Sustainability Starts with a Systems View

Explore why a systems view combining science, policy, and technology is essential for sustainability leaders navigating climate change and making informed strategic decisions.

For many sustainability leaders, changing policies and strategies around climate change have become one of the most difficult parts of the job.

In recent years, governments around the world have introduced new climate regulations, reconsidered existing commitments, and taken sharply different approaches to energy and environmental policy. At the same time, the impacts of climate change are accelerating – with extreme heat, intense storms, and wildfires posing risks to assets and supply chains. For companies, that means navigating a decision-making environment that can look very different across markets and locations.

The increasing speed of both policy and environmental changes has forced many sustainability professionals to step back and reassess how they approach their work. Keeping up with the latest developments is no longer simply a matter of tracking regulations. It requires understanding how policy decisions interact with the broader climate system—how they influence technological development, shape market incentives, and respond to new scientific data.

To navigate today’s climate landscape effectively, sustainability leaders increasingly need a systems view: an understanding of how science, policy, and technology interact to shape both climate risks and potential solutions. Looking at any one of these dimensions in isolation can lead to incomplete—and potentially misleading—conclusions.

Science

While the basic science driving our understanding of climate change has been known for decades to centuries, our ability to understand the climate system in its full complexity is deepening. New data, and new tools such as AI, promise new insights.  

Many sustainability leaders come from business or engineering backgrounds, and often lack the time to continuously track the latest developments in climate science. Yet going beyond the headlines can become important when organizations are trying to evaluate claims about climate impacts or proposed solutions. Conversations about climate science often surface within companies, sometimes in the form of misunderstandings or oversimplified arguments about how the climate system works. Further, in an increasingly polarized media environment, it’s often hard to know what data and findings are trustworthy and robust.

A stronger scientific foundation helps sustainability leaders respond to these discussions more effectively, understanding where climate change can impact your bottom line. Understanding what is known, what climate scientists are researching, and what new evidence is emerging helps ensure that internal conversations remain grounded in scientific evidence. This is also important as new scientific findings shape public and policymakers’ understanding.

Scientific knowledge also provides the tools needed to evaluate new climate solutions. For example, if a technology claims to remove carbon from the atmosphere or dramatically reduce emissions, understanding how the carbon cycle works helps sustainability leaders assess how meaningful that impact might be.

Policy

The impact of climate change on companies is not limited to material risks. Policy responses to climate change vary widely across jurisdictions and are constantly evolving, often in ways that directly affect business strategy.

Organizations must navigate differences in national regulations, regional initiatives, and international agreements. For companies operating across borders, policy developments in Europe or other global markets can influence everything from supply chains to product design. Even companies that operate primarily within one country are often affected by international regulatory trends through trade relationships, imported materials, or global customer expectations.

In many ways, climate policy is becoming similar to other regulatory environments that have grown increasingly global. European data privacy rules, for example, now influence how companies around the world manage information. Climate policy is developing along a similar trajectory.

For sustainability leaders, understanding the policy landscape is essential.

Technology

Technology is another area where sustainability professionals must recognize what’s real, and what’s just hype.

New climate innovations are frequently announced with headlines suggesting that a particular technology—whether hydrogen fuels, ammonia-based energy systems, fusion power, or carbon capture—will dramatically reshape the future of energy and climate.

These announcements often generate excitement within organizations. Colleagues may forward articles describing the latest breakthrough and ask whether it represents a viable solution.

But evaluating technological claims requires looking beyond the headlines. A technology that appears promising in isolation may face significant challenges related to infrastructure, cost, scalability, or adoption.

Even familiar technologies require a broader perspective. Often, companies overlook the risks of what they know, even when these risks are changing over time – for example, reliance on imported fossil fuels. And transitions between old and new technologies introduce complex dynamics, including changing costs and resource constraints.

A systems view allows sustainability leaders to step back and ask the right questions: How scalable is this technology? What policy environment would support its adoption? What infrastructure would be required? And what unintended consequences might emerge?

Seeing the Whole System

No single person can be an expert in every aspect of climate change.

Scientists study the physical processes driving climate change. Engineers develop new technologies to reduce emissions. Economists analyze market incentives. Policymakers shape the regulatory frameworks that guide climate action.

Sustainability leaders, however, often work at the intersection of all these domains. Their role is to translate complex developments into practical decisions for their organizations.

In a climate change course I lead with Purdue University professor Dan Cziczo through MIT Professional Education, we bring together researchers, policy experts, and industry leaders to explore these different perspectives. Our course faculty comes from the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy (CS3), a research center in MIT’s School of Science that provides cross-disciplinary expertise on climate and related sustainability issues to inform decision-makers. Each of our faculty contributes insight from their own field – in dialogue with participant experiences of real-world decision-making We bring scientists, engineers, and economists from MIT together to talk about climate change in all of its dimensions. By learning how these pieces fit together, participants can understand the cutting-edge research that can help shape climate decisions, and why the latest innovations need to combine scientific understanding, technological innovation, and policy frameworks.

For sustainability leaders navigating today’s rapidly evolving climate landscape, a systems view is not just helpful. It is essential.

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