There’s a hidden tension at the heart of most sustainability and impact roles.

We’re hired to create change. We design strategies, build roadmaps, define KPIs, establish governance, run materiality assessments, facilitate workshops, write policies and deliver frameworks that describe a better future.

And yet — if I'm honest — I don’t actually feel like I’ve created much change at all. And I'm curious if you feel the same.

At least not change in proportion to the effort, or the speed this moment demands. And not in the way the strategies promised.

I’ve created strategies as a specialist, as part of cross-functional teams, and as a Head of Sustainability with executive access and board visibility. I’ve inherited strategies and I’ve designed them from scratch — backed by materiality assessments, governance models and stakeholder engagement that seemed to tick every box.

And still, I saw a pattern:

Strategies are approved. Roadmaps are endorsed. Targets are signed off.

Then, things stall:

Budgets are deferred. Timelines stretch. Ownership blurs. And the change we thought we were “creating” remains largely theoretical.

I'd venture a guess that that experience is more common than we like to admit. And it’s not because sustainability professionals aren’t capable, strategic or credible. It’s because there’s a fundamental misunderstanding embedded in the role itself.

We talk about sustainability work using the language of creation.

We need to create change. Create accountability. Create buy-in. Create engagement. Create transformation.

But the hard truth is that most sustainability and impact professionals don’t actually have the authority to create change.

They don’t control the budgets, they don’t own the operational decisions, and they don’t sit inside every function where the work must ultimately happen. And yet, the responsibility for “making it work” still lands squarely on their shoulders.

That disconnect is where so much frustration, exhaustion and quiet disillusionment begins.

This is the part many organisations — and many sustainability professionals — struggle to name:

A strategy is not change. A roadmap is not change. A KPI is not change.

These things do matter, though. They’re even essential, because they define what change should look like and how it could happen. But they do not, on their own, make anything move.

Change only happens when people with authority and people with operational ownership act differently — consistently, over time. And in sustainability, those people are almost never the sustainability team.

Boards and executives may approve the direction. Functional leaders and teams must deliver it. And sustainability and impact professionals sit between these two groups.

Which means the job is not creation. It’s influence.

One of the most misleading moments in sustainability work is the moment of approval.

A strategy is endorsed by the executive team, the board signs off, the organisation announces its commitments — and it feels like progress.

But approval is not the same as ownership.

Many leaders genuinely want to do the right thing. They are not trying to greenwash. They probably even believe in sustainability in principle. But often, they don’t fully grasp what will be required of them — or of their teams — once the strategy moves from slide deck to reality.

Sustainability timelines stretch further than most business planning cycles, trade-offs arrive later, costs surface gradually, and then accountability becomes uncomfortable. When that happens, the strategy that looked bold on paper quietly becomes negotiable.

That’s not a failure of intent. It’s a failure of integration.

This is where a critical distinction matters.

In sustainability roles, professionals often have neither — yet are still expected to lead transformation. They’re accountable for outcomes they cannot directly control.

And that's a structural shortcoming, not a personal one.

And it explains why so many sustainability professionals find themselves recreating the same work — the same strategies, the same engagement decks, the same conversations — over and over again, hoping that this version will finally be the one that lands.

This work doesn’t just stall strategically. It weighs emotionally.

Sustainability is rarely “just a job.” For many, it’s a vehicle for living out deeply held values. It’s how they make sense of their contribution to a world that feels increasingly urgent, fragile and close to tipping points.

So when progress slows or compromises stack up — when the strategies already feel watered down, the ambition feels constrained, and still, the outcomes fall short — the disappointment runs deeper than just a project that didn’t get green-lit.

Over time, exhaustion creeps in. Not just from resistance — but from repetition. From doing versions of the same work again and again. From explaining the same fundamentals to new audiences. From carrying the quiet anxiety of an existential clock that doesn’t stop ticking while progress inches forward.

And because the role is framed as “creating change,” that weight often turns inward.

Maybe the strategy wasn’t strong enough. Maybe I didn’t engage people early enough. Maybe I’m just not influential enough.

But the problem isn’t effort, or capability. It’s the story we tell about what this role is actually for.

When I talk about influence, I’m not talking about manipulation, or shadow politics, or persuasion dressed up as performance.

Influence doesn’t have to be sneaky or disingenuous.

At its core, influence is people work.

It’s relationships. It’s trust. It’s understanding how priorities are shaped and decisions are made. It’s aligning values, incentives and accountability so the right choices become easier — not heroic.

Influence is designing conditions, not forcing outcomes.

And in sustainability, it’s not optional. It’s the backbone of the job.

Unlike many functions, sustainability is inherently cross-functional. A sustainability team might define the direction — but they are rarely the ones doing the work that actually creates impact.

Take packaging, emissions, procurement or labour standards:

Sustainability professionals can advise on materials, targets and trade-offs. But they are not the ones designing packaging, running manufacturing lines, managing suppliers or signing contracts.

Those decisions sit with other teams who have their own KPIs, pressures and incentives. And unless sustainability is embedded into their roles, it will always be secondary.

This is why sustainability and impact work lives or dies by influence.

Without that, no strategy can deliver on its promise.

This doesn’t mean strategy and expertise don’t matter. They absolutely do.

But they are not sufficient on their own.

Sustainability and impact work sits at the intersection of:

Without strategy, influence lacks direction. Without expertise, influence lacks credibility. Without influence, strategy stays theoretical.

And yet, many roles are designed as if expertise alone will carry the work. That’s not fair to the people in them — and it’s not effective for the organisations that rely on them. In fact, often times, it can even present business risks.

If you work in sustainability or impact, here’s the reframe that matters:

Your job is not to single-handedly create change.

Your job is to influence the system so change can happen without you carrying it alone.

And that reframe doesn’t make your opportunity for impact or your job requirements smaller, it just more honest.

And for many, it brings relief.

Because it explains why doing “everything right” still felt heavy. Why progress depended so much on who else was in the room. Why burnout crept in even when the work mattered deeply.

You were never meant to carry this by yourself.

And if you’re a senior leader reading this, here’s the question worth sitting with:

What does sustainability actually feel like for the people leading it in your organisation?

Are they building systems — or compensating for their absence? Are they designing for ownership — or carrying accountability by default? If they stepped away tomorrow, how much of the work would continue?

If that question creates even a flicker of discomfort, that’s not a failure. It’s information, and it's something you can act on.

Because sustainability doesn’t stall when people don’t care. It stalls when influence is required — but unsupported.

Impact professionals don’t create change in isolation.

They influence the people, priorities and systems that make change possible.

When organisations understand that — and design roles, structures and cultures accordingly — sustainability stops being a burden carried by a few and becomes a practice shared by many.

And that’s when the work finally starts to move. Not because someone tried harder, but because the system learned how to carry it.

Thanks for reading along. I'd love to hear your experiences in the comments. And if this resonates, please share it with someone navigating similar work.

Back soon with more insights on leading sustainability and influence for impact work.

About Butter Field

Butter Field helps sustainability and impact professionals create change inside systems that weren’t designed to change — when responsibility is high, authority is limited, and progress depends on influence rather than control.

I’m Teslin — a sustainability and influence strategist. This newsletter is for people doing the work from the inside, and for leaders who want their impact strategies stick.

I write about the emotional, political, and relational work of impact; the systems that shape (and constrain) it; and the societal and subject-matter trends that affect how change is led and sustained.