Sustainable Leadership

How can you lead in a way that builds a thriving business while preserving the planet and uplifting people? In Sustainable Leadership, Clarke Murphy argues that the future of business depends on leaders who can balance economic performance with social and environmental responsibility. He contends that sustainable leadership is not a one-time initiative or moral gesture—it’s a transformative mindset that integrates purpose, profit, and planetary stewardship into everyday decision-making.

Murphy shows that the world’s most pressing challenges—climate change, inequality, loss of trust in institutions—can’t be solved by government alone. Corporate leaders hold unmatched resources and global reach, giving them both opportunity and obligation to act. The book explores how modern CEOs and executives can become “sustainable leaders” by adopting a rigorous, compassionate, and systems-oriented approach that connects every decision to long-term value creation.

From Davos to the Boardroom: The Turning Point

Murphy’s awakening came during a snow-swept meeting in Davos with Lise Kingo, then head of the UN Global Compact. Kingo voiced frustration that corporate commitments to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) weren’t translating into action. Together, they realized the missing link wasn’t strategy or policy—it was leadership. Sustainable change begins not with technology or capital, but with mindset and behaviors at the top.

This insight led Murphy and Kingo to develop a diagnostic framework describing what makes sustainability-driven leaders different. These leaders combine a sustainable mindset—a belief that business is inseparable from its impact on society—with four core capabilities: multilevel systems thinking (seeing how economies and ecosystems interconnect), stakeholder inclusion (engaging all voices, even competitors), disruptive innovation (challenging how things have always been done), and long-term activation (staying the course despite pressures for short-term gain).

Why This Matters Now

You’re living in a time when businesses are being asked to fill moral and systemic gaps left by government gridlock. More than three-quarters of people now believe CEOs must lead societal change, and trust in corporate leadership outweighs trust in media or politics (as shown in the Edelman Trust Barometer). Sustainability isn’t just good PR; it’s a business imperative for innovation, resilience, and talent attraction. Millennials and Gen Z increasingly choose employers aligned with their values—and investors reward firms with clear sustainability benchmarks.

Murphy’s core argument is that sustainable leadership pays. Purposeful organizations like Natura (beauty products rooted in rainforest biodiversity) and Duke Energy (pivoting from coal to clean power) have demonstrated measurable results—lower emissions, higher engagement, and stronger profits. Sustainability done well isn’t an expense; it’s an engine for growth. The triple bottom line—people, planet, profit—isn’t poetic jargon but a pragmatic formula for long-term competitiveness.

What You’ll Learn

Murphy structures this book into four parts that form a journey for any leader:

• Why the world needs sustainable leaders: How urgency and global crises demand courageous leadership beyond quarterly profits.
• Inside the mind of a sustainable leader: The psychological and developmental traits—born, convinced, and awoken—that define sustainability-minded executives.
• From pledge to practice: Real-world stories showing how leaders embed sustainability across culture, supply chains, and ecosystems.
• A sustainable future: How startups and younger generations can accelerate the global transformation.

Throughout, Murphy uses vivid storytelling—from Duke Energy’s coal ash disaster to Natura’s Amazon partnerships and Heineken’s circular breweries—to illustrate how leaders move from intention to action. He weaves together data from Russell Reynolds Associates research, conversations with CEOs like Julie Sweet (Accenture) and Bernard Looney (bp), and case studies showing the tangible results of purpose-driven management.

A Human-Centered Call to Action

Above all, Murphy insists that sustainability is a human endeavor. You can have perfect strategies and metrics, but without inspired leadership they fail. Sustainable leaders are humble learners, long-term thinkers, and courageous doers. They reject the false trade-off between prosperity and responsibility. In the author’s words, “Business leaders play the starring role in righting this ship.” Whether you’re a CEO or a student, this philosophy invites you to see leadership not as dominance, but as stewardship—a chance to leave behind a better world where your success uplifts others.

In sum, Sustainable Leadership is both a roadmap and a rallying cry. It shows how the world’s top business minds are proving that what’s good for humanity and the planet can—and must—be good for business. Through examples, frameworks, and actionable insights, Murphy invites you to lead with vision, courage, and grit—to build a legacy that lasts not only in profit margins but in the lives you touch and the world you sustain.

