Jahan Taganova - SEA Case Story

June 1, 2023

Jahan Taganova, SEA - One Young World Peace Ambassador, researcher, nonprofit professional, and fearless sustainable development advocate based in the US.


What brought you to this moment in your career where the Sustainability Excellence Associate (SEA) credential made sense for you?


In spite of the fact that "sustainability" is assumed to be about the environment, it is, at its core, a social issue. As a global development professional, I realized early on  sustainability involves balancing environmental concerns such as climate change; social issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), upskilling local workforce, eradicating poverty and hunger; and economics such as affordability and fair wage. My experience working in the social impact sector has given me first-hand experience in harnessing human creativity,co-developing innovative solutions to pressing global challenges, forging shared value among stakeholders, cultivating respect and peaceful coexistence, and centering the voices of marginalized communities. As a project manager working in the social impact domain, I did not merely focus on scaling the ideas but also seeing sustainability from a macro level, reflecting on organizational culture, structure, and processes, existing human resource skills and personnel practices. A desire to enhance my practical experience and build credibility with employers, clients, and colleagues as a professional that took sustainability seriously motivated me to become a certified Sustainability Associate Excellence (SEA).


How are you putting the knowledge, skills, and ability demonstrated in the SEA to work in your career (or work) today?


The SEA certification has provided me with the visibility needed to share my unique expertise with a broader audience. For example, recently, I was invited to present about the nonprofit landscape in Central Asia and shed light on the implementation of the sustainable development goals number 5 (gender equality) and 6 (clean water and sanitation) at one of the lecture series on Central Asia held at the Foreign Service Institute. There, I also  got the chance to shed light on the relationships between global development frameworks, local action plans, and the risks and best practices when engaging with local stakeholders. 


Additionally, this certification allowed me the confidence and knowledge to create and fight for bold and robust policy changes that highlight the importance of sustainability. This confidence has led to undeniable accomplishments, including co-authoring a policy memo titled, “Should Turkmenistan use the Caspian Sea to quench its thirst? A feasibility assessment of building a desalination plant on the Caspian shore.” This policy brief is not only providing sustainable solutions to major water challenges facing Turkmenistan, but it is also helping to promote international solidarity between Central Asian countries and other global players that pave the way for a more sustainable future.


What advice do you have for newcomers to this sustainability work?


While there are organizations hiring "Sustainability Directors", "Sustainability Officers", or teams of “Sustainability Analysts” to help drive sustainable initiatives forward, finding the rare gems with "sustainability" in the job title can be challenging. 


My first piece of advice to newcomers in sustainability work would be this: don’t be limited by your title, your background, or being new to the field, everyone has something they can contribute when it comes to sustainability! Oftentimes, we fall into a trap of believing that sustainability initiatives must be handled by the environmental, social and governance (ESG) team. However, no matter your current job title or occupation, you have something to contribute to sustainability initiatives. Sustainability is a broad and relatively new field. Because of this, my second piece of advice for all newcomers in the sustainability field is to narrow down their interests, and understand what type of sustainability excites them. Examples of sustainability fields could include:

  • Climate change (adaptation, greenhouse gas emissions, resiliency)
  • Corporate social responsibility
  • Ecological or environmental justice
  • Environmental health
  • Environmental protection
  • Environment, social, and governance (ESG)

Finally, my third piece of advice for newcomers is to continually pursue education within the field. If you don’t have the time or resources to pursue credentials, there are still ways to get involved in elevating your skillset and becoming more sustainably minded!  Webinars organized by the ISSP and other organizations are great resources to learn more about the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic. Even something as simple as a TED Talk on YouTube can provide incredible insight on how to incorporate sustainability into your daily life. Ready to take it a step deeper? Large corporations such as McKinsey and PwC offer sustainability reports to show how they are taking strides to create a more sustainable workplace that aligns with the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs). 

