You are Ingrid Vermeer, Director of Sustainable Development at Rhijnland Foods. The board's patience and your credibility both hinge on visible progress this year.
Rhijnland committed publicly to halve emissions and cut water use by 2030, but two years in, plant managers treat sustainability as compliance paperwork and frontline engagement is flat. A consultancy's earlier top-down scorecard bred resentment and quiet resistance. You believe lasting change must engage employees' own sense of purpose through appreciative, participatory inquiry, yet the board, rattled by a retailer's supplier audit, is demanding hard targets and fast, auditable numbers.
You decide whether to lead a stalled sustainability transformation through appreciative inquiry or a hard-target mandate.