Murphy identifies four defining capabilities that differentiate sustainable leaders from traditional executives: multilevel systems thinking, stakeholder inclusion, disruptive innovation, and long-term activation. These aren’t abstract virtues—they’re practical skills proven by change-makers like João Paulo Ferreira of Natura, Julie Sweet of Accenture, and Mads Nipper of Ørsted. You can cultivate them whether you lead a Fortune 500 company or a small team.

1. Multilevel Systems Thinking

This capability means seeing interdependence across economic, social, and environmental systems instead of viewing business in isolation. Ferreira applied it when COVID disrupted Natura’s supply chains. He addressed safety, morale, and financial continuity simultaneously—repurposing warehouses, funding emergency support, and boosting production of high-demand goods while protecting his people. This integrated approach helped Natura grow even amid global uncertainty.

(Similar thinking appears in Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems: sustainable change requires recognizing feedback loops and interconnected consequences.) When you adopt this lens, sustainability becomes not a side project but the organizing principle of your strategy.

2. Stakeholder Inclusion

Sustainable leaders don’t merely manage stakeholders—they include them. Ferreira formed a unique coalition of rival beauty brands like Unilever, L’Oréal, and Henkel to create a shared environmental impact scoring system, demonstrating partnership over competition. At Duke Energy, Lynn Good invited field engineers and community representatives to co-design renewable projects, ensuring buy-in from those closest to the operations.

This inclusive leadership style transforms resistance into collaboration. By listening deeply to employees, customers, and even critics, leaders build trust—the most renewable resource in business.

3. Disruptive Innovation

Murphy urges leaders to challenge “business as usual.” Without bold experimentation, sustainability remains rhetoric. Natura’s agroforestry palm oil project—mixing native trees and crops to restore soil health—illustrates innovation that defies conventional business logic. Similarly, Kasper Rorsted at Adidas turned recycled ocean plastic into high-demand sneakers, proving ecological materials can fuel profitability.

Disruption also means cultural innovation: altering incentives so sustainability shapes everyday decisions. Julie Sweet exemplifies this at Accenture by tying executives’ bonuses to climate and inclusion goals—making sustainability personal and measurable.

4. Long-Term Activation

Many CEOs retire before seeing the fruits of their sustainability investments. Yet sustainable leaders plant trees they may never sit under—their projects echo decades into the future. Ferreira pursued Natura’s multi-brand expansion (Aesop, The Body Shop, Avon) to spread sustainable values globally, setting measurable targets to 2030: zero carbon, full circularity, and equal pay for women. These weren’t PR gestures—they were bold, long-term commitments backed by strategy and metrics.

To lead sustainably means running a “marathon of courage.” You endure setbacks, regulatory friction, and skepticism, but persist. The payoff? Durable innovation and reputation that outlive any fiscal quarter.

Key Takeaway

Sustainable leadership integrates these four capabilities into every decision. When you think systemically, include widely, innovate boldly, and act for the long term, you don’t just run a better business—you help reshape capitalism itself into a force for good.

Murphy’s research reveals that sustainable leaders emerge from three distinct paths: the born believers, the convinced, and the awoken. Each path shows how different experiences can trigger the mindset shift from profit-centered thinking to purpose-centered leadership. You can reflect on which path your own journey follows.

Born Believers

Some leaders grow up immersed in environmental or social awareness. Ilham Kadri’s story exemplifies this. Raised in Casablanca without running water, she learned the miracle of conservation firsthand. Surviving typhoid and studying chemistry, she eventually led Solvay, embedding water and gender equality into its science-based sustainability strategy. Her lived scarcity became a lifelong empathy for global resource management.

Born believers often demonstrate intuitive alignment with sustainability—they see waste and inequality not as abstractions but as personal affronts. They act from moral clarity rather than persuasion.

The Convinced

Others gradually realize sustainability’s strategic value through experience. Leaders like Jean-Paul Agon at L’Oréal and Leif Johansson at AstraZeneca discovered across continents and functions that environmental and social challenges are business challenges. Exposure to diverse cultures and supply chains sharpened their systems thinking—showing that aligning commercial and societal interests drives innovation and long-term profitability.

You might fall into this camp if you’ve seen firsthand the inefficiencies or costs of unsustainable practices and decided there’s a smarter way to operate.

