Stuart Jackson is a partner and former Global Managing Partner at strategy consulting firm L.E.K. Consulting. getty Environmental, social and governance (ESG) imperatives have made their way from promises in press releases to strategy and operations. That is good news, given the growing consensus that sustainability is tightly linked to value creation. But it is also a challenge for leaders and organizations. Pledging a commitment to sustainability is comparatively easy. What’s much more complicated is the challenge of operationalizing it—and making critical trade-offs between short-term performance and the achievement of sustainability goals that promise to create more value in the long term.