What Swimming the English Channel Taught Me About Sustainable Programs — And Why Firms Want the Identical Mindset

Three years in the past at present, 3 shut buddies and I entered the waters off Samphire Hoe, Dover. What occurred over the following 11.5 hours turned, with out query, the largest achievement of my life.

We have been the primary Southeast Asian relay group to swim the English Channel.

I didn’t say that about closing a deal. I didn’t say it a couple of file income 12 months, a profitable enterprise turnaround, or finishing my Masters at Cambridge. I stated it in regards to the morning in 2023 when 3 shut buddies and I made historical past within the Dover Strait.

And within the three years since, I’ve come to grasp that all the things the Channel taught us — about programs, about groups, about goal, about ending — is precisely what the sustainability motion wants to listen to proper now.

The Channel crossing was my thought, starting within the depths of a lockdown throughout COVID. Which meant I needed to recruit three different individuals keen to enter 16-degree water within the pre-dawn darkness of the Dover Strait, share a help boat for greater than 12 hours, and belief one another fully. And none of us have been open water swimmers, neither have we swum in chilly waters earlier than…

Sustainability transformation, or any enterprise transformation begins the identical method. Someone has to have the concept. Someone has to recruit the believers. And the standard of the group you construct determines all the things that follows. And simply since you’ve by no means performed it earlier than doesn’t suggest its not possible. Therefore, most of all, its about goal & perception.

We accomplished our crossing in below 12 hours — an excellent time by Channel requirements. Not as a result of we have been the strongest swimmers. Because we have been probably the most aligned group.

The English Channel just isn’t a swimming pool. It is a dwelling system — tidal currents, delivery lanes, jellyfish, temperature shifts, climate that adjustments with out discover, and 21 species of sharks. The second you enter the water, your plan meets actuality and actuality wins.

Every sustainability technique I’ve seen fail has failed for a similar purpose — it was designed for ideally suited circumstances. Net zero roadmaps written in boardrooms. ESG frameworks constructed on assumptions. Carbon targets set with out understanding the underlying enterprise system.

The Channel taught me that adaptive capability just isn’t a nice-to-have. It is your entire recreation.

The swimmers who end aren’t those with one of the best plan. They are those who can learn the water, regulate in actual time, and preserve transferring towards France regardless.

Each of us swam in one-hour relay legs. All 4 of us swam our 1st leg within the pre-dawn hours — full darkness, the help boat’s lights the one reference level in a black sea.

There is a selected high quality to that form of effort. No viewers. No seen progress. No solution to know the way far France is. Just you, the water, and the choice to maintain going.

This is the place most sustainability initiatives die — within the pre-dawn stretch the place outcomes aren’t but seen, management consideration has moved on, and the group is operating on conviction moderately than validation.

The organisations that achieve real sustainability transformation are those that preserve swimming in the dead of night. Not as a result of they’ll see the vacation spot but. Because they determined earlier than they entered the water that they might end.

A relay crossing means you spend a lot of the journey on the boat, watching. Watching your teammates battle. Watching the present push them sideways. Unable to assist — solely in a position to be prepared on your subsequent leg.

That dependency is humbling. 4 shut buddies, every trusting the others fully. When one among us was within the water, the remainder of us have been that individual’s whole help system.

Sustainable programs work the identical method. Banks can’t decarbonise their portfolios alone. Corporations can’t attain internet zero with out their provide chains. Governments can’t drive transition with out the personal sector. The handover moments — between banks and purchasers, between financiers and undertaking builders, between coverage and observe — are the place the Channel is received or misplaced.

The query for each organisation pursuing sustainability is not only “are we swimming?” It is “are we ready for our teammates when they need us?”

People ask what 16-degree water looks like while you first enter it at 3am.

It feels just like the chilly is attempting to let you know to get again on the boat. Especially for 4 lads from tropical Singapore.

But here’s what I realized: the chilly just isn’t an impediment to endure. It is the defining situation of the problem. Remove the chilly and it isn’t the English Channel anymore. It is a lap pool with a French flag on the finish.

