The "golden age" of sustainability is still ahead - Interview with John Elkington

Board Member, Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB)
GHG Protocol Technical Working Group (TWG) Members
Zeroboard Research Institute Director Tomoo Machiba

When I visited Amsterdam, the Netherlands in November 2025 to attend a meeting of the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), the advisory body for the GRI Standards, of which I serve as a director, I met John Elkington, who was the catalyst for my involvement in supporting corporate ESG and decarbonization management, for the first time in about 10 years.

Mr. Elkington advocated concepts such as the "green consumer," "triple bottom line," and "3Ps (People, Planet, Profit)," and founded SustainAbility in London in 1994, supporting the transition to sustainability management for major corporations that were facing criticism from NGOs and consumers at the time. I also had the opportunity to be involved with the company as an associate, which allowed me to witness the birth of a movement to change the world from the corporate side, and this became the catalyst for my many years of involvement in this field.

Thirty years later, decarbonization and sustainability have slowly but surely become a key Issue for corporate management, and information disclosure is increasingly being legislated in various countries. However, the year 2025 faces significant headwinds, including the anti-ESG movement that began around the time of the Trump administration's inauguration in the United States and the setback of Green Deal policies due to the rise of the right wing in Europe. How does Elkington, who has carried the flag of sustainability, view this? Surprisingly, he believes that President Trump's re-emergence is a "gift" for the sustainability industry. "We are in the midst of an evolutionary quagmire, striving for system-level change in society. Just as a caterpillar's tissues melt into a sludgy mess during its metamorphosis into a butterfly, we are currently in a state of chaos, where old systems are collapsing and new forms are being sought," he says.

John Elkington and the author

The following is a summary, with Elkington's permission, of "5 Beyonds," a list of "five challenges we must overcome to break out of this quagmire and pave the way for the next era of impact," based on a Contents he gave at the annual gathering of B Issue(an internationally recognized certification given to socially and environmentally conscious businesses with a strong public interest). *1) We hope that this will serve as a guidepost for those of you who are working daily to achieve decarbonization and sustainability, even as you are overwhelmed by global trends.

1. Beyond Trump

We must not be swayed by political divisions or the theatrical political cycles of certain figures. Paradoxically, I believe Donald Trump is a "gift" for the sustainability industry, because his presence has forced us to reexamine our basic assumptions and to form "coalitions of the willing" with diverse organizations that we would never have considered before, such as multinational corporations, private equity funds, and security agencies.

While the United States shoots itself in the foot by shutting down government agencies responsible for climate change, China strengthens its dominance in electric vehicles, rare earths, and other critical technologies. That is why we need to build a bipartisan coalition, conservative and liberal alike, to establish policy resilience that is not influenced by elections or ideology.

2. Beyond Compliance

Compliance is important, but regulation alone cannot restart markets. Excessive regulation only creates red tape. What we need is innovation at all levels.

AI is a good example. One German company used AI to scan over 100 million materials and discovered a powerful magnet that does not use rare earths controlled by China. It also produces 70% less _CO2 than conventional magnets. We must emission amount the market through constant innovation so that what B Corps do naturally, driven by their sense of mission, becomes the default for the entire market.

3. Beyond Shareholders

It's time to shift our mindset from shareholder interest-first to stakeholder-driven governance. "Hope" is not something we can do by sitting on our sofa and optimistically thinking that things will work out somehow. The insurance industry is already anticipating a world in which the global average temperature will rise by 3°C above pre Industry levels, and we are approaching a world where insurance will no longer be effective. To confront the current crisis, we need "hope with an edge," a force that will move us from the stagnant present to the future.

To that end, I want to highlight the courage of women who are creating change at all levels of business, the economy and society. I believe that without a fundamental shift towards incorporating diversity into boardrooms, sustainability will not be possible.

Benelux B Corp Annual Meeting (Beyond Summit 2025)

4. Beyond Certification

As we move into the next era of impact, certification will be a necessary but not sufficient condition for change. We will move away from static badges and narrative-based disclosures and toward continuous, transparent, and data-driven accountability. Over the next few years, we will see the emergence of measurement methods and Dashboard that display a company's impact in real time.

ESG performance assessment must evolve from encouraging individual companies to looking at how they contribute to creating a better market economy.

5. Beyond Our Businesses

Innovative entrepreneurs are great, but impact needs to go beyond the individual company and happen at a systems level. This includes sector coalition building and pre-competitive collaboration on sustainability technologies. We are at a point where we need to go beyond our own businesses and rewire capitalism itself, bringing markets back within the natural resilience of ecosystems (rewilding).

Some people call the current era in which humanity is having a geological impact on the Earth the "Anthropocene," but I look beyond that. Beyond planetary boundaries, we need to build technologies, business models, cities, and economies that allow us to coexist constructively with nature. This is what I see as the ultimate "Beyond," and it is my source of hope.

I've been in this field for over 50 years, and younger generations often tell me, "I wish I was born in the golden age of sustainability." My answer is, "The golden age hasn't arrived yet; it's yet to come."

Afterword - Circular Events Venue

The B Corp annual gathering was held in a dome-shaped Events facility called Circa Amsterdam, which is scheduled to open in 2023 in the northwest of Amsterdam. Originally built in 1971, this historic building was the first in Europe to feature the geodesic dome, which was introduced by American architect Richard Buckminster Fuller at the American Pavilion at the 1967 Montreal World's Fair. It was housed at Schiphol Airport as an aviation museum until 2003, but was dismantled and placed in a warehouse for a long time. The venue was reconstructed using the original materials, as well as containers used for storage, decorations and waste materials from other facilities, and, as its name suggests, embodied the circular economy *2) .

Circa AmsterdamThe exterior and interior of

1）John Elkington, Five “Beyonds” For Tomorrow’s “B Economy”, 24 November 2025. https://johnelkington.substack.com/p/five-beyonds-for-tomorrows-b-economy 

2）Circa Amsterdam, About Circa Amsterdam. https://circa.nl/en/about-circa-amsterdam