Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Curabitur eleifend tortor nec augue pretium
It’s ironic that the people hired to stop the corporate world from trashing the planet are in danger of harming themselves in the process.”
These are the words of Robin Hicks, author of an opinion piece published by Reuters earlier this year that followed an investigation he’d done for Eco-Business on the risk of burnout among chief sustainability officers (CSOs).
Hicks had spoken to those working in hospitality and financial services, transport and food commodities, describing tales of stress, pressure, frustration, isolation and powerlessness.
The conclusion was that these green business chiefs are “burning out” as the role mushrooms and new reporting rules “suck the life out of [them]”.
In recent months I have been drawn to their plight; my role writing about food and drink businesses’ ambitions to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, source ingredients responsibly, finance agro-ecological production of crops and limit their use of single-use packaging bringing me closer to CSOs and the highs and lows they experience.
“Burnout as work increases and budget decreases is extremely common throughout the food industry, whatever job or department you’re in,” says Susan Thomas, an independent consultant and former senior director for sustainability at Asda, the supermarket chain.
“Everyone is trying to do more with less in an increasingly pressured [and] conflict-ridden space. There is very little fun being had out there.”
So, is the role of CSO losing its appeal, and are the demands being placed on incumbents simply too much? The short answers are, respectively, ‘probably not’ and ‘most likely, yes’.
The CSO remains a relatively new role.
A Deloitte survey in 2021 of asset managers, insurers and banks in Europe, North America, Asia and emerging markets found that fewer than 15% reported having a CSO in place, although nearly half had a head of sustainability or equivalent and a further 12% had an environmental, social and governance (ESG) lead.
PwC estimates that, globally, 414 companies appointed a CSO in the eight years from 2011 to 2019; then in 2020-21 some 394 companies created CSO roles. That acceleration had begun in 2018, when issues such as climate and racial and gender equality started to influence investor and CEO decision-making. The pandemic further fuelled this uptick and, while around half of CSOs still have a limited remit, the ones with power, budget and the required skills are driving change.
“CSOs (in their various guises) have played a major part in elevating sustainability in corporate agendas,” wrote EY experts following a 2023 survey of 520 CSOs or equivalents. Their analysis of corporate data from the Fortune Global 500 also indicated that organisations with a CSO are more committed to sustainability, have more ambitious GHG emission reduction targets (54% versus 44% of organisations without a CSO), and have reduced their emissions by 3.6% over three years (versus a 5% increase in companies without a CSO).
Dax Lovegrove, head of sustainability at consultancy Salterbaxter, has worked in corporate sustainability at board level for more than 20 years, with roles including CSO at Swarovski, plus director of sustainability at Kingsfisher, Jimmy Choo and Versace. “You are up against it as a CSO, facing a hundred arguments from CEOs, CFOs and CMOs about why not to push ahead, so you need to choose your battles,” he explains.
Lovegrove admits that he was usually able to make “solid progress” on net zero, circularity and responsible sourcing, but getting into difficult areas such as living wages was “challenging, and I was prepared for more limited success. CSOs now need to be much more than knowledge experts across the core ESG issues,” he continues. “They need to be tacticians in getting green lights, inter-departmental support for implementation and prominence in the brand communications.”
Indeed, the skill set required of CSOs is evolving – and quickly. At any one time, a CSO may need to adopt different management styles, using ‘agitator’ or ‘executor’ for some parts of their business, and ‘facilitator’ or ‘steward’ in others, noted Deloitte. Successful CSOs require a healthy mixture of each of the four styles, plus an ability to dial them up or down depending on the situation and the maturity of the organisation, the consultancy said. CSOs also “need superlative communication skills and organisational ability. The range of stakeholders the CSO needs to influence is wider than that for almost any other role within the firm.”
The CSOs I have spoken to in recent months talk of the solid grounding in the inner workings of the business that is needed, as well as the technical skills. “I know how to navigate the company,” explains Claire Atkins Morris, director of sustainability at contract catering firm Sodexo. “Do not underestimate the web of influence of the CSO,” she adds.
Whether the CSO has power at board level is crucial. Some have it easier than others in this respect. Adam Read, CSO and external affairs officer at Suez Recycling and Recovery UK, runs a “small team” but sustainability is “embedded across the business”. His role, which sits at board level, was created in January 2023 to help coordinate what the business is doing, and reporting on it.
