An organisation I have dealings with (not a client), has recently announced an challenging sustainability target for 2050. “More ambitious than Paris” is the boast.

Which is great except for the fact that few people sitting around the table, patting themselves on the back, will still be there in 34 years time. It will be somebody else’s problem – if anybody remembers to pass it forward, that is.

I have recommended they adopt at least one interim target to focus minds on a comprehensible goal to aim for now, but it remains to be seen whether they will take me up on it.

Setting a timescale for sustainability targets is as much an art as a science. It depends on the organisation – some of my clients are happy planning decades ahead as that’s their natural business cycle, but most work to a much shorter timeframe. You need to find the zone where the target will affect important business decisions (particularly capital investment) but without being so far in the future that it gets shunted down the agenda.

My rule of thumb is 5-10 years as this allows for capital investment and innovation, but remains tangible to people working in the business now. Some leaders, notably Interface, have gone longer than this and stuck to it – 24 years in Interface’s Mission Zero – but the commitment needs to be absolutely rock solid to deliver that far ahead.