An immersive leadership journey

Lead the decisions
that bend the curve.

We help leaders make better decisions — for today's business and tomorrow's world — by giving the planet a central place in how strategy is shaped and executed in real life.

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Why now

We already have the answers. What's missing is the leadership.

Most of what we need to change our climate trajectory already exists. What's needed now is leadership that brings it to life — in real decisions, in real moments, with the courage to move and bring others along.

01

Organisations face interconnected challenges — climate change, resource scarcity, inequality, geopolitical disruption — that traditional leadership can't solve.

02

Leaders must shift from short-term performance alone to also building long-term resilience and regeneration.

03

Companies that embed sustainability into strategy build stronger growth, deeper trust, and greater adaptability.

Sustainable leadership is no longer optional — it's a prerequisite for relevance.

The podcast

Start with the why.

The world has changed, and so has what leadership demands. In this short conversation, Stendert Krommendam and Jan Bart Brockhuis share the thinking behind the workshop — why it matters now, the challenge it addresses, and what you can expect to gain. A few minutes well spent before you decide.

▶  Press play below

Episode · Recorded 28 July 2026

The why behind the Sustainable Leader

Stendert Krommendam & Jan Bart Brockhuis · 19 min listen
What is sustainable leadership

Leading beyond today.

Sustainable leadership means making decisions that create value not just now, but for generations to come. It combines vision, systems thinking, and human-centred leadership to navigate complexity — rooted in "7th-generation thinking": every action should benefit those who come after us.

IF NOT HERE…… WHERE?

IF NOT NOW…… WHEN?

IF NOT ME…… WHO?

— the simple key questions every leader should ask themselves

The workshop

Not a training — a shift in how you lead.

An immersive journey where leaders step out of day-to-day pressure to explore how their business operates within a broader ecosystem of people, planet, and performance. It combines head, heart, and hands — moving from insight to action.

What participants walk away with
  • → A new leadership lens: the ability to think systemically and long-term
  • → Stronger clarity of purpose — and how to embed it in decisions
  • → Practical tools to integrate sustainability into strategy and operations
  • → The confidence to lead change and influence stakeholders
  • → A shared leadership language aligned with organisational ambition
How it works
Duration
2 immersive days

In-company or open subscription

Setting
Nature-inspired

In-person, with reflection and experiential elements

Group size
10–20 leaders

Intimate cohorts for deep dialogue

Approach
Blended learning

Models, peer exchange, real cases, reflection

Who it's for

For those who shape decisions — and those about to. Sustainable leadership isn't a title; it's a way of deciding. The workshop brings together leaders and emerging leaders alike — across business, NGOs and the public sector, at every level where real choices get made.

Workshop circle set up outdoors, overlooking the hills
Sunrise over the heath at a workshop location
Our model

One mindset. Four capabilities.

Behind the workshop is a simple model of what sustainable leadership actually takes — one mindset at the core, four capabilities around it. Tap any capability to see what it looks like in practice.

SystemsThinking AuthenticStewardship CollaborativeInfluence Innovation forRegeneration THE CORE MINDSET 7th-Generation Leadership

Tap a capability to explore it

Systems Thinking

Sees the whole system and how it may evolve.

  • Reads the early signals
  • Joins the dots others miss
  • Names the real trade-offs
  • Keeps the whole system healthy
What it looks like

A food business that had always treated packaging, sourcing and nutrition as three separate problems — until it saw them as one system, and found that a single change upstream eased the pressure on all three at once.

What we work on

Moving from reacting to trends to reading the early signals — and learning to trace a decision's ripples two or three steps out, before they arrive as surprises.

Ask yourself

When did you last change a decision because of a knock-on effect three steps away from where you were looking?

Authentic Stewardship

Leads honestly, like it's theirs to protect.

  • Does what they said they'd do
  • Owns the hard decisions
  • Earns trust by being open
  • Serves people, not just results
What it looks like

A leader facing a hard quarter who chose to protect a long-term commitment they'd made publicly — and earned more trust from that one “no” than from a year of good numbers.

What we work on

Getting clear on the values you'll actually hold when they're tested — and closing the gap between stating them and being seen to live them.

Ask yourself

Which of your stated commitments would survive a bad quarter — and which quietly wouldn't?

