Danish public-health evidence reinforces this direction. Sundhedsstyrelsen’s Den Nationale Sundhedsprofil 2025 is built around a large national survey on health, disease and wellbeing, with more than 135,000 respondents in 2025. That scale alone shows how seriously Denmark treats wellbeing as a policy issue rather than a private matter. 

At EU level, mental health at work remains a major concern. EU-OSHA’s 2025 materials on mental health and psychosocial risks emphasize prevention, support, inclusion and addressing workplace stressors, while OSH Pulse 2025 focuses specifically on psychosocial risks, digital change and climate-related pressures at work. EU-OSHA also highlighted in late 2025 that 29% of EU workers suffer stress, depression or anxiety.

The labour-market side points in the same direction. The OECD’s Employment Outlook 2025 stresses ageing, social cohesion and the need for policies that support longer, better and more productive working lives. That links directly to ideas such as senior policy, lifelong learning, age-friendly work design and conditions that allow people to stay engaged without burnout.

Put simply: health, quality jobs and fair work are not external to sustainability anymore. They are now part of how institutions in Europe talk about resilience, labour capacity and social fairness.

Mental wellbeing sits at the center of sustainable work because it affects retention, participation, learning capacity, collaboration and trust. An organisation may have a green mission, but if people work in a state of constant overload, unclear expectations or poor psychological safety, that mission becomes structurally fragile. EU-OSHA’s practical guidance frames effective mental-health strategies around prevention, support and inclusivity rather than crisis response alone. 

This point is especially relevant in transition-oriented sectors. Climate work, NGO work, educational work and project-based partnership work often attract highly motivated people. Motivation helps, but it can also mask unsustainable work practices: blurred boundaries, unpaid emotional labour, permanent urgency and underinvestment in role clarity. From a sustainability perspective, that is a design problem, not only an individual coping problem.

A healthier approach starts earlier. It asks whether deadlines are realistic, whether responsibilities are understandable, whether fair pay and fair recognition are part of the model, and whether leadership reduces avoidable stress instead of normalising it. It also asks whether people at different life stages can stay engaged — including older workers, caregivers, migrants, junior staff and those entering green sectors for the first time.

The phrase “fair conditions” should not stay abstract. In practice, it includes basic elements: decent pay logic, respect for time, transparent expectations, opportunities to learn, safe participation, and work cultures that do not depend on chronic stress. The Commission’s quality-jobs framing makes that explicit by connecting working conditions, fairness and training to broader economic and social resilience.

This is also why ESG should not be reduced to reporting language. If an organisation speaks about sustainability publicly while ignoring the quality of internal work, a gap appears between values and operations. Governance then becomes performative rather than credible. Strong governance closes that gap by showing how the organisation translates social values into policy, practice and accountability.