Genuine sustainability transformation is meant to be uncomfortable. It requires banks to cost local weather danger into selections which are at present worthwhile. It requires companies to put money into transition prices that don’t seem on this or subsequent quarter’s P&L. It requires leaders to make selections whose payoffs arrive after their tenure ends.

Organisations that anticipate comfy circumstances won’t ever enter the water.

At some level throughout a Channel crossing, the rational thoughts presents its case. You are chilly. You are drained. France just isn’t seen. The boat is true there.

The reply to that voice just isn’t willpower alone. It is Purpose. And for us, goal had a reputation — Art:Dis Singapore.

We swam to lift funds for individuals with disabilities within the arts. Every stroke had a purpose past the crossing itself. We raised greater than S$60,000. And when the rational thoughts made its case mid-Channel, the reply was not “because we can” — it was “because they are counting on us.”

This is the lesson that sustainability leaders most have to internalise proper now. Purpose just isn’t delicate. It is structural. Organisations with a real why behind their sustainability commitments — rooted in enterprise actuality, not advertising narrative — are those that preserve swimming when circumstances get exhausting.

Sustainability that can’t survive a troublesome quarter just isn’t sustainable. It must be economically grounded, commercially built-in, and purpose-anchored concurrently. Not one or two of these issues. All three.

We touched the French coast having crossed 34 kilometres of open water (straight line 34km, whole precise distance with tide and currents – 52km) in below 12 hours as a four-person relay group — the primary Southeast Asian group to take action.

I didn’t really feel like ending within the pre-dawn darkness of my one-hour leg. Nobody looks like ending when they’re chilly and can’t see the vacation spot. Finishing isn’t a sense. It is all the time a choice made earlier than you enter the water.

I take into consideration that consistently within the context of sustainability management. The organisations that may genuinely rework — that may attain their internet zero targets, embed actual ESG self-discipline, construct sustainable enterprise fashions — have already made the choice. They aren’t ready to really feel prepared.

The ones nonetheless standing on the seashore at Dover, testing the water with one foot, are those who will watch another person arrive in France.

I’m finishing my Masters of Studies in Sustainability Leadership on the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership this 12 months. I’ve spent 5 years constructing sustainability options throughout ASEAN’s banking sector. I’ve seen what real transformation appears like from the within — and what performative sustainability appears like too.

The Channel didn’t train me something I couldn’t have learn in a textbook. But it taught me all the things in a method that I’ll always remember.

Sustainable programs require adaptive capability, not inflexible plans. They require groups, not heroes. They require goal that holds when circumstances get exhausting. They require leaders keen to swim in the dead of night earlier than anybody can see the outcomes.

And they require the choice — made clearly, made early, made with out ready for the sensation to reach — to complete.

The water is chilly. France is ready.

In September 2028, my group and I’ll return to Dover. And return to the English Channel.

This time, we’re going each methods. And this time, it’s going to be 5 to six of us.

England to France. France again to England. Consecutively. What no Southeast Asian relay group has ever performed. If we succeed, we would be the first.

What the primary crossing taught me about sustainable programs, the second will take a look at. The identical trigger — Art:Dis Singapore or one other charity, this time with a fair greater fundraising ambition. The identical chilly water. 2x the problem. An extended horizon. And the preparation begins now.

Because that’s what real dedication appears like. Not a single crossing. Not a single sustainability report. Not a single internet zero pledge.

A call to return in. Further. In each instructions.

Lim Chee Kiong (CK) is EVP, Group Strategic Programme — Sustainability at Maybank, and finishing his Masters of Studies in Sustainability Leadership on the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, Robinson College. In 2023, he captained the primary Southeast Asian relay group to swim throughout the English Channel, elevating greater than S$60,000 for Art:Dis Singapore — a charity supporting individuals with disabilities within the arts. In September 2028, he’ll lead the identical group++ in a two-way Channel crossing — England to France and again — a feat by no means achieved by a Southeast Asian relay group.

He writes about sustainability management, ASEAN finance, and the intersection of business actuality and long-term considering.