Collaborative Influence

Brings people with them toward a shared goal.

  • Builds coalitions across silos
  • Listens for the missing voices
  • Creates shared ownership
  • Makes it everyone's job
What it looks like

A sustainability lead who got nowhere issuing targets — until they built a coalition of unlikely allies across procurement, finance and operations, and the change started to carry itself.

What we work on

Influencing without authority — turning a change you own into one that others feel is theirs, across silos and beyond your control.

Ask yourself

Whose buy-in would make your biggest priority unstoppable — and when did you last genuinely listen to them?

Innovation for Regeneration

Builds things that give back more than they take.

  • Experiments and learns fast
  • Turns waste into value
  • Designs to give back
  • Backs what builds resilience
What it looks like

A manufacturer that reframed its waste stream as a raw material — turning a disposal cost into a new product line and a smaller footprint at the same time.

What we work on

Shifting the ambition from “do less harm” to “leave it better” — running pilots you learn from fast, and scaling the ones that build resilience.

Ask yourself

Where in your business is something you treat as waste actually value you haven't claimed yet?

Proven in practice

“I now see sustainability not as a constraint, but as a driver of strategy and innovation.”

Many leaders describe a shift moment — from "what does sustainability mean for the company?" to "what does it mean for me as a leader, and the decisions I make tomorrow?"

100+
Senior leaders have completed the Sustainable Leader workshop — across France, Benelux, the Nordics, Germany, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy.
2.7 → 3.9
Increase in confidence to integrate sustainability into strategy (out of 5).
Founders & facilitators

Business leadership meets sustainability expertise.

Designed and facilitated by a team combining senior corporate leadership, deep sustainability expertise, and powerful facilitation skills.

Stendert Krommendam

Stendert Krommendam

Group HR, Sustainability & Communications leader at Ecotone
  • 20+ years of global leadership across HR, transformation, and sustainability
  • Architect of the Sustainable Leader programme
  • Passionate about developing leaders who bridge business success with planetary impact
Connect on LinkedIn
Watch a short introduction
Jan Bart Brockhuis

Jan Bart Brockhuis

Leadership expert, facilitator & systems thinker
  • Background in executive coaching, systemic leadership, and transformation
  • Creates powerful reflection moments that shift perspectives and behaviours
  • Brings depth in connecting personal leadership with wider societal impact
Connect on LinkedIn
Watch a short introduction

Our story. The Sustainable Leader initiative was born from a simple but urgent realisation: this is one of the most critical moments in our shared human story. The climate challenge is immense — but so is our ability to respond.

Never before have we been so equipped to shape a different future. The solutions exist. The opportunity is real. We can still bend the curve. The question is: who will lead the way?

Stendert Krommendam and Jan Bart Brockhuis at sunset
Listen & read

Go deeper.

Appearances
The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast
A conversation with Stendert Krommendam
Listen →
Embedding Sustainability & Systems Thinking
Apple Podcasts — core leadership qualities
Listen →
HR, Profit and Purpose
How HR Leaders Change the World — Episode 110
Listen →
Video conversation
A richer media experience (YouTube)
Watch →
Recommended reads
  • Net Positive — Paul Polman & Andrew Winston
  • Doughnut Economics — Kate Raworth
  • Reinventing Organizations — Frederic Laloux
  • The Fifth Discipline — Peter Senge

Want occasional insights on sustainable leadership? Subscribe →

Practical details

Upcoming open programmes.

Two open-cohort dates are coming up. The full picture — format, exact location, and pricing — depends on whether you join an open programme or bring the workshop in-company, so we share those details personally once you register your interest.

10–11 December 2026
Open programme · The Netherlands
Two immersive days · limited places
Register your interest
4–5 March 2027
Open programme · The Netherlands
Two immersive days · limited places
Register your interest

Prefer an in-company programme for your team, or a different location? Register your interest and we'll tailor the details to you.

Contact / join us

Let's connect.

For registration, partnerships, or speaking engagements — reach out and we'll get back to you.

Bring the workshop to your organisation

Join a community of leaders shaping a thriving future — as a participant, a partner, or a host.

Get in touch
info@the-sustainable-leader.com
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Our mission

To grow a movement of sustainable leaders who help bend the curve on our climate trajectory.

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