The discussion took place as part of ICC Warsaw 2025 Sustainable Transition in Poland – catching up or offering a new perspective?, a multi-day conference organized by OIKOS, an organization bringing together students from around the world who are involved in transformation and sustainable development. MATERIALITY was a partner of this year's global conference. On March 22, 2025, I moderated a discussion with Marta Porzuczek, Director of Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development, ESG Coordinator at Polenergia SA, Monika Tenerowicz, Climate Officer at Orange Poland SA and Piotr Kowalik, ESG Manager at Pekao Investment Banking.
The following account is not an exact transcript of the conversation, which lasted over an hour and a half. I do not indicate who said what specifically; I did not take detailed notes, and many of the conclusions are derived from statements made by successive speakers, or are a combination of responses from more than one person to questions from the audience. In some places, I also add my own conclusions, which I reached after the conversation had ended.
So what did we talk about? We discussed what sustainability means in the companies we represent. Why companies engage in sustainable development activities. Where we, as people involved in sustainability, came from, and what path led us to where we are today. What challenges sustainability faces in the future.
Sustainability helps companies build resilience, primarily to risks, but also to the challenges of an unstable market and geopolitical situation. It also helps reduce costs, for example through the implementation of selected circular business models. The goal of sustainable development is certainly not reporting—we have focused on it excessively recently due to regulatory changes, and now there is an opportunity to focus on the business rationale for specific actions.
This is easier in the case of environmental issues. For example, decarbonization primarily serves to stabilize and reduce energy costs, and to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, which are prone to price fluctuations and supply disruptions. That is why banks were among the first to implement sustainable solutions. They were concerned with mitigating risks in the companies they financed, and therefore, when engaging in long-term projects in the early 2000s, they expected appropriate measures to be taken in terms of assessing, measuring, and implementing goals to reduce environmental impact.
It is much more difficult in the case of human rights. Apart from certain issues concerning employees, it is difficult to find a business justification for due diligence processes. The world's first attempt to incorporate due diligence processes into generally applicable law, namely the CSDDD directive, is a failure. Already watered down during the adoption process, it is now likely to be delayed and at the same time so curtailed that it will not live up to the hopes placed in it.
The systemic transformation that led to the report Limits to Growth The Club of Rome and the report Our Shared Future The Brundtland Commission to a situation where, for example, calculating and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a requirement for doing business in many industries took more than half a century. The concept of human rights and their first codification in Universal Declaration of Human Rights is more than a quarter of a century older. However, no systemic transformation has taken place in this area. Care for these rights and due diligence in this regard are not an integral part of business relations.
We are therefore faced with a challenge that boils down to the question: how can this systemic transformation be brought about? What should it be based on? What mechanisms will internalize the cost of the negative impact on people so that it is included in the income statement of each company?
This is the task facing people involved in sustainable development in academia, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and, of course, businesses. We are approaching sustainability in different ways. Sometimes their origins can be traced back to the memory of a three-year-old girl collecting snails from the sidewalk so they wouldn't be trampled, sometimes to a multigenerational and personal experience of belonging to a minority, and sometimes to inspiration from a loved one.
We develop along these paths using various sources of information. These may include studies and postgraduate courses, reading regulations, studying IPCC reports and other regulations, or listening to good podcasts. However, there are always, and often above all, conversations: one-on-one, over coffee, in the corridors of conferences, or during panel discussions.
And this pursuit of sustainability is not about standardization. The subject of sustainable development is so broad, encompassing so many intertwined systems, that it is impossible to achieve a uniform mastery level; it is impossible to be an expert on all aspects of sustainability. The diversity of people involved in sustainable development is essential for systemic transformation to take place 😊
P.S. Recommendation from Justyna:
Since Piotr mentioned the Brundtland report and the personal motivations of those involved in sustainability, Allow me to recommend Gro Harlem Brundtland's autobiography. A doctor by training and mother of four, she was appointed Minister of the Environment in the Norwegian government (as the youngest member) and served three terms as Prime Minister (the first woman to hold this position) and, most importantly for us, chaired the UN World Commission on Environment and Development. The result of the Commission's work was the aforementioned report. Our Shared Future, and in it the definition sustainable development, which we still use today. Brundtland continued her remarkable career as Director-General of the World Health Organization and then as UN Special Envoy for Climate. Today, she belongs to an elite group of world leaders – seniors working for peace, justice, human rights, and a sustainable planet in the Nelson Mandela The Elders Foundation.
If you are interested in how personal beliefs and experiences can be translated into global sustainable development actions, read Brundland's memoirs.
“Madam Prime Minister: A Life in Power and Politics. Gro Harlem Brundtland. Published by Farrar Straus Giroux, 2005.
The book is still available for purchase at various online bookstores, such as Krainaksiążek.pl or in the form of an ebook at storytel.com.
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