The Evolving Role of the Chief Sustainability Officer

Given the speed at which ESG’s influence is increasing in policy agendas, capital flows, civil activism, litigation and customer choice, it is unsurprising that the role of Chief Sustainability Officer is evolving at pace.

 
Business leaders have an increasingly mature understanding of the purpose of the sustainability function, and in many companies, this has created pressure to accelerate progress across multiple agendas. Over the past year, Teneo has spoken in-depth with over 20 Chief Sustainability Officers in multi-national organisations and found that many are revisiting how they define their roles, measure their impact and set their teams up for success.

We found that the purpose and role of the function mirrors the maturity of the business on its sustainability journey. Those in the early stages rely on the function to educate stakeholders and make the business case for change. Businesses that are further along in their sustainability journey expect the function to play more of an advisory and embedding role. There is no one right model, though there are some common best practices.

However, the area of real interest to us is the direction of travel for future best practice. The function is evolving to become transformation focused, leading lasting and wide-ranging change in business strategy and operations.

 Συνέχεια εδώ