The Rise of the Chief Sustainability Officer

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Organizational Culture   Strategy   Sustainability  

A trend is beginning to emerge to appoint chief sustainability officers (CSOs). That acronym can get confusing, as it’s also used to refer to chief strategy officer roles—but let’s just work on the assumption that in this article we’re referring to sustainability.

The cynic in me might suggest that the appointment of a CSO is a response to pressure from investors and shareholders to become more environmentally accountable; but regardless of the drivers, it is a function that is starting to appear more often.

A few years ago, it was likely to only occur in companies that were part of industries that were seen as being environmentally damaging. I can think of two companies that I deal with who had a CSO in place several years ago. One of those companies is in the oil exploration business, and the other is a plastics manufacturer. But now the role is beginning to become more mainstream, even if it still has a way to go before it becomes commonplace.

Why all this talk of CSOs, other than the rise of ESG (environmental, social and governance)? Well, research from PMI suggests that the CSO has the “greatest focus and input for shaping the company’s ESG reporting strategy.” Greater than the board of directors, investor relations or any other function. In other words, the CSO has the greatest influence on determining what and how …

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