For sustainability and HR leaders: uncover the four maturity stages that reveal why climate initiatives stay siloed – and how to pinpoint your company’s true position.
"We've committed to net zero by 2030!" announced the CEO during the quarterly all-hands meeting. The sustainability team nodded approvingly, having worked for months on the ambitious climate strategy. Yet three months later, the CFO quietly shelved a renewable energy project citing "insufficient ROI," while the Head of Operations continued sourcing from suppliers with no climate credentials because "they're the most cost-effective option."
Sound familiar? You're not alone.
What we've learned about the ambition-reality gap
Over the past year, our team at AimHi Earth has conducted in-depth interviews with sustainability professionals, L&D teams, and HR leaders across 40+ organisations. One consistent challenge emerged across industries and company sizes: the widening gap between climate ambitions and everyday business reality.
Our conversations have consistently revealed a stark pattern: while organisations readily establish ambitious climate targets, they rarely integrate sustainability metrics into performance reviews or decision-making processes across departments. This disconnect reveals the true challenge of corporate climate action today: implementation.
Why does sustainability get stuck in silos?
What we've consistently heard reveals why sustainability initiatives struggle to gain traction beyond specialised teams:
- Finance leaders struggle to quantify long-term climate risks and connect sustainability initiatives to ROI metrics
- Operations managers face conflicts between cost pressures and sustainability requirements
- Marketing executives walk a tightrope between consumer expectations and greenwashing risks
- HR professionals lack resources to build climate capability across all functions
- C-suite leaders navigate competing priorities while facing increasing regulatory pressure
Without formal incentives or accountability measures across departments, what should be company-wide climate implementation becomes confined to the sustainability department alone.
A framework for honest assessment
This insight led us to develop a framework specifically designed for organisations looking to bridge this gap. The Four Stages of Climate Maturity model helps teams have honest conversations about where they truly stand and create actionable climate implementation strategies:
🔴 Resistance Zone: "Climate is a cost, not our responsibility."
- Organisations view climate action as a cost centre
- Sustainability is seen as a regulatory burden
- Climate initiatives are minimised or avoided
- Climate-related financial risks remain unassessed
What this looks like in practice: a manufacturing client initially rejected sustainability training for middle managers, believing climate action would only increase operational costs. Their sustainability strategy existed only in disconnected CSR reports.
🟡 Compliance Zone: "We're doing the minimum required by regulations."
- Organisations focus on meeting basic requirements
- Sustainability exists primarily for compliance reasons
- Climate objectives are isolated to specific departments
- Most employees have no climate-related KPIs
What this looks like in practice: a financial services organisation maintained a small sustainability team focused exclusively on ESG reporting and investor disclosures, with no connection to business strategy or employee development.
🟣 Strategic Zone: "Climate action drives our competitive advantage."
- Climate initiatives are integrated into business strategy
- Sustainability is seen as a market differentiator
- Cross-functional teams collaborate on climate goals
- Climate metrics influence business decisions
What this looks like in practice: a consumer goods company established a climate council with representatives from each department, integrated sustainability metrics into quarterly reviews, and trained all customer-facing staff on their climate strategy.
🟢 Leadership Zone: "We're transforming our industry's approach to climate."
- Climate leadership is embedded across all levels
- The organisation actively shapes industry standards
- Employees are empowered as climate innovators
- Sustainability drives core business transformation
What this looks like in practice: a technology company redesigned its product development process to include climate impact assessment at every stage, established supplier climate requirements that influenced their entire industry, and integrated climate literacy into all role descriptions.
Mind the perception gap
The reality check: many organisations believe they've reached the Strategic or Leadership zones, but when assessed objectively, they're firmly in Compliance. This perception gap isn't just a measurement issue – it's the primary barrier preventing meaningful climate progress in business today.
So, what does this implementation gap look like in practice? It shows up differently across the organisation:
- In finance and investment decisions, the gap appears when:
- Sustainability investments are evaluated with traditional ROI metrics that don't capture long-term value
- Carbon risks remain unquantified in financial planning
- Sustainability initiatives are consistently the first to face budget cuts
- ESG reporting is treated as a compliance exercise rather than a strategic tool
- Among operations and supply chain teams, you'll see it when:
- Managers lack practical tools to implement sustainable practices in daily operations
- Suppliers are asked for sustainability data but face no consequences for poor performance
- Teams focus on easy efficiency gains while avoiding fundamental process redesign
- Sustainable alternatives are dismissed as "too expensive" without full lifecycle analysis
- Within marketing and sales departments, the gap emerges when:
- Teams make sustainability claims that technical teams can't substantiate
- Product development continues without sustainability requirements
- Marketing messages focus on isolated green initiatives while ignoring core business impacts
- Customer-facing staff can't confidently answer questions about the company's climate approach
- For HR and talent development professionals, it manifests when:
- Climate training is offered but remains optional or only for sustainability teams
- Job descriptions and performance reviews lack sustainability components
- New hires aren't evaluated on sustainability skills or mindset
- Leaders receive no development in climate-related decision making
- At the C-suite level, the disconnect appears when:
- Climate issues only reach the agenda during annual reporting cycles
- Executive incentives aren't tied to sustainability performance
- Climate is delegated entirely to a sustainability team without executive ownership
- Long-term climate risks are acknowledged but not integrated into strategic planning
From pledges to progress
The hard truth is this: climate maturity isn't measured by ambitious targets in boardroom presentations. It's measured by what actually happens in practice, every day, across every department. It's about capabilities, not commitments.
Our work with leading organisations has shown that companies that successfully navigate climate transformation focus on three key elements:
- Climate Literacy: ensuring all employees understand climate basics relevant to their roles
- Functional Integration: embedding sustainability into existing processes rather than creating parallel systems
- Accountability Mechanisms: creating meaningful incentives for climate action at all levels
Because the companies that will thrive in a changing world aren't those with the boldest pledges - they're those who know exactly where they stand and are evolving prudent, sustainable ecological thinking into the DNA of their business.
So, where does your company really stand on its climate journey? Not where people think it is - where is it actually
Once you're clear on the starting point, then you can make progress that matters.
Building essential climate understanding in your organisation
At AimHi Earth, we believe meaningful climate progress begins with a solid foundation of knowledge and awareness across organisations. Our focus is on providing foundational climate literacy that builds essential understanding:
- For organisations: we deliver company-wide training programmes that build climate literacy across your entire workforce, helping bridge the gap between sustainability ambitions and everyday business reality
- For individual professionals: our open masterclasses provide clarity on the climate crisis and why it matters, helping you develop the knowledge base to engage with these critical issues
Coming soon: We're developing ClimateCompass, a diagnostic tool based on our Four Stages of Climate Maturity model to help pinpoint where organisations truly stand and identify pathways forward.
Whether you're looking to build climate understanding across your organisation or expand your personal knowledge, register for one of our upcoming masterclasses or contact us to discuss organisation-wide training options.
