18 September, 2026

At Good Business, we spend a lot of time working out what steps need to be taken to cut emissions, close inequality gaps, rethink how to help our clients grow sustainably. But even the best laid sustainability plans falter if organisations that then need to deliver them don’t have the mindset, skills, resources and capabilities needed to make change happen. We touched on this tension in our thinking about whether sustainability needs to enter an ‘Act Two.’ 

We were reminded of this when Bill Gates warned of a “vacuum of US leadership”, exposing the fragility of progress on global poverty and disease and raising concerns over the lack of government involvement in AI development and regulation.  

The question underlying this is whether, when progress falters, the plan is wrong or whether we, and particularly our leaders, lack the capacity to deliver it? 

Enter the UN’s Inner Development Goals. Built on the foundations of the Sustainable Development Goals which describe what needs to happen, the IDGs ask who we need to become to make the goals a reality. They speak to the gap highlighted in UN reports in 2025 which found only 35% of the targets set in 2015 were making at least moderate progress, while 18% had regressed. 

The framework maps five dimensions of inner growth, from self-awareness, empathy and long-term thinking to inclusive mindsets and resilience. It has been embraced by several corporations including IKEA, Google, and Stena. IKEA, for example, developed the learning objectives of its flagship leadership programme using a selection of relevant IDG skills.  

At Good Business, we have long believed that strategy only sticks when it changes behaviour. Impact depends as much on embedding new mindsets as on setting bold targets. Perhaps the best thing we can do for our sustainable goals isn’t always to deliberate on the perfect plan of action but also build the skills needed to deliver them, and choose leaders committed to doing the same. 

By Nia Vines