In a world addicted to appearance, ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) has become the perfect costume. Some things are adopted so quickly, so universally, that we forget to ask the most essential question of all: why? ESG is one of them.
In just a few short years, these three letters have become the lingua franca of global business. Boardrooms echo with its promises. Annual reports are adorned with its metrics. Investment decisions hinge on its presence.
For many companies, ESG is now the passport to global markets, the litmus test for reputational safety, the scaffolding of long-term strategy. But beneath this widespread embrace, something quietly unsettling is unfolding. Amid the race to look sustainable, have we forgotten to be sustainable?
Today’s corporate landscape is saturated with “how.” How to disclose. How to comply. How to signal responsibility. Sustainability departments grow. ESG consultants are hired. Scores are published. Dashboards are updated. Certifications multiply. But in all this choreography, one question often remains painfully absent: Why are we doing this in the first place?
Without a living “why”, ESG risks becoming a beautifully decorated mask — a performative ritual that soothes stakeholders but rarely transforms the soul of the enterprise. It becomes optics without orientation, compliance without conscience. The deeper truth is this: ESG has made it easier to look like a good company, without ever becoming one.
We are witnessing the rise of what could be called cosmetic sustainability — the kind that knows how to write reports but not how to ask difficult questions. The kind that collects green labels but avoids moral accountability. The kind that quantifies carbon but cannot quantify courage. This is not merely a communication problem. It is a crisis of integrity.
When companies embrace ESG solely to gain access to capital, to secure licenses, to unlock global partnerships — they miss the point. ESG was never meant to be a finish line. It was meant to be a doorway. A pathway into a deeper inquiry: What is our place in the world? What kind of legacy are we leaving? Whose future are we shaping?
True sustainability begins not with metrics, but with meaning. It does not reside in thick, candy-colored reports, but in the invisible moments when a company chooses principle over convenience — even when no one is watching. It is not proven by scorecards, but by how a company responds when its most profitable practices are challenged by ethical questions it can no longer ignore.
To be clear, this is not a call to abandon ESG. It is a call to recover its soul. Because when ESG becomes just another checklist, it loses its power to awaken. And the world does not need more metrics. It needs more mirrors.
We need a shift — from performative sustainability to transformative responsibility. From “How do we meet the standard?” to “What is the future we’re helping create?” From “How do we reduce harm?” to “How do we become a force for good?”
This shift is not about perfection. It is about courage. It’s about businesses daring to ask: If we disappeared tomorrow, would the world miss us? Would communities be poorer, ecosystems more vulnerable, futures more uncertain? Or would little be lost, because we were never truly adding value to begin with?
That is the real measure of sustainability. Not in net-zero promises, but in net-positive presence — the idea that a company’s existence makes the world tangibly better, not just less bad.
And this shift does not require grand slogans. It begins in silence. It begins with a willingness to turn inward, to examine whether our decisions align with our declared values. Whether our supply chains reflect justice. Whether our growth uplifts the forgotten. Whether our profits contribute to regeneration rather than extraction.
This kind of sustainability is not reserved for boardrooms in Zurich or Stockholm. In fact, some of the most powerful examples don’t come from Europe at all — but from tropical valleys, local farms and indigenous ecosystems where sustainability isn’t a strategy, but a way of life.
In one such region, a company quietly transformed its entire supply chain into a circular ecosystem. Waste from fruit processing became animal feed, organic fertilizer, and clean bioenergy. Nothing was discarded. Everything fed something else. Beyond the technical brilliance was a deeper commitment: to restore balance between production, people, and the planet.
What made it extraordinary wasn’t the innovation alone — but its roots. It didn’t come from Silicon Valley. It was born from agricultural wisdom, local ingenuity, and the kind of humility that listens to the land before speaking to investors. This wasn’t ESG as performance. It was sustainability as participation. As relationship. As responsibility.
And in every industry, in every region, there are companies — some small, some massive — quietly walking this path. They don’t always win awards. But they do something more lasting: they repair. They nourish. They restore trust. They choose depth over display.
You won’t always find them on the front page of sustainability rankings. But you’ll feel their impact where it matters most: in the dignity of farmers whose livelihoods are respected. In the health of rivers no longer treated as waste dumps. In the resilience of communities that are no longer invisible in the boardroom.
These companies don’t just ask how to comply. They live from a why that cannot be outsourced. They understand that sustainability is not a strategy — it’s an identity. Not a department — but a direction. Not a branding tool — but a moral compass.
The time has come for every business to choose. Will you be remembered as one that mastered the art of appearing responsible? Or as one that quietly, consistently, and courageously made the world better — not for marketing, but because it was the right thing to do?
The next frontier of sustainability will not be won with better data visualizations or more sophisticated disclosure tools. It will be led by those who are willing to place conscience above convenience, and meaning above metrics.
So ask yourself, honestly and without performance: If your company ceased to exist, would the world lose something irreplaceable? If the answer is uncertain, it may be time to go back — not to the drawing board, but to the mirror.
Because the real future of ESG will belong not to the companies that shouted the loudest, but to those whose quiet decisions helped build a better, truly sustainable world.
Setyo Budiantoro is sustainable development expert at The Prakarsa, MIT Sloan IDEAS fellow, advisory committee member of Fair Finance Asia and SDGs–ESG expert at Indonesian ESG Professional Association (IEPA).