“I wasn’t hired to create something new,” he explains. “Sustainability needed a single point of reference and a director who could ‘push’ other directors as our customer expectations increased.”
Some say CSOs need to show ‘disruptive leadership’ – but that’s difficult when they may not sit on the board, let alone feed directly into the CEO. They also face the anti-CSOs, who will push back on change – especially the kind of change required to meet the various crises the world is facing.
“Crises no longer present themselves in isolation, but as part of an interconnected and hugely complex web of crises,” noted the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership recently. “As well as lacking clear pathways to a sustainable future, leaders face a barrage of market, political and media pressures, together with high geopolitical and social instability and exponential tech-driven change.”
"Everyone is trying to do more with less in an increasingly pressured [and] conflict-ridden space"
It is a heady mix. Credibility and authority in a room full of industry veterans are essential skills for a CSO, says Thomas, and they also need determination, resilience and clear-sighted thinking. “The best ones are focusing on what they can get done now which is in the right direction, seeing the long game but not waiting for a perfect enabling context,” she explains.
It sounds like a very tough juggling act. Read admits he has “never been so popular. Everyone wants to sell me something – reporting tools, data capture … consultants are offering me baselines on net zero, biodiversity and circularity.” As a former consultant he can empathise with the hard sell. Following the “shiny”, as one CSO puts it, is tempting but the role of the CSO is also to sort the wheat from the chaff, and to focus on the areas where the business can make a difference.
In a 2023 piece for Harvard Business Review, Robert Eccles, visiting professor of management practice at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and Alison Taylor, clinical associate professor at New York University Stern School of Business, described a “pivotal change” in the role of the CSO, which requires close collaboration with other members of the senior leadership team and active engagement with investors.
“The role of the CSO is undergoing a rapid and dramatic transformation,” they wrote. Instead of stealth, some PR executives – their primary task being to tell an appealing story about sustainability initiatives – are “spearheading the true integration of material ESG issues into corporate strategy”.
Taylor, author of the 2024 book Higher Ground: How Business Can Do The Right Thing in a Turbulent World, picked up on the Reuters piece, saying it was a “great piece” but with a “terrible headline”. “What’s wrong with CSOs isn’t ‘burnout’. It’s [the] total lack of role definition,” she wrote on social media. “Which means getting dumped with regulatory oversight, a million ESG questionnaires, ‘stakeholder engagement’ so no one else needs to bother, innovation, risk management, impact and running around after the CEO. In other words, she added, “comprehensive organisational transformation, often with no budget, authority or relevant expertise”.
“As well as lacking clear pathways to a sustainable future, leaders face a barrage of market, political and media pressures”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these factors are driving worrying levels of CSO dissatisfaction — only 17% of CSOs and equivalents in the survey were “highly satisfied” in their jobs, while 42% were not committed to staying with their current employer, according to EY’s 2023 survey. “This jeopardises further progress and poses considerable risks to the future continuity and strategic planning of sustainability programmes,” wrote EY global vice-chair (sustainability) Amy Brachio.
Too often, CSOs are expected to “pretend things are good enough”, as one consultant puts it. Internal greenwashing is increasingly an issue. New research led by Katherine Ellsworth-Krebs, a researcher at the University of Strathclyde, and Heather Lynch, a climate coach, show it to be one of five common challenges facing sustainability leaders. As one interviewee said: “I was told ‘we’ll sit on it, and maybe come back in the future.’ And I’m thinking, when there’s a climate emergency going on? We need to get on with stuff.”
Ellsworth-Krebs and Lynch surveyed 92 sustainability professionals and conducted 28 in-depth interviews to better understand their experience and state of wellbeing. Most were in small companies, with many respondents the sole sustainability-dedicated employee in the business. The initial summary of results shows they need more support to develop two essential skills: personal resilience, to manage eco-anxiety and the ‘all-encompassing nature’ of climate breakdown; and persuasion and comfort with conflict, because complexity and non-technical interests in the outcomes often lead to disagreement.
Ellsworth-Krebs is working with IEMA to adapt its development frameworks to reflect the emotional resilience and soft skills that are required by sustainability leaders. The survey showed that 66% are currently struggling with burnout and internal battles, while the other 33% are ‘getting things done’ and are ‘gonna change the world’. “A lot of people do love this work,” she tells Transform. But that isn’t enough, and the sooner businesses recognise it, the better.
David Burrows is a freelance writer and researcher
