Exploring feedback structures to support systemic corporate sustainability transformation

Abstract Corporate sustainability is widely promoted as a strategic response to global environmental and social challenges. Yet many corporate initiatives remain symbolic, failing to generate meaningful system-level change. This study investigates why such gaps persist and what conditions enable more transformative outcomes. A systematic literature review of 41 peer-reviewed articles published between 2003 and 2024 was conducted, covering business, management and accounting, social science, environmental science, and multidisciplinary fields. Seven interrelated themes were identified: strategic tensions, sustainability discourse, sustainability integration phases, organized hypocrisy, dynamic capabilities, change agents, and systems thinking. The first six themes represent organizational constructs, which were analysed and synthesised through a systems thinking lens and visualized through two causal loop diagrams (CLDs). The first CLD adapts the “drifting goals” archetype to illustrate how organizations manage performance gaps symbolically by lowering targets or reframing narratives. The second maps reinforcing and balancing feedback loops that either constrain or enable systemic sustainability transformation. This framework explains how internal dynamics, such as discourse, agency, and capabilities, interact with external pressures and delayed feedback. It also identifies leverage points for redirecting organizational trajectories toward long-term goals, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. By moving beyond linear models, the study advances a dynamic understanding of how structural patterns shape corporate sustainability outcomes and offers both conceptual clarity and practical insights for aligning corporate strategies with the sustainability imperatives of 2050.