning
โข Foster a culture where questioning AI outputs is encouraged, not discouraged
References
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Spend enough time in leadership circles and youโll hear the usual suspects: strategy, vision, execution. All important. But thereโs a quieter force shaping whether any of those things succeed or fail, and that is - communication. Not just what leaders communicate, but how, when, and why they do it. Because hereโs the uncomfortable truth: communication is never neutral. Every message a leader sends carries ethical weight. It signals values, distributes power, and shapes how people experience their work and each other.
Leadership Begins Before You Speak
Ethical communication doesnโt begin in the boardroom or the email draft. It begins internally with self-awareness. The best leaders understand that their internal world (their emotions, biases, assumptions) leaks into their external communication. Emotional intelligence, self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and relationship management is not a โsoft skill.โ Itโs the operating system of ethical leadership. Put simply: if you canโt manage your own reactions, youโll struggle to communicate in ways that build trust. Or, as we might put it more bluntly: you canโt lead others if you havenโt learned to lead yourself.
The Hidden Power in Every Message
Once communication enters an organisation, it enters a system of power. A casual comment from a colleague is just that. The same comment from a leader? It becomes direction, pressure, or even threat, whether intended or not. This is where ethical leadership becomes less about intention and more about impact.
A short email saying, โWeโll be monitoring performance more closely next month,โ might seem efficient. But depending on context, it may be heard as: We donโt trust you. Ethical communicators anticipate this gap between what is said and what is heard and close it. They donโt just ask, โIs this clear?โ They ask, โHow will this be experienced?โ
Trust Is Built One Message at a Time
Trust isnโt built through grand speeches or carefully worded values statements on a website. Itโs built through patterns; small, repeated acts of communication that either align with values or quietly contradict them. Say you value wellbeing, but dismiss concerns about workload? The message isnโt unclear; itโs just inconsistent. And inconsistency is where trust goes to die. Ethical leadership communication, then, is about ensuring that what you say, what you do, and what people experience, all point in the same direction.
Ethics, Empathy, and the Human Factor
At its core, ethical communication is relational. It requires leaders to consider the people on the receiving end of a message not as abstract โstakeholders,โ but as humans navigating pressure, uncertainty, and context. Empathy doesnโt mean avoiding hard conversations. It means delivering them in ways that preserve dignity and invite understanding. When ethics and empathy work together, communication becomes something more than information transfer. It becomes a tool for building psychological safety, shared purpose, and genuine connection.
A Quick Word on AI (Because Itโs 2026)
We canโt talk about communication today without mentioning AI. Yes, AI can help draft emails, summarise reports, and even suggest tone. I mean โ I used Ai to summarise five thousand words in lecture notes so I could pull out the main points for this article. It can save an incredible amount of time for busy people. But ethical leadership requires that responsibility doesnโt get outsourced along with the first draft. Leaders remain accountable for every message sent under their name, so there needs to be some guidelines in place around using AI ethically as a leader. These can be quite simple:
If the answer is no, no amount of algorithmic polish will fix it.
So, What Does Ethical Communication Look Like?
It looks like clarity without manipulation. Empathy without avoidance. Authority without coercion. It looks like leaders who understand that communication doesnโt just describe reality, it helps create it. And perhaps most importantly, it looks like leaders who recognise that every message is an opportunity to build trust and to include people. The difference, as it turns out, is not in how much you say, but in how responsibly you say it.
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Associate Professor Seedwell Sithole brings a rare combination of academic rigour, global research perspective, and deeply values-driven leadership to his role as Course Convenor for the Bachelor of Business at Avondale University. At the heart of his work is a simple but powerful question: What kind of graduate does the world actually need now?
Seedwell is a teacher, but he is also a passionate researcher. His recent publications reflect a scholar actively engaging with the changing landscape of higher education and professional business practice. In The International Journal of Management Education (2025), he explores how social responsibility can shape quality assurance in accounting education, arguing that universities must move beyond compliance and towards cultivating ethical, reflective practitioners. In another 2025 study in the Journal of International Education in Business, he examines how self-efficacy in accounting students is formed, including the role gender plays in shaping confidence and learning outcomes. Meanwhile, his bibliometric work in the European Scientific Journal offers timely insight into how generative AI is reshaping academic publishing in accounting.
He closely connects this research to the classroom, with current projects directly informing the future direction of business education at Avondale. These include investigations into whether accounting graduates are equipped for the startup economy, the employability of international graduates in regional Australia, and how diverse research paradigms shape accounting education itself. Alongside colleagues, he is also exploring how Christian faith influences financial decision-making, bringing a distinctive ethical lens to business practice.
Yet what grounds Seedwellโs work is not only his scholarship, but his life beyond the university. He speaks often about the importance of intentional living, being present, making deliberate choices, and focusing on what truly matters rather than simply staying busy. This perspective has been shaped not only by his reading, but by everyday life: conversations with his wife, and the evolving relationships with his three children as they grow into independence.
Family is central. Whether itโs evening check-ins, once around the table (now often virtual as his children move into new stages of life), or one-on-one walks that open space for deeper conversations about ambition, purpose, and identity, these moments form the quiet architecture of his values. Recently, even something as simple as a shared step-count challenge on an app called Step Up has become a source of connection, expanding to include extended family and turning daily movement into a shared rhythm of encouragement and fun.
This grounding in family life flows directly into his philosophy of education. His emphasis on preparing graduates who are not only technically competent but adaptable, ethically grounded, and purpose-driven mirrors the same intentionality he strives for at home. Even his interest in travel, now often expressed through reading, documentaries, and the anticipation of future journeys, reflects a curiosity about people, cultures, and the broader human story that shapes his teaching.
Across all of this work runs a consistent thread: preparing graduates who are ready to lead in complex, real-world environments without losing sight of what matters most. His vision for the Bachelor of Business is clear: a degree that connects deeply with industry, reflects the values of the Adventist tradition, and equips graduates to thrive, whether in corporate roles, entrepreneurial ventures, or community leadership. Associate Professor Sitholeโs goal is not simply to educate students, but to shape a generation of thoughtful, purposeful leaders - people who, like him, understand that how we live matters just as much as what we achieve.
