The ESG leaders who put their teams and employees at the center of their strategy will cultivate the internal cultures of confidence, creativity and innovation that the decade ahead demands. That’s why we are proud to announce that the M Booth ESG Solutions Center is collaborating with Regenerous, an executive coaching and consulting firm serving corporate and startup sustainability leaders, to offer a new Sustaining Bold ESG Leaders Workshop customized for executives and senior leaders in charge of leading sustainability and climate action plans.
Against a torrent of change, Chief Sustainability Officers (CSOs) are asking themselves, how do we help our teams face these existential disruptions head on to fuel new ideas? How do we collaborate to make difficult choices and tradeoffs in real time? How can we adapt to the future while protecting legacy staples of our organization?
The mandate for sustainability leaders is evolving.
These questions, and the urgency of their answers, are evolving the very nature of what operationalizing sustainability means and, more importantly, what it is demanding of organizations. The good news is that capacity continues to grow within the sustainability function. The number of direct reports to CSOs is doubling, and there’s also growing accountability, according to Weinreb Group’s biennial CSO report. The study found more than 75% of CSO’s are now on leadership teams and 40% are serving as corporate officers. The most eye-catching data from this survey was the number of CSO’s reporting to Marketing executives dropped from 16% to a more sensible 0% in the past two years.
As Steve Varley, Global Vice Chair for Sustainability at EY stated as part of their own survey, “If you don’t protect and create value for your people, suppliers and communities, as well as your business, you’ll lose business to competitors that do.”
Partisan noise from the anti-ESG circus aside, this internal shift is what many of those who have dedicated their careers to this mission have been working towards for decades. An elevated and evolving role making critical and material contributions to the business shows that ESG and sustainability leaders are not only firmly at the table, they are increasingly driving many of the conversations and decisions made by those assembled around it.
Sustainability is a talent recruitment imperative.
Now is the time to make sure employees not only understand these decisions, but have a real voice in the process that led to them. Because no matter how aggressive and ambitious your 2030 targets are, and no matter how creative and engaging your next Earth Day media strategy may be, none of it is possible without an empowered, confident and connected workforce. And with trends like Climate Quitting continuing to grow, the youngest forces at work today are sending clear signals about what matters most to the talent you need in this new climate economy.
###
New Workshop For ESG Teams
The M Booth ESG Solutions Center’s Sustaining Bold ESG Leaders Workshop series uses a blend of facilitated exercises, positioning analysis and interactive training, designed to strengthen the muscles needed to transform into high-performing teams that are well equipped to achieve ESG goals, mobilize the support needed to sustain momentum, and design a teamwork environment that supports the human sustainability required for long-term success. To sign up, reach out to Christian Chamberlin at ChristianC@mbooth.com.