The Awoken

Then there are the leaders jolted awake by crisis or revelation. Murphy’s own “awakening” occurred during a near-collision with a discarded shipping container at sea—a vivid encounter with human-made pollution. Similarly, Heineken’s Dolf van den Brink reevaluated his priorities after his father’s death, deciding business success must align with meaning. These moments transform leadership from transactional to transformational.

In contrast to corporate programs that teach sustainability as compliance, the awoken embody urgency born of personal experience—they lead with conviction and vulnerability, rallying others through story and emotion.

Lesson

No matter your entry point—born, convinced, or awoken—the sustainable mindset can be learned. What matters is continual reflection: seeing connections beyond yourself, practicing humility, and converting awareness into consistent action for people and planet.

Learning never stops for sustainable leaders. Murphy introduces the idea of the Learning Quotient (LQ), the capacity to adapt, absorb, and grow faster than change itself. IQ measures intelligence, EQ measures empathy, but LQ measures evolution—the skill that turns setbacks into breakthroughs. As global crises accelerate, your LQ determines whether your leadership survives or stagnates.

Why Learning Beats Knowing

When Henrik Henriksson’s biofuel trucks initially flopped at Scania, he used failure as a teaching moment. Rather than abandon sustainability, he changed strategy—selling directly to clients’ clients, offering fuel contracts to stabilize costs, and embedding sustainability deeper into the culture. That humility to pivot transformed Scania into a global clean-transport pioneer.

Similarly, PepsiCo’s Ramon Laguarta recognized consumer shifts toward healthy and sustainable products. He didn’t resist; he learned and pivoted. This adaptability turned emerging challenges into opportunities for reinvention—a hallmark of high LQ.

The Yellow Zone and the Study Circle

Duke Energy’s Regis Repko teaches leaders to operate in the “yellow zone”—between comfort (green) and chaos (red). It’s the zone of discomfort where real learning happens. You stretch, experiment, and stay curious without panic. Likewise, AstraZeneca’s Leif Johansson practices “study circles,” deliberately surrounding himself with environmental scholars and critics to absorb diverse viewpoints. These habits embed learning into leadership.

Building a Culture of Learning

Julie Sweet at Accenture operationalizes learning by sharing her education journey publicly. She created a ‘CEO Learning Board’ for 100,000 employees—a platform showing what courses she personally takes to stay informed on climate and inclusion. This transparency normalizes humility at scale: when a CEO admits she’s still learning, everyone learns faster.

Humility as a Leadership Advantage

Bernard Looney at bp exemplifies humility-driven learning. He admits daily that he doesn’t have all the answers, inviting his teams to guide him. This vulnerability builds psychological safety and unlocks innovation. Sustainable leadership isn’t omniscient—it’s grounded in curiosity and the courage to say, “teach me.”

Practice

To increase your LQ, seek feedback from unexpected sources, pair up with younger mentors, and measure learning as a metric—not just profits. The more you cultivate humility and curiosity, the more resilient and sustainable your leadership becomes.

Making public commitments to sustainability is easy; embedding them into daily behavior is not. Murphy’s stories of leaders like Farzanah Chowdhury (Green Delta Insurance), Lynn Good (Duke Energy), and Julie Sweet (Accenture) show that success depends on weaving sustainability through every layer of culture—not merely writing policies or annual reports.

Embedding Sustainability

Farzanah transformed finance in Bangladesh by designing Nibedita, an insurance platform for rural women that protects them from health risks and violence while promoting financial literacy. She didn’t rely on top-down mandates—instead, she embedded purpose in hiring, training, and local culture. Female employees sold insurance to female clients, creating trust and inclusion from within.

At Unilever, Alan Jope’s “Compass” model extends purpose through concentric layers—from workforce engagement to supplier partnerships and consumer education. When sustainability becomes the red thread across functions, it no longer competes with profit—it drives it.

The Perception Gap

Murphy warns leaders about the “say/do divide.” While most CEOs claim to have sustainability strategies, fewer than half of employees believe it. This disconnect breeds cynicism. The solution? Authentic action and communication. Lynn Good’s Duke Energy tackled this through transparent metrics—every investment and performance review linked directly to carbon reduction progress.

Walking the Talk

Authentic leaders lead through example. Captain Thomas Madsen from Maersk fought for LGBTQ inclusion to show that diversity drives innovation, just as clean shipping drives sustainability. Julie Sweet planted a tree for each of Accenture’s 674,000 employees to symbolize personal commitment. These tangible gestures demonstrate that values aren’t slogans—they’re lived behaviors.

