This is Indonesia’s sustainability paradox: We are abundantly rich in natural assets yet we remain short on the most decisive resource of all, human expertise. Without the ability to lead, design workable policy and execute action with integrity, our sustainable wealth will not translate into resilient prosperity.

We do not need more ambitious targets; we need people who know how to hit them. The real work now lies in the unglamorous task of upgrading our national skill set so we can lead these projects ourselves.

While ESG (environmental, social and governance) committees are now standard, they have yet to trigger a proportional shift in results. Look at the familiar pattern: Finance is available but projects aren't "bankable"; road maps exist but coordination is uneven; corporate goals are clear but supply chains are stagnant. When outcomes lag behind ambition, the failure is no longer due to a lack of ideas but a systemic deficit in delivery capability.

Sustainability is too often treated as a theme rather than a competency, a campaign rather than a capability, a niche rather than a standard. We must stop viewing this through the narrow lens of environmental stewardship or corporate social responsibility. It is, fundamentally, a matter of competitiveness.

As global industrial policy and capital costs are rewritten around these standards, treating sustainability as a segmented specialty risks national obsolescence. In a unified global market where sustainability is the entry requirement, building our local "muscles" is the only way to compete in the next era of value creation.

A simple analogy from practitioners captures the first pillar: "the singer, not the song". Sustainability comes with many instruments: regulations, reporting frameworks, AI, carbon markets and financing models. But instruments do not create music, leadership does.