Harvard Business Review
by Kenneth P. Pucker
January 13, 2022
Few industries tout their sustainability credentials more forcefully than the fashion industry. But the sad truth is that despite high-profile attempts at innovation, it’s failed to reduce its planetary impact in the past 25 years. Most items are still produced using non-biodegradable petroleum-based synthetics and end up in a landfill. So what can be done? New ESG strategies such as the use of bio-based materials, recycling, and “rent-the-runway” concepts have failed. Instead, we must stop thinking about sustainability as existing on a spectrum. Less unstainable is not sustainable. And governments need to step in to force companies to pay for their negative impact on the planet. The idea of “win-win” and market-based solutions has failed even in one of the most “progressive” industries.
On April 8, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration observatory in Mauna Loa, Hawaii, reported that the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere had reached 419 parts per million, the highest levels recorded in more than 4 million years. That same day, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, announced another milestone: It had raised 
For the past 30 years, celebrated academics and business leaders have promoted the idea that companies often profit by addressing social and environmental problems. Although these proposals have been hailed as promising breakthroughs, they are unscientific and counterproductive.
Institutional Investor
Too many academics, commentators and experts have fallen victim to magical thinking regarding our ability to tackle the major societal challenges facing humanity. To wit: many of the signatories to a recent pledge to find societal purpose in business are furloughing employees during the Covid-19 pandemic, paying dividends to shareholders and provoking complaints from workers that they aren’t adequately protected from danger. It is time to give up on hopeful stories and get back to basics. If the global pandemic can teach us something, it is to remind us to return to those ideas, like regulation and good governance, that we know work, even if they are obvious or dull. Taxing carbon is not a shiny new idea, but it would redirect investment and effort to low carbon solutions. Mandating accounting and reporting standards for non-financial measures sounds like an notion from a previous century, but it works. Nobel Laureate James Heckman long ago showed that investing in early childhood education improves social justice and economic productivity. But it has upfront costs. Maybe it is time we listened to him, despite our dislike of taxes. For other global problems, proven interventions are available, but they require effort and sacrifice to deliver results
The Guardian