Blue Earth Summit

Last week, on a beautiful sunny evening in Edinburgh, I made a small detour and walked home from work along the shore in Leith. It was a bonny sight: people sat out with takeaway pints, reading books as they lay on the harbour walls and eating alfresco. But what should have been a lovely moment was marred by the state of the water: brown, oily, and with pools of floating rubbish. (Famously, the majority of Edinburgh’s hire scheme bikes ended up here). 

The week before, I’d been in Copenhagen and watched as people swam in the city’s water systems. It was a contrast that stayed with me. 

And it got me thinking: why doesn’t sustainability feel more like this? Why doesn’t it feel more like having clean, swimmable water in a city?

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We’ve Made Sustainability a Chore

Sustainability has been framed as a duty, not a desire. A moral responsibility. Something that gets tagged onto the end of a marketing deck or an annual report. Something that’s ‘for the planet’. For many, it’s a should. A box-ticking exercise. It’s policies, numbers, graphs. Pressure. Finger-pointing. A balancing act we’re already late to. It feels distant. Abstract. Panicky. The future’s problem. But the truth is, sustainability isn’t just about climate targets or carbon budgets. It’s about the places where our feet stand and it’s about our quality of life. We’ve got it backwards. Sustainability is, and must be, for the people. And it should feel good. 

This is the key argument in Blue Whale Inquiry by Systemiq Ltd. co-founder Jeremy Oppenheim. In his call for “A Strategic Reset for the Sustainability Movement”, he argues that the current framing of sustainability is no longer effective and must be fundamentally rethought. Instead of treating sustainability as a sacrifice, a burden, or an obligation, the movement needs a new, more compelling narrative, one that aligns with people’s lived experiences, economic priorities, and desires for a better life.

And this reset isn’t just about messaging. It’s about how we design sustainability into the systems that shape our daily lives. It’s the outcome when environmental goals are made local, visible, and desirable. It’s something more along the lines of Copenhagen in 2023 announcing over 40 official public swimming spots in a city harbour once written off as an industrial dead zone.

What if we started designing sustainability not to meet targets, but to improve Tuesday evenings?

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What Comes After Sustainability

What we need now is a new kind of leadership, one grounded in action, creativity, and the promise of a better way to live.

We need practical optimists - people who see the scale of the challenge, but also recognise the vast opportunity for reinvention. We need systems thinkers - those who understand that sustainability isn’t a checkbox, but a lens through which we redesign value, growth, and business itself. We need community builders - those embedding purpose into their local environments, creating tangible improvements in people’s everyday lives, and showing that business can be a force for regeneration. 

Crucially, we need those who don’t wait for permission to innovate. Who move fast. Who pilot bold ideas, and who collaborate, iterate, and learn in real time.

While others are stuck in boardroom debates or slow-moving ESG strategies, this new breed of business is building what comes next.

Because the businesses that win in the next economy will be the ones that design for both impact and desirability. They’ll be the ones who understand that good growth is not only possible, it’s expected. They’ll be the ones who turn abstract sustainability goals into lived, local, meaningful realities.

The world doesn’t need more eco-saviours. It needs builders – entrepreneurs, creatives, technologists, and community-led organisations who roll up their sleeves and get to work crafting the future we all want to live in. Organisations like UrbanChain, gomi, Ocean Bottle and the rest of the Blue Earth Ventures Portfolio, are showing what happens when design, regeneration, and community meet.

At Blue Earth Summit, you get a glimpse of this in motion: inclusive, grounded, and powered by people who are building, not waiting. And here’s the thing, if you're part of that movement, you’re not just ahead, you’re building what ahead looks like.

Be part of the movement: https://blueearthsummit.com/