By Dr. Shashi Kad
Founder & CEO, SAGE Sustainability
I didn’t enter the sustainability field expecting easy wins.
When I started SAGE Sustainability, I made myself a quiet promise: give it ten years without expecting anything in return. No recognition, no quick success—just meaningful work rooted in purpose.
But I did expect truth to matter.
And that’s the part that’s getting harder to hold onto.
We often speak of sustainability as a space of integrity—of looking closely, honestly, at what we do and what it costs the world around us. And yet, increasingly, I find myself in rooms where the performance outpaces the purpose. Where there’s a lot of activity, but very little questioning.
And sometimes, in quiet moments, I ask myself:
If truth is shaky in so many parts of our world, how stable can it be here?
We Know the Language. But Do We Mean It?
We’ve become fluent in the vocabulary: materiality, resilience, just transition, net zero.
We’ve got templates, taxonomies, and reporting cycles.
But I’ve seen how easily these become walls—
Ways to tidy up uncertainty or delay uncomfortable conversations.
I’ve heard people say, “This looks good enough,” even when it’s far from honest.
I’ve seen materiality used to validate what’s already decided, not to open up what still needs to be seen.
When the World Feels Disjointed
Maybe this feeling isn’t just about sustainability.
Maybe it’s about something bigger.
When truth feels shaky in public life—in politics, in media, even in professional relationships—it’s easy to feel that tug here too.
Sustainability doesn’t sit in a bubble. It reflects the systems around it.
And when those systems are dishonest, extractive, or short-sighted—
can we really expect this space to be immune?
The Quiet Loop of Compromise
It doesn’t happen all at once.
You soften a sentence. Push a target back a year.
Use a prettier word than the one that fits.
You tell yourself it’s strategic. That impact takes time.
And often, that’s true.
But other times… it’s not.
It’s just a small slide away from the clarity you came here for.
What Do We Do With This?
I don’t have neat answers. I’m learning to sit with the dissonance.
What I do know is this: I still care. I still think this work matters.
And I still believe there’s a difference between sounding good and doing good—
and that the latter is worth striving for, even quietly, even imperfectly.
Sometimes, we just need the space to admit:
This is hard. It’s messy. But I’m here. Still trying. And I’ll stay at it.
For Anyone Else Feeling This
You’re not alone if you’ve felt the fatigue.
If you’ve sat through meetings wondering why no one’s saying the obvious thing.
If you’ve questioned whether this field is truly changing anything—or just learning how to narrate itself better.
Those questions aren’t a weakness.
They’re a pulse—a reminder of what brought us here in the first place.