Sustainability ideals are often crushed by corporate demands. Here’s how businesses can let them flourish

A “calling” in the context of work might be characterised by a strong sense of purpose and a motivation beyond just being paid at the end of the month. It’s mostly associated with occupations like healthcare workers, teachers or nonprofit staff, for example. We might not immediately think of sustainability managers – employed by companies to reduce their environmental impact – as following a calling in the same sense.

As researchers, however, we have found that sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) managers are also drawn to their work by a calling to serve as agents for social change – even though their roles are corporate ones.

The social aspirations of sustainability managers are key to the success of corporations’ CSR and sustainability work. However, these aspirations often clash with the corporate reality within the organisation.

Our research^[1] is based on 57 sustainability managers in international companies in Sweden across various industries and career levels. We found that sustainability managers chose their careers in order to live out their strong socio-environmental ambitions.

Yet keeping that motivation is far from easy. According to sustainability managers themselves, their employers fail to live up to their social aspirations. They are pushed to prioritise corporate goals over social good, and their visions are reduced to compliance only. Their innovative ideas can fade in the struggle to be heard and gain support within the organisation.

We found that as sustainability managers gain more seniority within the corporation, they lose their socio-environmental purpose and instead start to focus on the bottom-line results of sustainability initiatives. This means they become less ambitious with regard to sustainability initiatives – and more concerned with the profit-driven benefits of sustainability.

For example, a senior sustainability manager among our cohort who was employed at a company facing accusations of human rights violations focused more on improving the sustainability report and how she could communicate the idea that “CSR makes sense for business”.

Though sustainability managers in the early stages of their careers are committed to radical change, their voices are seldom heard by the management or their colleagues. They struggle with feelings of social exclusion and meaninglessness, as their aspirations crumble.

This can be emotionally draining and challenging to their identity, ultimately leading them to adopt more commercial aspirations instead. The sustainability managers find they can do little to mobilise the organisation to support their case for doing good.

During their mid-careers, sustainability managers seemed more able to sell their social aspirations within the corporation. But their calling for social and environmental change becomes “corporatised” and a scaled-back version of their original vision. The shift to a business mindset seems important to get others in the organisation to take them seriously. It’s also important for the sustainability managers themselves, as it increases their sense of belonging within the organisation.

But the initial drive towards societal change begins to dissipate. One sustainability manager explained that they had been “moulded” to think with more of a business mindset. “The first thing is that everything has to have business value,” they said.

As sustainability managers in the later stages of their careers gain more power within their organisation, they also express more pride when they talk about their achievements. These are often linked to increased ranking or branding value – for example featuring on sustainability indices^[2] or securing media coverage of the company’s sustainability credentials.

The social motivation for sustainability work, however, is sidelined. Sustainability managers say their work is meaningful and in line with their purpose. But the purpose is now almost exclusively driven more by corporate benefits.