Sustainability Smokescreens: Exclusive, Risky Narratives

Kalle reflects on ill-informed smokescreens from intelligent people

Calling for smarter strategies than demonizing “them” versus “us”

Leaders at every level face a predictable challenge: well-crafted narratives that obscure facts and stall progress. Our Stepwise Global platform shows both how to navigate these narratives and how to avoid repeating them. To move forward, we must first recognize the most common ill-informed smokescreens—often voiced by intelligent and influential people—that rationalize inaction or delay. Some stem from incomplete information; others arise, consciously or not, to create space for decisions that perpetuate harm.

Inconvenient truths invite smokescreens and rationalization of such — even among people who should know better. They are not rarely influential and carry weight to spread such smokescreen narratives quickly. When advocates are powerful, opposing them feels risky; belonging can feel safer than solitary truth-seeking.

Humans are a social species, wired by evolutionary pressures to prioritize group “truths” over individual dissent. On the savanna, exclusion could mean death. Today, the same instincts push professionals to conform, avoid whistleblowing, and take fewer intellectual risks. In modern media ecosystems—legacy and social—this dynamic is reinforced through cancellation, character attacks, and reputational pressures. It’s no surprise that thoughtful people sometimes train themselves to be less inquisitive.

The pull of conformity—and why it matters for strategy

Our tendency to fit in is understandable, but it becomes dangerous when it guides decisions about sustainability, risk, and long-term value creation. Strategic leaders counteract this bias by seeking robust frameworks, credible evidence across disciplines, and structured ways to evaluate choices. And they are often intelligent to have clear goals, and the wisdom to approach them in non-adversarial ways. That is what our Operative System—built on design-science perspectives that connect toxicology, climatology, ecology, and market dynamics—provides. It gives teams a shared mental model to manage complexity, move stepwise in inclusive ways, and avoid creating new problems while solving old ones.

Ten common ill-informed smokescreens—and how to respond

1. “Sustainable development is too expensive—unless everyone is forced to do it.”
– Rebuttal: This is backward. Sustainability is a precondition for continued prosperity and resilience. In practice, well-designed transitions improve margins from day one. Early electrification in the automotive sector is a classic example: leaders who moved first gained brand, market, and learning-curve advantages while latecomers paid to catch up. Strategic, stepwise action delivers returns and positions you as a role model for peers and policymakers.

2. “It’s too difficult.”
– Rebuttal: Complexity doesn’t vanish, but it becomes manageable with the right system. A clear operative structure provides the overview that manages complexity. Using a shared mental model enables better collaboration, faster learning, and more enjoyable problem-solving—like a team playing a game with agreed rules.

3. “Nature causes big harms anyway—climate swings, asteroid impacts—so our actions add little.”
– Rebuttal: Natural hazards shrink our safety margins; they don’t expand them. When exogenous risks exist, the rational response is to reduce our own contributions to danger, not argue for a “fair share” of pushing nature to its limits.

4. “There are no rewarding sustainability investments in sight.”
– Rebuttal: “In sight” often means “we’ve considered too few options.” In the ABCD-in-Funnel approach, robust strategies emerge from creative C-lists of options connecting today’s reality (B) to ambitious, scalable goals (A). Leaders routinely find value by redesigning products, embedding cost in elegant design, leveraging learning curves via stakeholder co-creation, and adopting service-based models. These options are then prioritized into stepwise paths (D).

5. “Others pollute or destroy more than we do.”
– Rebuttal: Benchmarking harm is not a strategy. Compete by role-modeling, not excuse-making. The question is whether your organization is shrinking common risk while improving ROI step by step.

6. “Scientists disagree.”
– Rebuttal: Disagreement can be real or superficial. Ask: Are we listening to competent experts in the relevant domains? Are claims made outside their expertise? Is confirmation bias at play? Cross-disciplinary design-science frames—linking climate, ecology, toxicology, and systems strategy—are crucial for charting scalable futures within sustainability constraints. This is also fertile ground for innovation and competitive advantage.

7. “I don’t believe in science.”
– Rebuttal: Modern life runs on science—software, medicine, aviation, microchips, clean water. Science also detects what our senses cannot: ecotoxicity, CO2 accumulation, desertification, biodiversity loss. Our Operative System builds on that evidence to solve problems without creating new ones elsewhere.

8. “I hate left-wing/right-wing/green/centrist politics.”
– Rebuttal: Sound policy of any tradition must be anchored in physics, biology, and logic. A clear, reality-based worldview helps value differences become visible and useful, enabling creative co-creation across perspectives. Healthy democracies welcome well-evidenced contributions from entrepreneurship, social trust, and ecological stewardship—and rebuild trust by listening seriously to competing values beyond the facts.

9. “It’s always better to do something than nothing.”
– Rebuttal: Not always. Some moves foreclose better options. For example, large bets on biofuels may crowd out investments that can scale sustainably. Strategy requires contemplation, timing, and alignment with long-term constraints.

10. “One single cause—population growth, climate change, poverty, cars, greed, stupidity—is the problem.”
– Rebuttal: The hobby-horse argument ignores interconnections. Priorities can shift quickly under compounding risks; one new threat (e.g., escalating conflict) can upend the landscape. What matters is understanding how problems interlink at the level of design—and then acting accordingly.

Cutting through ill-informed smokescreens: practical moves for leaders

– Ask for advice, not allegiance: “Here’s what we intend to do—what advice would you offer?” This lowers defenses, invites expertise, and often yields improvements to your plan.
– Establish common ground: “Do we agree the planet is losing fertile soil, species, and ecosystem integrity?” Shared facts neutralize hobby horses and create conditions for Funnel logic and proactive strategy.
– Show the money: Use concrete examples of organizations that improved their bottom line through strategic sustainable development. Case evidence reduces perceived risk and accelerates buy-in.
– Make complexity graspable: Use analogies—chess, cancer therapy, moving house—to explain phased strategies in complex systems. Never underestimate people’s intelligence, and never overestimate their prior knowledge.
– Invite people into “sustainability chess”: Encourage stepwise learning and co-creation. People prefer to arrive at insight through their own thoughtful inquiry.

Why ill-informed smokescreens spread—and how to inoculate against them

Ill-informed smokescreens thrive on social incentives, status dynamics, and cognitive shortcuts. Counter them by:
– Building a shared operative system for decision-making.
– Rewarding curiosity and dissent grounded in evidence.
– Publishing stepwise roadmaps so progress is visible and accountable.
– Cross-pollinating teams with design, engineering, finance, and policy perspectives.

These are classic dialogic techniques with broad relevance beyond sustainability conversations.

Conclusion: Replace ill-informed smokescreens with structured, stepwise leadership

Ill-informed smokescreens from intelligent people are not a reason to despair; they are a signal to lead. With a clear operative system, evidence from multiple disciplines, and a collaborative mindset, leaders can convert confusion into action, and fear into competitive advantage. Ask better questions, seek common ground, showcase profitable precedents, and make complexity teachable. Do this consistently and you will help your organization—and your community—move strategically toward scalable, sustainable success.

For deeper science behind the Operative System, see the peer-reviewed open-source paper (doi.org/10.1002/sd.3357) and related works by Broman and Robèrt. For practical insights, training, and case studies, explore “Kalle Reflects” on our platform—or send us your question from the homepage.