Arguing with a Rock

If you measure business success only on a quarterly basis, you’re working with a calendar that is itself becoming outdated. Sustainability demands a different kind of timekeeping.

Deloitte, EY, and others are experimenting with scenarios that look 50 or 70 years ahead, asking what the future might say back to us now—if we could listen. That’s a useful exercise for leaders running organizations that don’t have expiration dates.

Yet, traditional Wall Street investment metrics still orient around 90-day increments, choosing short-term earnings over long-term ecosystem sustainability. That may work for a while for The Street. But it doesn’t work for the planet. Traditional investor expectations and mindsets cut against making progress on stabilizing the climate and planet.

Nature doesn’t function on a quarterly basis. Trees don’t grow on a schedule set by analysts. Forests regenerate across decades, not fiscal years. And climate systems aren’t interested in our deadlines.

Paul Polman understood this as CEO of Unilever. He pulled the plug on quarterly earnings calls. He refused to be evaluated on a timescale that had nothing to do with sustainability or long-term value creation for stockholders and stakeholders. He made the long-term visible—operational, not theoretical.

To me, the most powerful definition of sustainability is also its simplest: “Take only what you need. Leave the rest.” It’s a principle that acknowledges interdependence across generations—and the importance of restraint.

Meanwhile, the deniers are still debating whether climate change is “real.” They might as well be arguing with a rock. Geological time doesn’t care what we think. It will continue, with or without us. The only thing we can influence is how we act—and how our actions shape the world around us.

We won’t bend nature to meet our quarterly goals. We either align with its reality, or we pay the price.