A striking percentage of corporate sustainability strategies encounter internal resistance or fail to deliver their anticipated long-term value. The root cause of these bottlenecks is rarely technical or financial deficiency. More frequently, it is a failure of behavioural design. Management teams often operate under the assumption that simply publishing a comprehensive policy document or broadcasting an ambitious corporate target will inspire workforces to alter their daily habits.

In practice, human systems do not adapt to abstract pronouncements. True, permanent transformation requires moving away from top-down ideological preaching and instead investing in practical, human-centred training methodologies that systematically shift behaviour from the ground up.

The regulatory environment governing corporate environmental communications is undergoing its most significant structural correction in a generation. Until now, businesses operating in the EU have operated with a high degree of latitude regarding how they position their sustainability initiatives. Marketing departments have deployed aspirational language: utilising terms such as "eco-friendly", "clean energy", "carbon neutral", and "net zero" as standard branding mechanisms to signal corporate responsibility.

The consulting landscape often suffers from an excess of polished, theoretical presentations, where companies receive decks that describe what transformation should look like in a perfect corporate environment. However, business leaders operating on the ground quickly realise that real-world change is inherently iterative, hands-on, and occasionally complex. To build genuine trust, consultancies must be willing to step out of the boardroom and share their active operational realities transparently.

Many leadership teams approach sustainability with a high degree of anxiety. Driven by intensifying regulatory demands, shifting consumer sentiment, and stringent procurement criteria, organisations frequently feel compelled to act quickly. This urgency often results in a familiar pattern: businesses rush to implement isolated environmental initiatives, sign up for superficial pledges, or publish ambitious long-term carbon reduction targets before evaluating whether their operational infrastructure can support those commitments.

Authored by Laura McDermott.

On 26th June, I had the privilege of joining the closing panel for the "Climate for All: Building Green Competences for a Resilient Europe" conference in Brussels. Sitting inside the European Committee of the Regions, the backdrop couldn’t have been more poignant: Brussels was enduring a severe heatwave. It was a terrifying, tangible reality check that pulled our discussions out of the realm of abstract theory and directly into the urgent present. We aren't just designing educational frameworks; we are working to build the resilience needed to face a rapidly changing climate head-on.

To accompany our latest Book Club pick, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, chosen by Laura Brophy, we recommend watching Kate Raworth’s TED Talk, “A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhcrbcg8HBw 

At Colectivo, we’ve always believed that meaningful change doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens through people, through shared ideas, conversations, and small actions that build over time. That’s why we’ve launched the Colectivo Fellows Programme.

Over the past weeks, we’ve been bringing together a group of individuals from different backgrounds, geographies, and areas of interest, all connected by a shared curiosity around sustainability, behavioural science, and systems change.  This first cohort reflects that diversity.

Across Ireland and Europe, the availability of Green Transition funding -  while abundant - is often overlooked by companies. From national programmes such as SEAI and Enterprise Ireland to broader EU initiatives, organisations now have more opportunities than ever to support their sustainability ambitions. However, access to funding is only part of the equation. The real challenge lies in what happens next.

The Gap Between Funding and Impact

Many organisations approach funding as a standalone process. They identify an opportunity, submit an application, and, if successful, move into delivery. But in practice, this can sometimes  lead to a disconnect, where projects are shaped around funding criteria rather than strategic priorities, or worse,  implementation becomes fragmented.

WEF Global Risks Report 2026: Short-term Risk #7 | Long-term Risk #7 

Welcome to the fifth deep-dive in our 2026 series. Throughout the year, we are exploring critical global risks identified in the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2026, unpacking their scope, key insights, and potential implications for organisations navigating an increasingly complex world.

This time, we turn to a risk that sits at the intersection of economics, society, and trust: Inequality. Ranked as the #7 most severe global risk over both the two-year and ten-year outlook, it is also identified as the most interconnected risk in the report for the second consecutive year.

Restoring ecosystems, redesigning impact

At Colectivo, we believe sustainability must be measurable and actionable to be effective. Explain’d is our series focused on clarifying the concepts shaping how organisations operate in a changing world. Today, we explore Reforestation, one of the most visible and widely discussed climate solutions, yet often misunderstood in practice.

Innovation Spotlight is Colectivo’s series, authored by Lena Boudart, dedicated to surfacing credible signals from institutions, innovators, and systems already shaping the future of the global economy.  At Colectivo, we believe the next decade will not be decided by who talks the most about transformation, but by who learns fastest from working solutions already in motion. That is why we launched the Innovation Spotlight Series. Each edition focuses on concrete innovations that respond to systemic risk, translating them into strategic signals for leaders.

In this edition, we turn to one of the most consequential questions of the decade: Can the green transition actually work for people, not just for the planet?

What would it mean to design an economy that allows both people and planet to thrive?

This is the question at the heart of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth.

At a time when organisations are being asked to navigate climate risk, social inequality, shifting regulation, resource pressures and changing stakeholder expectations, this book offers a powerful invitation to pause and rethink some of the assumptions that shape decision-making.

For many of us, economics can feel technical, abstract or removed from everyday life. Yet Raworth brings it back to something much more human: how we organise society, how we define progress, and how we decide what kind of future we are building towards.

As sustainability expectations grow, the tools organisations use to understand their impact matter more than ever. Carbon accounting platforms are not only technical systems. They are part of how businesses build clarity, make decisions, and take ownership of their emissions journey.

This was the focus of a recent collaboration involving iMBA students from IE Business School, led by Laura McDermott, who is a faculty member of IE in addition to being founder and CEO of Colectivo. As part of their UX design work, students explored GreenTally’s carbon accounting platform and considered how the onboarding and wider user journey could be made even clearer, more intuitive, and more confidence-building for business users.

Sustainability is often framed as something organisations need to do.

For some, it is a priority. For others, it becomes a reporting requirement or a response to regulation. But increasingly, this framing is being challenged.

In a recent episode of the Materials Deep Dive podcast, hosted by Carolina Carreira, Colectivo’s CEO & Founder Laura McDermott explores a different perspective. Rather than viewing sustainability as an obligation, the conversation reframes it as an opportunity to build more resilient, adaptive, and future-proof organisations.

This month, I attended the National Manufacturing & Supply Chain Expo at the RDS Simmonscourt on behalf of Colectivo. The event brought together voices from across manufacturing, supply chains, digitalisation, automation and sustainability, with a strong focus on the practical realities facing Irish industry today. The event itself is positioned as one of Ireland’s key manufacturing and supply chain gatherings, bringing together industry leaders, innovators and experts to explore developments across the sector.