What is the Role of a Chief Sustainability Officer?

20 February 2023

Between 2016 and 2021, the number of companies appointing chief sustainability officers (CSO) tripled. As businesses and charities are placing more focus on sustainability, some organisations may be considering designating a chief sustainability officer, and other organisations who already have one may find inspiration for new ideas for the role from this article. The role of CSO can have synonyms such as sustainability consultant, sustainability manager or 'sustainability' may be swapped for the terms 'social value', or 'ESG'. Whichever name for the role a company chooses, the purpose is to increase sustainability standards of the organisation by understanding legal and regulatory requirements, understanding stakeholder expectations, defining goals, measuring current data, and working with stakeholders to plan and execute a sustainability strategy.

Many small and medium-sized businesses may not designate a single individual employee as CSO, but those responsibilities could be shared among an ESG or Sustainability Committee. These committees work best when comprised of a diverse panel of employees representing different divisions of the business and various levels of seniority. Buy-in from the most senior level of management is key to success.

Find out your Requirements

As a CSO, it is vital to follow sustainability legislation, and this will differ depending on the organisation's size and country. For example, in the UK, the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting policy (SECR) only requires quoted companies, large unquoted companies and limited liability partnerships to disclose their energy usage and emissions in their annual report. However, many smaller businesses who do not legally need to disclose sustainability assessments are asked to do so by larger business partners or choose to do so, in order to show strong sustainability credentials to stakeholders. Since sustainability legislation and best practice is constantly evolving, it is important that the CSO monitors these changes, both for the areas that the organisation operates in, as well as other countries where partners, suppliers and clients are based.

Collecting Data

In order to consider an organisation's sustainability credentials, it is important to gather already existing data. This is necessary for sustainability reporting, and it will unveil areas that your organisation needs to start recording in the future. Relevant sustainability data can include factors such as waste, water, employee satisfaction and health and safety statistics. If you are planning a net zero strategy, you will need to report your emissions, for which you may already have some of the relevant data. For example, to measure scope 2 emissions, organisations will have to know the amount of electricity that they used which can be calculated from bills or meter readings. Additionally, you may already have data on business travel or employee commuting which is required as part of scope 3. If you do not have precise data for all the factors needed to report emissions, you can make estimates based on other factors such as cost.

Understanding Stakeholders’ Values

The terms sustainability and ESG encompass a wide range of topics, from environmental factors, to data security, to representation within leadership. Therefore, different organisations may have varying views on what they value. An assessment of the material risks facing your business should also inform which ESG topics should be targeted and monitored. To undertake a comprehensive analysis on this, you can send questionnaires or conduct interviews with different stakeholders to find out which areas they would like to focus on in your sustainability strategy, as well as conducting an internal analysis

Sustainability Strategy

Once you have data on how the organisation is already performing and you know which topics your stakeholders want to focus on, you can put in place your sustainability strategy. This will consist of goals that are specific to your organisation. For example, you could identify quantitative targets for emissions, water consumption, employee diversity and volunteer days that you want to achieve by a set date. The strategy may also include longer term goals such as having more balanced representation in leadership or assessing suppliers to see if they are acting in line with your organisation's values.

Communicating Sustainability Initiatives Internally and Externally

Having a sustainability strategy is important, but to achieve it, you will need the people within the organisation to be on board. As CSO it is important to have regular catch ups with team members throughout the organisation to motivate them and to monitor progress. You may wish to prepare some educational activities, presentations, and workshops about sustainability for your colleagues. Equally an ESG committee should regularly (e.g., quarterly) communicate objectives and progress to wider stakeholders across the business through town halls.

Some businesses choose to incentivise sustainable behaviour such as paying for a bike over the course of a year to encourage employees to cycle to work, hence reducing scope 3 emissions via employee commuting. You could also introduce financial incentives or point based systems, for example giving to charity for staff achieving sustainability targets, such as recycling, waste, or energy use.

You can also reach out to members of the public and other stakeholders to show how you are working towards sustainability commitments. Having an ESG report is a great way to showcase internally and externally the organisation's current sustainability credentials, targets and progress compared to previous years.

How ESGmark® can help your business

ESGmark® can help you with the process of reviewing and improving your organisation's sustainability strategy. The certification process itself is often a catalyst for organisations to consider their current actions and objectives more carefully. Our members benefit from the support of our team and the shared experience of their fellow community members to put in place credible and achievable ESG strategies. Please gget in touch with us at info@esgmark.co.uk for more information.