The Art of the Possible

Embedding purpose often requires creativity. Svein Tore Holsether of Yara personally signed 17,000 copies of the company’s sustainability story to reawaken pride and shared mission. When leaders personalize purpose, employees mirror that energy, turning culture into a multiplier.

Insight

True sustainability begins when leaders make it unavoidable—woven into incentives, operations, and identity. When transparency, inclusion, and accountability replace rhetoric, sustainability stops being a pledge and becomes practice.

Sustainable success requires collaboration beyond a company’s walls. Murphy’s concept of the ecosystem enabler highlights how leaders like Aurélia Nguyen (COVAX) and Marc Benioff (Salesforce) orchestrate alliances across business, government, and nonprofits to achieve global-scale impact. You can think of ecosystems as networks of shared capability rather than hierarchies of control.

Collaboration-in-Chief

Nguyen coordinated billions of COVID-19 vaccine doses through COVAX—a feat of logistics demanding cooperation across WHO, UNICEF, pharmaceutical companies, and governments. Her secret wasn’t authority but orchestration: clarifying value, building trust, and aligning partners around tangible milestones. Sustainable leaders act less like commanders and more like conductors.

Corporate Ecosystems

Salesforce’s Benioff demonstrates how corporations can expand purpose through partnerships. From detecting whales via AI to launching the trillion-tree initiative with Jane Goodall, he uses technology networks as engines of collective action. His mantra—“We all have to do something, but not everything”—underscores the need for focused collaboration rather than scattered effort.

Local Alliances

In India, Solvay CEO Ilham Kadri’s Sustainable Guar Initiative unites farmers, NGOs, and brands like L’Oréal and Henkel to empower women through agro-entrepreneurship. Women cultivate guar beans sustainably, learn financial literacy, and gain self-sufficiency. Kadri’s partnership web turned a single crop into a mechanism for community uplift and biodiversity protection.

Turning Critics into Collaborators

Lynn Good’s partnership with Asheville activists transformed opposition into progress. By co-creating the Blue Horizon Project for clean energy, Duke Energy retired coal plants and built community trust. Listening is the first step toward partnership; humility converts critics into allies.

Principle

Ecosystems thrive on clarity, trust, and shared goals. The sustainable leader’s role is to connect strengths across sectors—leveraging science, technology, and community spirit—to multiply impact and turn isolated initiatives into global movements.

If tomorrow’s leaders needed proof that youth drives change, Murphy’s portraits of next-generation “nudgers” make the case. These emerging voices—from Heineken’s Blanca Brambila and Hector Garcia to Murphy’s own daughter Devon—show how conviction, creativity, and activism can reshape legacy institutions from the inside out.

Bottom-Up Leadership

When Blanca joined Heineken Mexico, she brought grassroots energy to corporate sustainability, transforming water scarcity into an innovation opportunity. Her success led Heineken’s CEO to elevate her to a global leadership role defining circularity strategies across brands. Similarly, Hector Garcia applied engineering ingenuity to recycle uniforms, cutting textile waste and earning recognition at Heineken’s sustainability contest.

Young Voices that Inspire Change

Murphy shows that younger generations are more activist by nature. His story of his son refusing plastic bags years before legislation reminds leaders that values start early. CEOs like Julie Sweet and Leif Johansson admit their children became their conscience—challenging them at dinner to align their business decisions with planetary ethics.

Harnessing the Sparks

Companies can turn youthful idealism into transformation by listening and empowering. Surveys, mentorships, and open forums help identify emerging talent ready to drive sustainability. At Accenture and Neste, regular feedback loops and purpose workshops keep leaders attuned to employees’ values. Murphy calls these young minds “the engine room” of sustainable progress.

Authenticity and Accountability

The younger workforce can spot hypocrisy instantly. To earn their trust, leaders must be authentic—connecting ethics with outcomes. Millennials stay five times longer in organizations that align with their purpose. Recognition must therefore extend beyond pay: visibility, learning, and ownership matter. Sustainable leaders create platforms for new voices to speak, fail, and grow.

Takeaway

The sustainable future depends on generational collaboration. Senior leaders must open doors; younger ones must push through with ideas and urgency. Together, they light the fires of innovation that fuel the world’s most consequential transformation.