The Space Where Sustainability Gets Real
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
People often discuss the same sustainability challenges while living entirely different realities.
The real sustainability gap sits between what works on paper and what survives contact with everyday life.
That's where the most honest work begins.
By Sarah Speers
After more than a decade across South America and
Europe, I’ve seen how easily conversations get stuck in frameworks and ideal scenarios. Too little attention goes to what implementation actually looks like.
Where Two Worlds Shaped One Purpose
I’m Swiss-Brazilian, raised in Brazil with part of my family in Switzerland: two worlds that approached the environment in fundamentally different ways. That contrast became my lens.
It shifted from observation to vocation at 15, during a high-school exchange in Canada. What struck me wasn’t dramatic; it was the quiet integration of environmental thinking into daily life. No campaign, no trend. Just how people behaved. Coming from Brazil, that contrast stayed with me and shaped my path.
As a kid, I was drawn to animals, nature, mathematics, and systems. Environmental engineering became the place where everything converged.
Since then, my work has taken me into ESG and climate risk in financial institutions and advisory. Much of it is translation: turning climate risk, regulation, and transition challenges into something organisations can act on.
Where Strategy Meets Reality
“Strategies can look credible on paper and still collapse when they meet operations.”
Working with companies from the outside sharpened my sense of where credibility holds, where it slips, and where sustainability quietly shifts from practical to performative.
That clarity is pulling me toward environments where sustainability lives closer to execution: energy, agriculture, nature, social resilience. Spaces where decisions are operational, imperfect, and connected to real lives.
I genuinely enjoy speaking to mixed audiences, especially outside traditional sustainability circles. Those exchanges are often the most meaningful. “Sustainability only becomes real when people can connect to it - not through idealised narratives, but through honest discussion of trade‑offs and possibilities.”
Why WISF Matters to Me
Some of my best conversations happen with people simply trying to understand how these changes affect their work. I care about keeping those exchanges honest, accessible, and grounded.
That’s also what draws me to WISF: connecting with women from different backgrounds, all navigating complexity while trying to contribute meaningfully. Having built my life across countries, I value spaces where experiences are genuinely shared, not performed.
Staying in It for the Right Reasons
Sustainability has never been about perfect answers. It’s about staying curious, pragmatic, and willing to turn complexity into action - even imperfect action.
The world we’re trying to build won’t be designed in conference rooms or annual reports. It will be shaped by the unglamorous, on‑the‑ground decisions happening everywhere else. That’s the work I want to be part of.
If you wish to connect - please reach out to me on LinkedIn.
