From Commitment to Delivery: Making Your ESG Strategy Actually Stick
By Ian Alexander, Ripple Consulting
Most large organisations have an ESG strategy. Fewer have one that's actually working.
I don't say that to be cynical. The commitments are genuine — boards care, leadership teams care, and the people tasked with driving sustainability agendas are usually among the most motivated in the business. The problem isn't intent. It's the gap between what gets announced at the global level and what actually happens in the markets where the work has to land.
I've seen this up close. Sitting in the regional seat, accountable for translating a global sustainability strategy across multiple Asia-Pacific markets, the challenge isn't understanding what the targets are. It's figuring out how to make twelve different markets — each with different regulatory environments, different supplier relationships, different internal capabilities — move toward the same goals at a pace that actually matters.
What I've learned is that ESG delivery fails in a fairly predictable way. Global sets ambitious targets. Regional gets assigned accountability. Markets get the memo. And then nothing much happens, because nobody has sorted out the practical question of who does what, with what resources, by when — and who they call when something isn't working.
The organisations that get this right do a few things differently. They treat ESG delivery like any other operational program — with proper governance, clear workstream ownership, and a rhythm of accountability that doesn't rely on goodwill alone. They identify the functional leads and market champions early and invest in actually mobilising them, rather than assuming the strategy will pull people along by its own momentum. And they get specific about what "progress" looks like before the year is half over, not after.
Carbon targets, packaging commitments, renewable energy transitions, responsible sourcing — none of these happen because a strategy document says they should. They happen because someone has ownership, someone is tracking it, and someone is willing to have the hard conversation when a market is falling behind.
If your ESG commitments are sitting mostly in a strategy deck right now, the question worth asking is: what's the operating model behind the ambition?
Ian Alexander is the founder of Ripple Consulting, an independent advisory practice specialising in operational transformation, M&A integration, and ESG strategy. He spent three decades leading large-scale change programs across the Asia-Pacific region, including regional ESG strategy for one of the world's largest consumer health businesses.
