Unsung Heroes: Corporate Sustainability Officers

I've long believed that the private sector has an important role in addressing critical social and environmental challenges.

Like everyone else, most business leaders want their companies to be good neighbors and respected members of the community -- commitments long reflected in corporate social responsibility policies.

But today, the drivers of environmental action go deeper than philanthropic motives, or doing the right thing. They also go beyond regulatory compliance. For a growing number of companies, "going green" is now a core business strategy. Those companies committed to minimizing their environmental footprints and factoring the value of nature into their business plans are the ones that will lead their industries in earnings growth, productivity, innovation and employee satisfaction in the decades ahead.

At the World Environment Center's (WEC) annual Gold Medal Colloquium last week, I joined a number of business leaders who "get" this point. This year WEC recognized IBM for its commitment to integrating environmental sustainability throughout its business practices. Past honorees include Coca-Cola for its far-sighted efforts to protect the watersheds it depends on for its business and Nestlé, which has embraced the concept of Shared Value -- looking beyond short-term financial gains to create long-term value for both shareholders and society.

What do companies leading the way in environmental sustainability have in common?

• They almost always have an inspired leader in charge of the company's sustainability agenda. As companies get more serious about their environmental strategies, the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) has emerged as a key player in developing win-win solutions that benefit both business and nature. I think some of the boldest and most innovative business leaders today are CSOs. They are changing how business is done.

It's not an easy job. He or she must have deep knowledge of the company's core operations, a real commitment to the environment, and strong relationships with NGOs, communities and other allies. A good CSO finds ways for a company to strengthen business outcomes and environmental outcomes at the same time. A great CSO builds a true culture of sustainability across every aspect of the business, embedding environmental thinking into employees' goals, measures and incentives.

• Of course, a great CSO must work alongside a great CEO committed to building that culture and making sustainability a top priority for the company. They have what sustainability experts Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston call an "eco-advantage mindset" -- they take a long-range view of timeframes and payoffs when evaluating environmental decisions; they look for opportunities for improvement across their entire value chain; and they adopt the "failure is not an option" motto -- establishing tough environmental goals to which they hold themselves accountable. If they fall short of these goals, they are fully transparent to the company's stakeholders and the general public.
• These sustainability leaders fully integrate nature into their core business strategies, using tools and resources grounded in solid science. They do so because they recognize the value of nature that sustains industries: the oceans that provide seafood; the forests that provide trees for paper products; the healthy soils that grow crops; the rivers that provide fresh water. They understand that investing in the long-term health of these resources will well-position their companies for the future.
• These sustainability leaders are resolute and don't back down in the face of criticism. Big, global businesses are complex organizations. Perfect outcomes are not in the cards. Even the best performing environmentally-focused companies will have setbacks -- mistakes, accidents or other disappointments. When this happens, critics will pounce. (Not a bad thing -- criticism can lead to good improvements.) But their leaders don't waver from their long-term game plans.

Just as successful businesses are making conservation a core part of their business strategy, conservationists should adopt as a core strategy collaborating carefully with businesses to lend expertise and help speed up the adoption of sustainable practices. Collaboration does not mean, however, that companies should expect a free pass from environmentalists. Watchdog NGOs that push companies to do the right thing play an important role in exposing bad practices and using publicity to drive change. Even companies leading the way on sustainability efforts still have a long way to go. There, no doubt, will be occasions when honest attempts between environmentalists and companies to collaborate will prove disappointing.

But to not work with companies -- whose footprints and influence are vast -- to improve environmental sustainability is to miss an essential opportunity to help them make better decisions, understand the value of nature and create real conservation gains around the world.

In my view, we are in the midst of a defining moment for the private sector. Great Chief Sustainability Officers, working with strong CEOs and collaborating with smart conservation organizations, have the opportunity to demonstrate that healthy lands and waters are good for nature, people and business.

