Contributing writer Kenneth Yeung politely ponders the reality of sustainability.
Sustainability – a word that makes me want to run a mile, partly due to its ubiquity and ambiguity, but mainly because it has been hijacked for corporate posturing and compliance. It has become a hackneyed buzzword — a mere box to tick in mandatory reports, often more about optics than about any meaningful, lasting action.
It frequently appears dressed up in AI-generated drivel such as:
“Navigating the rich tapestry of sustainability in Indonesia, our company seamlessly integrates diverse social and environmental aspects.”
It also shows up like a rash on LinkedIn, where attention-seeking halfwits compete to post the most self-aggrandising, AI-enhanced rubbish.
The term sustainability only entered common parlance in the late 1980s, popularised by the United Nations report Our Common Future. This report coined the now-famous definition:
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
It’s a sound and sensible principle. Pollution and ecological damage are inevitable side effects of economic development, which is itself integral to improving living standards — especially in developing nations. Genuine efforts to mitigate negative impacts should be applauded, rather than cynically dismissed as shallow buzzwords or unfairly tarred as corporate greenwashing.
Unfortunately, many sustainability initiatives amount to little more than window dressing — relentlessly promoted through social media and advertorials — instead of companies regularly sharing a greater portion of their profits for the ongoing benefit of local environments and communities.
At worst, some mandatory sustainability programmes have become avenues for corruption. The blueprint for sustainability swindling was laid back in 1989, when the Soeharto government launched the Reforestation Fund — a levy on timber companies to finance replanting and rehabilitation. Managed by the Ministry of Forestry, the fund collected about US$5.8 billion, but much of it was mismanaged or diverted to politically backed projects. Cases of embezzlement eventually led to prosecutions following Soeharto’s resignation in 1998.
More than a decade later, little seemed to have changed when Indonesian state fuel company Pertamina’s foundation ran a programme to plant 100 million trees between 2012 and 2014. Police alleged that only a fraction of the project was completed, resulting in an estimated Rp126 billion in state losses.
Several pulp and paper firms have been accused of greenwashing — running restoration programmes while continuing large-scale forest destruction. Similar accusations have been levelled at certain oil palm plantation companies.
On a smaller but no less performative scale, many Jakarta-based firms now hire third parties to arrange staff trips to plant mangroves for a few hours once a year. Decked out in specially ordered company shirts, the staff pose proudly beside a plastic banner for a group photo. Job done. Climate change combated. Sustainability compliance box ticked. Cue the self-congratulatory social media posts.
While mangrove planting and awareness-raising have value, they often look more like tokenistic corporate virtue signalling than genuine change. If companies and institutions were truly serious about reducing their carbon footprint, they could stop wasting resources on custom T-shirts and banners, ban single-use plastics, reduce travel, switch to refurbished equipment, and pay coastal residents to plant mangroves daily.
Recently, criticism has been directed at “sustainable” projects accused of harming the environment and indigenous communities. One such example is the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate in South Papua province. The project promotes sustainability through food and energy production, but critics say it has led to deforestation and the displacement of indigenous peoples. In March 2025, the UN warned the project could displace more than 50,000 indigenous people and reported instances of intimidation to silence dissent.
From CSR to ESG
Sustainability has long been part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) — the nice idea that companies have responsibilities beyond making money. CSR is even formalised in Indonesia’s 2007 Company Law, which requires companies in the natural resources sector to carry out and report CSR activities.
Over the past decade, CSR has been supplanted by a newer acronym — ESG, short for Environmental, Social, and Governance — a set of standards for measuring an organisation’s environmental and social impact. ESG is not yet legally codified in Indonesia, but since 2020, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) has required listed companies to issue annual Sustainability Reports, which generally cover ESG metrics.
Indonesian banks and financial institutions are also encouraged to factor sustainability and ESG considerations into lending and investment decisions. As a result, Sustainability Reports have become big business.
Mandatory sustainability is, in principle, a good thing — but it has become a toxic term among some environmentalists due to its prevalence in greenwashing. If the true goal is to help local communities and future generations meet their needs, governments should focus on taxing companies properly and channelling funds into better public services. Communities whose land has been seized — where residents now work as modern serfs — should not be left dependent on performative corporate largesse.
You might well argue that this article is skewed, containing only cherry-picked bad examples and ignoring the magnificent sustainability work being undertaken by your own marvellous company. Efforts to protect the planet by using its resources responsibly are, of course, commendable. However, we may be witnessing a shift in values thanks to the disruptive policies and rhetoric of US President Donald Trump — reviled by his opponents, adored by his base.
In September, Trump told the UN General Assembly that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and that predictions of global warming “were made by stupid people … If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”
Unscrupulous oligarchs may now rejoice that sustainability can be dismissed as stupid — or, at least, not worth pursuing if it impedes economic growth and competitiveness. Nevertheless, many nations and conglomerates still see the long-term value in maintaining their ESG commitments.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who spoke directly after Trump at the UN, did not deride climate change. Instead, he devoted much of his speech to it, promising concrete action such as reforesting 12 million hectares of degraded land, expanding renewable energy, and moving Indonesia towards net-zero emissions. While critics have questioned some of his pledges, Subianto at least did not dismiss the problem outright — which puts him streets ahead of Trump.
Given that sustainability at the top often exists for cosmetic or compliance purposes, it might be far more effective if practised personally. Stop buying cheap junk you don’t need from e-commerce sites — most of it ends up in landfill anyway. By all means, buy that electric vehicle, but beware of being stranded without a charging station outside Jakarta.
Sustainability should be admirable and omnipresent through daily habits and actions — not an annual box-ticking exercise.
DISCLAIMER: Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Indonesia Expat.