Why true sustainability is a question of perception

With all the debate around growth and degrowth, there is one thought that does not leave me. The true cost of subsidizing a financial system that does not integrate sustainability considerations, including environmental, social, and governance aspects, is surely higher than the cost of one that does.

Any step towards systemic change matters. Whether sustainability is addressed as a risk to be managed or as an opportunity to invest in new knowledge and practices, movement in the right direction still counts. But for that movement to be meaningful, ESG and sustainability must be understood in both magnitude and depth. They should neither be fought nor defended. They should be understood. That, to me, is the basis of a just transition to a more sustainable world.

This led me to question whether the issue lies with how we pursue growth, or with growth itself as a measure of success. In human terms, growth eventually gives way to decline. If that is the case, is growth fundamentally at odds with sustainability, which implies something that can be maintained over time?

The 1987 UN report defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. What struck me most in this definition is the emphasis on “meeting needs”.

Flow of capital

In finance, the purpose of the system is to ensure a constant flow of capital that generates returns now and in the future. This is meant to allow each generation to provide for itself, ideally becoming better off than the one before, while not compromising the wellbeing of those to come. Under the current paradigm, capital is expected to grow continuously to keep pace with rising costs. But that framing assumes growth is the right measure to begin with.

But can we truly meet the needs of present and future generations without relying on growth as the primary measure of success? And without reducing those needs to purely financial terms?

What if providing for future generations requires different criteria altogether? What if having more of everything is not what future generations actually need?

Costs rise partly because we have built a system where capital must grow, and growth is treated as the only legitimate form of provision.

The fact that capital must grow to meet rising costs is somewhat self-referential: costs rise partly because we have built a system where capital must grow, and growth is treated as the only legitimate form of provision, so breaking that circularity changes the shape of the demand on capital entirely. In other words, growth is not even meeting a fixed, independent need, it is partly manufacturing the need it claims to meet.

These questions led me to think about what Millennials and Gen Z value, and whether previous generations genuinely succeeded in providing for those who came after them.

Research by the World Economic Forum and a Deloitte survey in 2016 suggest that Millennials want to make the world a better place. Often described as the first generation to be worse off than their parents, they tend to value experiences over possessions.

Among Gen Z, this shift appears even more pronounced. McKinsey has found that this generation is deeply concerned about environmental degradation and mental health. Despite facing diminishing economic opportunities, lacking expectations of a strong social safety net such as pensions, and with many not having their basic needs met, they are still not primarily motivated by money.

An updated version of the same survey dated 2026 also states that “financial pressure emerges as the central force shaping how these generations think about work, stability and the future” and it highlights that basic needs are met, citing the rising costs of living as the main concern.

So what does it mean to “meet the needs of future generations” in this context?

Holistic measure

It suggests to me that sustainability must be measured more holistically. Rather than focusing on increasing the wellbeing of those who already have enough, we might need to focus on improving the wellbeing of others. That means looking beyond financial metrics and ensuring physical security, psychological safety, inclusion, and a stable living environment, both socially and environmentally.

The 2026 Deloitte survey states that “Gen Zs and millennials are not rejecting ambition; they are recalibrating it around well-being and long-term fit.”

As evidenced, corporates play a significant role here. They are central to the growth the financial system seeks, but they are also key providers of basic human needs, such as fair wages and decent working conditions.

Growth may still have a place in this context, but perhaps a more fundamental criterion for measuring sustainability is quality.

Originally, quality referred to the nature or character of something. It also speaks to the standard of something when measured against others of a similar kind. Applying this lens to ESG requires rethinking the economics of investment itself. It also suggests moving away from linear investment models toward more circular ones.

Black-and-white thinking rarely serves us well. Our discomfort with uncertainty often leads to biased decisions. As humans, we resist change. We seek familiarity. As a result, we tend to repeat thought patterns that prioritise immediate convenience, even when they may not serve us well in the long term.

There are systemic forces at play here, rooted in core capitalist theories that prioritise expansion, enclosure, and the pursuit of ever-new frontiers. These forces make it difficult to imagine systems that do not depend on constant growth. Yet if we want to change systems, we must first learn to think in systems.

Capitalism has, for a long time, taught us to overlook and neglect one another. With ESG, we are effectively asking capital to see again. To see people, environments, and dependencies that were previously externalized.

When we are surrounded by need, we are called upon to become better caretakers.

Historically, the law has relied on sticks rather than carrots to change behavior, recognizing that incentives alone are often insufficient. Yet the financial world has proven relatively resistant even to sticks, largely because of its deep reliance on profit maximization and growth.

Sustainability is not primarily about rejection. It is about perception.

If we want people to make better choices, not to consume mindlessly for comfort, not to trade truth for clicks, not to see vulnerability as a threat, we need better structures. We need better systems.

At present, we largely assume that the financial system will continue to function as it does today. That capital will keep being pooled through increasingly complex vehicles, that intermediaries will remain central, and that value will continue to be measured, priced, and distributed in familiar ways. This assumption is so deeply embedded that it is rarely questioned.

But is that inevitable?

Digitalization is already beginning to unsettle some of these foundations. Artificial Intelligence, distributed ledger technologies, tokenization, digital identity, and alternative payment systems are slowly changing how trust is established, how transactions are verified, and how value can be transferred.

While much of this innovation is still framed in efficiency or speed, its deeper implication is structural. It challenges the idea that capital must always be pooled, abstracted, and distanced from real-world outcomes in order to function.

If finance can become more direct, more transparent, and more granular, it raises important questions. Will we continue to rely on the same complex intermediated structures? Or might we see new forms of capital allocation that are closer to the assets, ecosystems, and communities they affect?

This matters for sustainability. Many sustainable finance products today still sit on top of legacy structures that were never designed to account for long-term environmental or social value. Digitalization, if used thoughtfully, could allow for better traceability, clearer impact measurement, and more explicit links between capital and outcomes. That, in turn, would have implications for legal advice, governance frameworks, and how sustainable products are structured and assessed.

Transformation

None of this suggests that the system will, or should, be replaced overnight. Large-scale transformation rarely works that way. More often, change begins with interventions that are small enough to succeed, but meaningful enough to shift behavior and expectations.

This is where the analogy of silvopasture feels relevant. Silvopasture does not abandon agriculture, nor does it romanticize nature by removing human use. Instead, it rethinks relationships. Trees, livestock, soil, and water are no longer treated as separate inputs, but as interconnected elements of a living system. Productivity is not eliminated, but it is redefined through resilience, regeneration, and long-term quality.

In a similar way, rethinking finance may not require abandoning markets or capital, but re-examining how their components interact. What happens when value creation is understood not only in terms of financial return, but also in terms of durability, wellbeing, and ecological stability? What happens when systems are designed to see what they previously ignored?

Perhaps that is the broader lesson. Sustainability is not primarily about rejection. It is about perception. It is about learning to see systems, whether ecological or financial, in their full complexity, and designing them accordingly.

Change, then, becomes less about disruption for its own sake, and more about cultivation.