 

 

 

Follow Mark Tercek on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@MarkTercek

Comments

[Scott Howes]

05:20 PM on 05/13/2012

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[NotaBene4Veritas]

04:22 AM on 05/13/2012

Oh wait, that is just the WEC Board of Directors. Their membership list is basically the top 100 worst polluters. So here is a story promoting awards given to companies for sustainability, when in fact it is just a bunch of huge polluters who sit around and vote for each other. The biggest dirtiest companies getting environmental awards from each other. This is Orwellian.

Here is a partial list of their members:

Chrysler
General Motors
Johnson Controls
The Ford Motor Company
Volkswagen
ABN AMRO
Arch Chemicals
Bayer AG
The Dow Chemical Company
Dupont
Boeing
IBM
Intel
Ricoh
AECOM
Cemex
CH2M HILL
Beiersdorf AG
Marks & Spencer
Nestlé S.A.
Philips Electronics N.V.
Unilever
Wal-Mart Stores
The Walt Disney Company
The Coca-Cola Company
FEMSA
H.J. Heinz Company
Smith and Nephew
Ingersoll Rand
Marriott International
Rio Tinto Alcan
Vale Inco Ltd.
Chevron
Occidental
Schlumberger
Shell
International Paper
Abbott
AstraZeneca
Boehringer Ingelheim
Bristol-Myers Squibb
Merck KGaA
Novartis
Roche
Sanofi-Aventis

Source: http://www.wec.org/membership/members

[NotaBene4Veritas]

04:17 AM on 05/13/2012

I just looked up WEC.

Guess who is on the Board of Directors? All corporate fat cats such as
Coca-Cola Co., Shell, Bayer, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Merck, Hoffman-LaRoche.

What a joke. Corporations get together and give each other environmental awards. Give me a break.

[NotaBene4Veritas]

10:35 PM on 05/12/2012

Let me just add, until corporate cultures change from idolizing "maximum profit" and start to lean towards "maximum good", we will not see any change in the destruction we are reaping upon the planet.

"Shared Value", "Corporate Social Responsiblity", and "Sustainable Development" are nothing more than buzz words in the corporate PR world of spin.

[NotaBene4Veritas]

10:32 PM on 05/12/2012

I was surprised to see Nestle on that list. Nestle is the company that is draining the Great Lakes one bottle at a time. They are tapping aquifers throughout the Great Lakes states and pumping out pure clean water and putting it into plastic bottles with labels like "Ice Mountain" and "Poland Springs". And I guarantee they are not sharing that value -- they are making a fortune pumping that water out for free and then selling it at a price higher than what you pay for gasoline. They are not sharing the value of that water with citizens of the Great Lakes states or even the country.

Not only is this a problem for the Great Lakes, but there is a tremendous amount of fossil fuels involved in their business. Not only for the transport of those water bottles, but also the manufacture of them -- plastic comes from petroleum. And of course there is that whole area in the ocean with all the plastic containers floating around....isn't it larger than the state of Texas? ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/5208645/Drowning-in-plastic-The-Great-Pacific-Garbage-Patch-is-twice-the-size-of-France.html)

[fortressfountain]

05:24 PM on 05/11/2012

More bs. Like my grocery store wants to only sell farm raised.fish because it is substainable. So what it has more mercury and less of the good stuff. I will not buy it.

[Under Fed yet Fed Up]

05:22 PM on 05/11/2012

"Green" and "sustainability" are often the same thing. But not always. A classic example is a company names Sasol. A very large international organization that is known for producing many things but is at the center of the manufacture of solvents exempt from VOC regulations because of their non-reactive, non-ozone creating path of degradation.

A real friend of the environment?

Not quite.

These solvents are manufactured from oil even though there is a cleaner synthetic pathway starting with soya oil that has fewer wastes and is thereby less polluting.

So we must be diligent when evaluating the "green" and "sustainability" labels. Because they can be misleading.

[Lance Manling]

02:48 PM on 05/11/2012

I can see the others in the company hoisting the Chief Sustainability Officer onto their shoulders because he or she did the best job at sustaining whatever they were trying to sustain.

By the way, who decided what is sustained?