Read perspectives from the ISSP blog

By Ioannis Ioannou, PhD June 19, 2025
London Business School Professor Ioannis Ioannou, PhD examines the vulnerable narrative infrastructure surrounding ESG. By collaboratively engaging those most affected by ESG transitions—indigenous peoples, workers, young people, small businesses, and communities, particularly in the Global South—we can foster the trust, legitimacy, and collective commitment for meaningful progress. Who Gets to Tell the Story of ESG? For more than a decade, ESG rapidly evolved from a specialized investor consideration into an elaborate global infrastructure of standards, metrics, taxonomies, and disclosure frameworks. Investor attention soared, corporate sustainability teams grew exponentially, and ESG vocabulary— climate risk, fiduciary duty, and double materiality—became firmly embedded in corporate boardrooms and regulatory discussions globally. Yet, despite ESG’s impressive institutional and technical advancements, the narrative meant to support it remained remarkably fragile. While ESG developed sophisticated standards, disclosures, and metrics, it never invested in the narrative infrastructure to explain its purpose, build public understanding, or secure legitimacy beyond institutional circles. Without the broader stakeholder engagement and effective storytelling that would connect ESG to people’s lived realities, it became vulnerable. Critics didn’t need to challenge carbon accounting or materiality frameworks; instead, they recast ESG as a job killer, an elite agenda, or an unwelcome intrusion into everyday life. The backlash caught many ESG professionals off guard, though the warning signs were visible. ESG’s rapid adoption by investors and regulatory bodies created an illusion of momentum, but this obscured a deeper structural gap. ESG rarely connected meaningfully with those directly affected by ESG-driven transitions—workers facing disruption, small business owners adapting to shifting expectations, and communities, particularly in vulnerable regions, confronting real and immediate climate risks. For these groups, ESG often seemed abstract, distant, and disconnected from their daily concerns. Narrative infrastructure might sound like an unusual concept, but it's foundational to widespread support. It connects people and institutions, conveys meaning, and determines whether ESG is seen as genuine leadership or merely corporate branding. Robust narrative infrastructure ensures resilience under political pressure; without it, initiatives can rapidly lose whatever public approval they may have had. Constructing narrative infrastructure requires explicitly recognizing storytelling— and who contributes to that storytelling—as integral to ESG strategy, not simply a communications exercise. Effective narratives generate trust precisely because they emerge from transparent dialogue, clear accountability, and inclusive stakeholder engagement. By contrast, greenwashing uses storytelling deceptively, aiming to conceal poor performance, and deflect scrutiny. Strong narrative infrastructure, unlike greenwashing, strengthens credibility and legitimacy by openly connecting ESG commitments to shared realities, tangible actions, and measurable outcomes. It is a fundamental strategic asset for ESG success. Importantly, narrative infrastructure also concerns who gets to tell these stories. Over the last decade, the central narrators of the ESG story have largely been institutional actors: executives, investors, sustainability professionals, academics, and regulators. Their contributions have been invaluable, driven by expertise, rigor, and genuine commitment. Yet these narrators also represent a relatively narrow perspective, shaped by institutional backgrounds and professional incentives. Many important voices have remained largely excluded from shaping ESG narratives: indigenous people whose lives are often fundamentally changed by corporate activities, workers whose livelihoods are directly impacted by ESG transitions, young people deeply invested in future outcomes, small businesses continuously adapting to new ESG-related requirements, and especially communities—particularly in the Global South —directly facing the worst of climate disruptions. While these stakeholders' experiences occasionally appear within ESG reporting, they seldom influenced strategy or shape decisions in a substantial way. This exclusion poses significant, practical risks. Stakeholders naturally resist initiatives perceived as imposed from above or disconnected from their lived realities—not necessarily because they oppose ESG’s goals, but because they feel unheard and invisible within such ESG narratives. The resistance appears as political backlash, active public scepticism, or disengagement, all severely undermining ESG’s legitimacy, effectiveness, and public support. Addressing this critical weakness requires deliberately building ESG’s narrative infrastructure through inclusive, collaborative, and ongoing engagement. Practically, companies should move beyond occasional or reactive consultations toward sustained processes where stakeholders actively shape strategies. This can involve establishing community advisory boards with real decision-making power, participatory scenario planning that integrates diverse local perspectives, and internal cross-functional councils that ensure workers, communities, and youth voices directly influence ESG outcomes. Such sustained, authentic collaboration bridges the gap between institutional intentions and genuine public legitimacy. Within companies, narrative stewardship should not be limited to corporate communications or sustainability departments alone. Effective ESG storytelling depends on regular, structured