By Jan A Brief Reflection on Ethics, Law, and the Growing Pains of Sustainability
By a Curious Observer
It’s not every day that young lawyers walk out of elite firms because their conscience spoke louder than their paycheck. And it’s not every day that CEOs see their bonus depend on carbon reduction instead of just profit margins. Yet here we are — a curious moment in time where ethics is no longer confined to personal journals or awkward dinner conversations. It’s knocking on the doors of the boardroom.
Two recent reports — one about lawyers protesting Trump-era deals, the other about sustainability goals influencing executive pay — reveal a shared undercurrent: systems are shifting, and not always gracefully.
Let’s be honest: many of these changes aren’t purely noble. Bonuses are still bonuses. Regulation often leads the way before the heart follows. But perhaps that’s how it starts. A quiet crack in the logic of business-as-usual. A whisper: “What if we didn’t just survive, but acted in service of something larger?”
Conflict, after all, isn’t failure. It’s the friction that makes movement possible. The old structures resist, the new values insist. Somewhere in that tension, a more conscious world tries to be born.
As one ancient document put it, “There is no harmony without conflict.” And maybe that’s a good thing. Harmony without resistance is just decorum. True harmony sings only after the dissonance has been heard and held.
So let’s not rush to make everything agreeable. Let the lawyer quit. Let the CEO squirm. Let the bonus bend toward something regenerative. And let us — the humble observers — smile gently at the mess of it all.
It means something is alive.