When Fisher describes how projects and initiatives come about in her organization, she emphasizes encouraging employees to be passionate and giving them “permission to care.” For example, an assistant, Amy Hall, rose in the company to become Director of Social Consciousness by following her passion for how the company was running its factories and treating its factory workers, eventually becoming involved in setting standards for how factories operate worldwide. In 2013, at a four-day off-site company sustainability conference, the staff made a commitment to produce only environmentally sustainable clothing by the year 2020. Although the idea had not originally come from Fisher, she wanted to lend her support and realized the importance of simply saying, “yes.” Although she doesn't call herself a CEO, she realized that “saying yes gives people permission” to go forward.

Nature is eternally restless. It doesn’t sit still, it doesn’t wait for a catastrophe, it doesn’t ask permission, it doesn’t plan—it just tries stuff. The same needs to be true of your organization. That means letting people be as experimental at work as they are in the rest of their lives. In the words of the great management thinker, Elvis Presley, it’s time for “a little less conversation and a little more action.” So just go try something.

Often the focus on consumption decisions is accompanied by a failure to prioritise. Consider, for example, the recent wave of advocacy for reducing plastic. The total impact this has on the environment is tiny. You would have to reuse your plastic bag eight thousand times in order to cancel out the effect of one flight from London to New York. And avoiding plastic has only a tiny effect on ocean plastic pollution. In rich countries with effective waste management, plastic waste very rarely ends up in the oceans. Almost all ocean plastic comes from fishing fleets and from poorer countries with less-effective waste management.

The sine qua non of any successful corporate transformation is public acknowledgment of the existence of a crisis. If employees do not believe a crisis exists, they will not make the sacrifices that are necessary to change. Nobody likes change. Whether you are a senior executive or an entry-level employee, change represents uncertainty and, potentially, pain.

In 2021 the newly formed investment fund Engine No. 1 secured the election of environmentalist Andy Karsner to the Exxon Mobil board. Sometimes corporate activists are active in both senses, as with Icahn’s attempts to engage with McDonald’s over animal welfare.