collaboration across multiple functions—including strategy, human resources, procurement, product development, and finance—to ensure ESG commitments align authentically with core business decisions and reflect real-world stakeholder experiences. Companies can institutionalize this collaboration by creating dedicated cross-functional ESG committees tasked with integrating diverse internal perspectives, monitoring stakeholder feedback, and ensuring ESG initiatives clearly connect to tangible social outcomes. At an institutional level, building ESG narrative infrastructure involves establishing platforms that broaden participation in ESG discourse. It requires supporting initiatives that improve public understanding of ESG standards and practices, funding research that evaluates public perceptions of ESG alongside traditional financial metrics and ensuring ESG disclosures transparently reflect diverse stakeholder concerns. ESG narrative legitimacy grows stronger when diverse perspectives genuinely shape how ESG commitments are determined and communicated, implemented, and monitored—not merely as token inclusions, but as integral, strategic components of ESG itself. Regulators have an essential role in shaping ESG narrative infrastructure. Current ESG disclosure standards typically prioritize technical accuracy and financial materiality, mostly targeting investor needs. Broadening these frameworks to explicitly incorporate public legitimacy could significantly enhance ESG’s impact. For example, regulators could introduce clear criteria assessing whether companies effectively communicate their ESG strategies to diverse stakeholders and evaluate how these communications influence brand value and reputational risk—approaches already emerging in Europe’s Green Claims Directive and the CSRD/ESRS focus on double materiality. Additionally, policy evaluations could systematically measure whether ESG initiatives are genuinely perceived as fair, inclusive, and beneficial by the communities they affect. Public support and trust require deliberate and continuous effort; they cannot be assumed or taken for granted. Fortunately, inspiring examples of effective ESG narrative infrastructure already exist. Companies like Patagonia have openly integrated supplier and worker voices into their ESG narratives, transparently highlighting labour practices and sourcing standards, significantly enhancing their credibility. Unilever’s inclusive “living wage” campaigns have similarly leveraged stories from frontline workers to connect ESG metrics with tangible social outcomes, strengthening stakeholder trust. Industry-specific initiatives, such as the Bangladesh Accord in apparel, demonstrate how authentically incorporating diverse stakeholder experiences—including employees, unions, and community representatives—into ESG reporting can reinforce accountability and legitimacy. These examples highlight how inclusive storytelling, grounded in genuine stakeholder participation, can transform ESG commitments from abstract promises into credible actions with real-world impact. ESG professionals now face an exciting strategic opportunity: intentionally building a narrative infrastructure that's genuinely inclusive, collaborative, and resilient. Yes, involving diverse stakeholders means navigating complexity, dialogue, and occasionally tough compromises. It also means embracing participatory processes that might feel messier or less predictable. But it's exactly this diversity of voices and collective authorship that generates persuasive, robust narratives—ones that not only resonate widely but can confidently withstand shifts in politics, culture, and public sentiment. Beyond strengthening ESG's narrative infrastructure, it's important for ESG professionals to step back and consider sustainability more broadly. By explicitly linking ESG narratives to overarching sustainability objectives—such as respecting planetary boundaries and enabling a just transition—professionals can better illustrate how financial markets, corporate strategies, and policy frameworks actively support broader ecological and social well-being. Making these broader connections explicit can deepen trust, enhance engagement, and ensure the interconnected ESG-sustainability story resonates meaningfully with all those whose futures depend on it. We stand at a turning point, facing a critical opportunity to strengthen ESG’s narrative foundations. While ESG’s narrative fragility has been clearly exposed, this moment also offers an inspiring chance to intentionally build a more inclusive, credible, and resilient narrative infrastructure. The future of sustainability depends not only on rigorous metrics or detailed disclosures, but ultimately on whether those whose lives are impacted recognize themselves clearly in its story. By authentically amplifying diverse voices, explicitly connecting ESG initiatives to broader sustainability goals, and developing narratives rooted in real-world experiences, we can foster the trust, legitimacy, and collective commitment necessary for meaningful and lasting progress.
By Antoinette de Crombrugghe May 15, 2025
I belong to a generation raised in the shadow of the climate crisis. But it wasn’t something we were taught in school. It wasn’t part of our curriculum, our standardized tests, our childhood vocabulary. We came across it slowly, in fragments, through social media, activism, panic headlines, and documentaries. We educated ourselves. We connected the dots. And still, many of us are figuring out how to carry this knowledge and how to live with it without being crushed by it.
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By Ana Bachurova March 20, 2025
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