Sustainability remains symbolic without the culture to support it
Across Spain's corporate landscape, a quiet structural revolution has taken place: sustainability has earned a seat at the executive table, with the majority of its leaders now reporting directly to chief executives. Yet the distance between a boardroom commitment and a changed workplace culture has proven, as it so often does in human institutions, far greater than an organizational chart can bridge. The strategy has moved with unusual speed; the people, and the daily habits of work, have not. What Spain's companies now face is not a governance problem but a civilizational one — how to make a shared value genuinely shared.
- Seven in ten Spanish sustainability executives now report directly to CEOs, a structural leap that would have seemed ambitious just a decade ago.
- Despite this governance progress, employees across these same firms experience a daily disconnect between what their companies proclaim and how work actually gets done.
- Esade's research makes the tension concrete: the organizational architecture has been rebuilt, but the culture inside it remains largely unchanged.
- Sustainability risks becoming performative — polished in annual reports, invisible in budget meetings, hiring decisions, and performance reviews.
- Experts are pressing for transversal integration, insisting sustainability must stop being a function and start being a reflex woven through every team and every choice.
- The road ahead is longer and less legible than restructuring a reporting line — it runs through the slower, messier territory of how people think, decide, and act every day.
Spanish companies have made a striking structural move: seven out of ten sustainability leaders now report directly to the CEO, a shift that signals genuine boardroom commitment and marks sustainability as central to corporate strategy rather than peripheral to it. It is the kind of reorganization that typically takes years, and it suggests Spain's business establishment has genuinely internalized the urgency.
Yet the corner office and the shop floor remain worlds apart. Employees in these same companies often encounter a familiar disconnect — their employers speak fluently about sustainability in reports and board meetings, but the daily texture of work, how decisions are made, what gets rewarded, where resources flow, has not changed to match the language. The strategy has outrun the culture.
This gap is not merely cosmetic. Sustainability cannot be delivered by executive mandate alone. It becomes real only through thousands of small decisions made at every level of an organization, and a sustainability officer with direct CEO access can set direction without being able to change behavior. Esade's research confirms the pattern: governance has advanced, cultural transformation has not.
What experts now call for is transversal integration — sustainability woven into hiring, budgeting, performance evaluation, and team decision-making rather than housed in a single function, however well-positioned. For Spanish companies, the structural work is largely done. The longer, less legible work of changing how people actually think and act is only beginning.
Spanish companies have made a striking move in recent years: they've elevated sustainability from a peripheral concern to a seat at the executive table. Seven out of every ten sustainability leaders in Spanish firms now report directly to the chief executive officer, a structural shift that signals genuine boardroom commitment to environmental and social responsibility. It's the kind of organizational change that typically takes years to accomplish, and it suggests that Spain's business establishment has internalized the message that sustainability is no longer optional—it's central to how companies need to operate.
Yet there's a familiar gap between what happens in the corner office and what actually happens on the ground. While sustainability has climbed the corporate ladder with impressive speed, the culture of Spanish workplaces has not kept pace. Employees in these same companies often experience a disconnect: their employers speak the language of sustainability in annual reports and board meetings, but the daily reality of work—how decisions get made, what gets rewarded, how resources flow—hasn't shifted to match the rhetoric. It's the classic problem of organizational change: the strategy moves faster than the people.
This lag matters because sustainability, by definition, cannot be a top-down mandate alone. It requires the active participation and buy-in of everyone in an organization. When a company commits to reducing its carbon footprint or improving labor practices or sourcing responsibly, those commitments only become real through thousands of small decisions made by employees at every level. A sustainability officer reporting to the CEO can set direction, but without a workplace culture that actually values and reinforces sustainable choices, the strategy remains largely symbolic.
The research pointing to this gap comes from multiple sources within Spain's business and academic community. Esade, the business school, has documented that while companies gain weight in sustainability governance, the cultural transformation of their workplaces lags noticeably behind. The implication is clear: Spanish firms have solved the structural problem—they've created the right reporting lines and given sustainability leaders a voice in strategy—but they haven't yet solved the cultural one. They haven't made sustainability everyone's job in a way that actually changes behavior.
Experts in corporate responsibility are increasingly vocal about what needs to happen next. Sustainability cannot remain siloed, even at the executive level. It needs to flow through every department, every team, every decision-making process. When a company hires, it should consider sustainability. When it budgets, sustainability should be part of the conversation. When it evaluates performance, sustainability should matter. This kind of transversal integration—where sustainability is woven into the fabric of how the organization operates rather than treated as a separate function—is what closes the gap between boardroom commitment and workplace reality.
For Spanish companies, the challenge ahead is not structural but cultural. They've already done the hard work of reorganizing their governance. Now they face the longer, messier work of changing how their people think and act. The sustainability leaders who report to CEOs have the authority to set policy, but they don't have the power to change culture alone. That requires buy-in from managers, from teams, from individuals making choices every day. Until that happens, sustainability in Spanish companies will remain what it often is in organizations everywhere: something that looks good on paper and in presentations, but struggles to take root where people actually work.
Notable Quotes
Sustainability must involve the entire organization in a transversal way, not remain siloed even at the executive level— Corporate responsibility experts cited in the research
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
So Spanish companies put sustainability leaders in the boardroom—that sounds like real progress. Why isn't that enough?
Because boardrooms don't make decisions alone. A CEO can set a direction, but if the people actually doing the work don't believe in it or understand why it matters, nothing changes. You can have the right org chart and still have a workplace where people cut corners or ignore sustainability when no one's watching.
But if 70% of these leaders report directly to the CEO, doesn't that give them real power?
It gives them access and authority, yes. But authority isn't the same as influence over culture. You can mandate a policy. You can't mandate that people care about it. Culture is built through thousands of small choices, conversations, and habits—the things that happen when leadership isn't in the room.
What would it look like if Spanish companies actually closed this gap?
Sustainability would stop being a separate department's job and become everyone's job. When you hire someone, you'd ask about their sustainability thinking. When a team makes a budget decision, sustainability would be part of the conversation. When you evaluate someone's performance, it would matter. Right now, it's probably not.
So the real work is just beginning?
Exactly. The structural work—getting the right people in the right seats—that's done. Now comes the harder part: changing how people actually think and behave at work every day.