While sustainability is now firmly embedded in governance and reporting structures, translating ambition into action remains a challenge. How organisations navigate trade-offs, determine what is truly material and embed sustainability into decision-making formed the focus of a panel discussion at the Trialogue Sustainability Symposium.
The event, held in partnership with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), the Institute of Directors in South Africa (IoDSA) and the National Business Initiative (NBI), took place on 28 August 2026.
The session was moderated by Trialogue MD Nick Rockey, and the panellists were Joshila Shiba (Head of Health Equity and Sustainability at Dis-Chem), Marius Meyer (Head of Energy at Growthpoint Property), Feroz Koor (Group Sustainability Officer at Woolworths Holdings), Tebogo Leepile (Group Manager Stakeholder Relations at Exxaro Resources) and Marina Madale (Executive: Sustainability and Shared Value at MTN).
A shifting sustainability landscape
The panellists represented very different sectors, but each demonstrated that there is a clear shift from managing ESG impacts to consciously creating long-term value.
For DisChem, healthcare affordability is a sticking point for many South Africans. “Our health equity and sustainability strategy is therefore about shifting from simply measuring ESG impact and investment to asking how we build a more sustainable healthcare system and improve societal health outcomes,” said Shiba.
Growthpoint sees sustainability as more than “reporting, certification and compliance”, said Meyer. As a long-term driver of business performance, it is embedded in decision-making, with issues such as climate risk, water security and electricity security considered alongside investment decisions.
Koor argued that sustainability cannot be driven by sustainability teams alone. While it must be “owned and driven at the most senior levels”, implementation belongs to the business itself. At Woolworths, sustainability is embedded in the KPIs and operating models of the Food and Fashion, Beauty and Home divisions, including teams sourcing key commodities such as cotton. As Koor put it, “delivery sits with the people who do the business of the business”.
Lepile argued that sustainability is embedded throughout Exxaro’s business rather than treated as a standalone compliance function. Under its Sustainable Growth and Impact Strategy, the company has committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 and a 1.6GW renewable energy portfolio, while linking ESG measures to employee scorecards and long-term incentives. The goal, she said, is for every employee to connect their daily activities to sustainability outcomes and to “work safely, ethically and sustainably”.
For Madale, sustainability is evolving alongside technology, with issues such as responsible AI, energy use and algorithmic bias increasingly falling within its scope. While sustainability helps to mitigate risk, it also needs to create value. “We need to embrace the concept of shared value and embed it into sustainability strategies,” she pointed out. “For example, we have piloted technology solutions in Nigeria that help farmers improve productivity. Climate-related data can be delivered directly to them through mobile technology.”
At the same time, she argued that materiality is becoming more nuanced. “ESG ratings agencies may emphasise water – but MTN is not a highly material water user,” she noted. “We therefore need to recognise the evolving nature of materiality and focus on what’s genuinely material to our business.”
“We won’t do something just because the framework tells us to – we do what’s right,” Koor agreed.
Sustainability as a governance issue
The panellists rejected the idea that sustainability can be delegated to a single committee, department or individual.
Meyer warned against creating a situation where one board member becomes responsible for sustainability while the rest of the board remains focused on ‘business’. “Executive accountability is key and sustainability targets form part of performance evaluation,” he said. “If targets aren’t met, executives feel that impact through their incentives and bonuses.”
At Woolworths, chairs of the social and ethics committee and the dedicated sustainability committee sit on both to ensure delivery against a single mandate. “Board members need to challenge management’s decisions through a sustainability lens,” Koor noted.
At MTN, sustainability is mapped across a variety of committees, with champions identified to drive issues throughout governance structures. “You need phased approaches, benchmarked priorities and collaboration across committees. Perhaps most importantly, management shouldn’t be afraid to go to the board with uncertainty,” Madale said, adding that better outcomes emerge when boards can have robust debates.
