How Sustainable is Your Road?

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My Sustainable Encounter with Ashok Sharma

by Albert Schiller

Where Real Sustainability Begins

Sustainability has become something we know how to say, but not always how to do. It easy to spot in branding—less so in blueprints. It’s often clean and aspirational, not dusty and difficult. But when I spoke to Ashok Sharma, I was reminded where the real work happens: in documentation, in resistance, and in long-term thinking where short-term profit dominates.

Ashok has been working in environmental science and infrastructure for more than 25 years. His career spans government, research, and international consulting. He’s now with Cube Highways—a joint venture managing road and logistics assets across India. And while his title may not sound revolutionary, what he’s doing quietly is.

That sentence won’t show up on a sustainability slogan. But it’s exactly where impact lives.

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Every Step of the Road

Ashok’s work touches every part of infrastructure development: pre-acquisition audits, community engagement, ESG reporting to investors, and integrating water and energy-saving technologies into construction and maintenance. He thinks in metrics—but he leads with integrity.

The obstacles are not hidden. Ashok openly described the resistance he faces:

• Financial professionals often need convincing about the value of ESG.

• Engineers frequently resist ESG implementation if they perceive delays or extra costs.

  
  

He didn’t sound bitter. He sounded realistic. He’s not fighting one bad actor—he’s navigating systems designed to deprioritize sustainability when it slows things down or raises costs.

But Ashok stays.

That, to me, is the most important part. He hasn’t opted out. He hasn’t turned cynical. He continues to push for carbon credit opportunities, to advocate for affected communities, and to work sustainability into roads most people never think about—until they’re already driving on them.

That line hit harder than any marketing campaign ever could. Because when someone with decades in the trenches says it, you listen.

You may never work in infrastructure or sit in ESG review meetings. But you move through systems—whether as a consumer, employee, or citizen—that make decisions in your name.

Because that’s what sustainability really is: not a headline, but a habit.

Not an aesthetic, but a practice.

Ashok Sharma reminded me that the most powerful sustainability work is often invisible—unless we choose to see it.

He doesn’t just monitor infrastructure.

He protects future roads for those who haven’t arrived yet.

And that’s a kind of leadership we can all learn from.