The barriers to progress
Systemic change in healthcare is slow for a reason. We deal with people’s lives. That means every new material, process, or protocol must meet strict safety and regulatory standards. Some materials can’t be biocompatible or recycled simply because they don’t comply. So even though we want to move the company in a more sustainable direction, change has to happen gradually.
Even raising sustainability considerations in the design phase can be a challenge, especially when there’s no clear ROI and the regulatory pathway is complex.
I remember one design meeting where I suggested a lower-impact material. The immediate response was, “Is it certified?” That’s the wall we often hit, if something isn’t proven safe or compliant, it doesn’t move forward. But even asking the question begins to shift the conversation.
This is where leadership matters. We can’t push change through force. It has to be embedded through influence, credibility, and everyday decisions. That’s why the concept of the “tempered radical,” introduced during the Leading Sustainable Business Transformation program, resonated so deeply with me. Tempered radicals work within the system to create change, quietly but effectively. That’s the kind of leader I aspire to be.
The program helped me recognize this in myself and gave me tools to do it better: how to map stakeholders, understand skeptics, identify allies, and tailor my approach to different audiences. As one of the few sustainability programs I’ve seen with a strong leadership focus, it was both grounding and empowering.