We believed that the salvation of the world, the cure for climate change, and the end of pollution and waste, all of it, would be driven through business profits and strategic motivation. Doing good by the environment—cutting energy use with better light bulbs and boilers, reducing inefficiency through design and engineering, and adding renewable energy supply—was not only environmentally responsible, it was good for the bottom line. Win-win: green both ways.

Systemic change is the only path to climate stability. But what the corporate sustainability movement has truly succeeded at is ensuring that everyone works within a narrowly defined playing field that leaves the one thing we need to upend—the fossil-fuel-based economy—intact an...