For the past seven years, I dedicated my career to helping small and mid-sized businesses implement ESG — environmental, social, and governance principles. I believed that companies could align purpose with profit. That the SDGs could be more than wallpaper in pitch decks. That ESG could future-proof businesses in the face of global shocks.

But what I learned — from data, client interactions, and macroeconomic signals — is this: the ESG promise is broken. It has become, in too many cases, a smokescreen. A checkbox. A marketing play divorced from actual performance or resilience.

This is my exit statement — and a reintroduction.

The ESG Disconnect: Theory vs. Reality

Let’s look at the facts:

• In 2022, BlackRock — one of ESG’s loudest institutional champions — quietly dialed down its ESG language in investor statements, even as they continued to profit from fossil fuel exposure. [Bloomberg, Financial Times]
• European SMEs forced to comply with CSRD reporting now face rising compliance costs with minimal market return — especially in the absence of real investor interest.
• In the Caribbean, where I’m based, ESG consulting often requires navigating patchy data, weak regulatory incentives, and a cultural disconnect between reporting and results.
• The “ROI of sustainability”? Rarely proven. Worse, it’s too often justified by academic idealism or grant dependency — not business fundamentals.

I’ve had to ask myself a hard question: Am I helping businesses thrive — or pushing them into a well-packaged delusion?

The answer, increasingly, became the latter.

ESG Became a Product, Not a Performance Strategy

The core idea of ESG — embedding long-term thinking into business — still matters. But what it became is something else: a tangle of certifications, greenwashed language, and ‘impact’ proxies that don’t move the needle.

For MSEs, it meant hiring consultants like me to write sustainability reports they didn’t use.
It meant struggling to translate emissions dashboards into anything that changed customer behavior.
It meant death by paperwork, not insight.

I’ve seen this firsthand. I’ve built the decks, run the audits, and watched them collect digital dust.

Enter Business Model Innovation: The Real Work

The companies that thrived through disruption — inflation shocks, COVID, supply chain shifts — didn’t just “go green.”
They reimagined what business they were in.

They asked better questions:

• Can we unlock a digital revenue stream?
• What parts of our operation are costing us customers — or cash?
• Can we partner, license, or franchise core assets differently?
• Where are the new profit centers no one’s looking at?

So I’ve made a decision:
I’m pivoting out of ESG consulting and into what I believe is the real future-proofing discipline:

Strategic business model innovation.

Not theory. Not ideology. Just bold redesign of how companies create, capture, and deliver value — done-for-you or DIY.

The New Offer

Through my firm Zentrepreneur, I now offer a modern business redesign. This encompasses all actions taken to ensure a business is ready to adapt to changing market conditions, new technologies, and evolving customer preferences. This could include diversifying revenue streams, developing new strategies, and fostering a culture of innovation.

If the playbook that worked for your business 20 years ago, just isn’t cutting it anymore, margins are tighter, customers are shifting, and you are left behind, we can help. We are Zentrepreneur specializing in business model innovation that survives the next wave of change — Founded by G Franker, we aim to provide invaluable insights and evidence to companies before they escalate into full-scale economic problems. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, Zentrepreneur serves clients worldwide

What we offer is a future-proof business model; We benchmark international frameworks to aid our research, we believe the most impactful findings results from uncovering innovative business models from a myriad of data. In particular we often look for situations where companies may have any combination of:

/ At-Risk Micro & Small Enterprises in Declining Sectors — like printing, traditional taxi services, or physical retail

/ Businesses that are struggling or closing down need to adapt or perish.

/ Industries facing significant disruption or regulatory pressure —wherethe playbook that worked for 20 years just isn’t cutting it.

/ Sectors impacted by technological advancements, changing consumer preferences, and economic shifts.

I want to work with business owners who are keen on performance, survival, scalability, and second chances.

If that’s you, I invite you to follow my new blog series, “Models That Matter”, where I’ll be sharing:

• Investigative deep dives on declining sectors
• Case studies of successful business pivots
• Tactical frameworks to grow without the greenwashing

G Franker

(P.S. If you are chasing something you think you want or need, or are doubting whether you are enough, take a minute and give this a listen

(It reminded me to go out and dance at times of trouble).