Managing trade-offs
In recent years, sustainability discussions have sometimes been framed as though environmental, social and business objectives naturally align. The panel offered a far more nuanced perspective.
“Trade-offs exist,” Shiba said. “We lose credibility if we pretend they don’t.” In healthcare, for example, affordability must be weighed against the cost of delivering quality care. Shiba called for “a redesign of the healthcare system’s economics, with scale helping to achieve greater efficiencies. Some of the gaps are closed through social investment programmes and partnerships with government, business and civil society.
Madale made the point that net-zero investments present trade-offs on a daily basis. “Renewable-energy solutions such as solar and hybrid technologies are becoming cheaper, but they still require capital. Businesses have limited investment budgets, so sustainability projects compete with other investments,” she explained.
Madalena pointed to human rights as one of the clearest examples of sustainability trade-offs in practice. Decisions around government requests for internet shutdowns can require companies to balance business impact, licence-to-operate considerations, operational continuity and, in some cases, risks to human lives. “Many trade-offs have no clearly right or wrong answer. You can only make the best decision based on the information available at the time.”
Measurement and disclosure
Compliance should never be an end in itself – but outcomes can be obscured by “endless reporting requirements”, Rockey pointed out.
“Our approach isn’t about avoiding disclosure – but transparency should not be driven solely by a framework,” said Koor. “Companies need principled positions that can withstand scrutiny”, which means selecting which frameworks align with the broader strategy of the business.
Lepile noted that companies’ project-management systems and reporting platforms aren’t fully integrated, but data still needs to be centralised and governed. Benchmarking is also important, especially for listed companies. “We continually assess our performance against peers, evaluate whether our ambitions remain relevant, and assess whether disclosures meet evolving stakeholder expectations,” she said. “We also compare ourselves with industry-leading practices and applicable standards.”
Measurement remains one of DisChem’s biggest challenges, said Shiba, as it is difficult to directly measure improved healthcare access and affordability, better societal outcomes, and reduced disease burdens. “We have some leading indicators such as lives reached, but the more meaningful measures are lagging indicators observed over time,” she explained.
Investors, risk and the ESG backlash
While the ESG backlash has softened some investor appetite, Madale said sustainability remains firmly on the agenda, with investors continuing to deploy climate, human rights and sustainability specialists to scrutinise company performance.
“What has changed is that investors are less willing to rely blindly on ESG raters and rankings. More human judgement is being applied,” she said.
Sustainability risks are increasingly being viewed through a business-risk lens. Using water security as an example, Koor stated that a retailer cannot operate if stores are left without water for several days. “Water is an operational risk, not a sustainability risk,” he pointed out.
Closing reflections
In closing, the panellists reflected on some key lessons.
“Not all returns are purely financial,” said Meyer. “Some are related to risk reduction, resilience or reputation.” Electricity makes up 93% of Growthpoint’s carbon footprint, driven by tenant purchases, so working closely with tenants is critical if Growthpoint is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. “Energy wheeling, renewable energy sourcing, efficiency improvements and behavioural change all become critical. Many efficiency initiatives don’t provide direct financial returns for us, but they influence how tenants operate and consume resources.”
For Lepile, company programmes need to focus on outcomes rather than training for its own sake as this is likely to bring Exxaro closer to the goal of ensuring the young people and small businesses it provides financial and non-financial support to can become independent and sustainable in the future. “Exxaro is increasingly focused on green energy jobs,” she revealed.
For Madale, two issues are critical: governance cadence and materiality. “Sometimes, sustainability teams want to report on everything – but if there has been no material change on a topic, it doesn’t need to appear in the board pack, which needs to be curated” she said. “Focus on what is genuinely important at that point in time.”
For each company, building an ESG foundation is just the start. The real opportunity lies in moving beyond managing impacts towards shaping more resilient systems, whether in healthcare, energy, technology, retail or mining, and demonstrating that long-term business success and societal progress can reinforce one another.
