Doer, thinker, dreamer, agitator— what makes a great sustainability leader?

It is a role virtually unheard of 20 years ago. But today, chief sustainability officers (CSOs) across the world are among the most influential corporate decision makers, especially those in businesses with a large environmental and social footprint on the environment.

The role can be tricky to define, as the concept of corporate sustainability has evolved in recent years. But the consensus is that the CSO’s job is to integrate environmental, social and governance issues — also known as 'ESG' — with business decisions, processes, and culture.

In Asia, the role is somewhat less established than it is in the United States and Europe, where agitating shareholders, civic society groups and consumers have applied pressure on companies to lighten their ecological footprints since the early 2000s. But even in this region, corporates are starting to see the benefits of sustainability, as the business case become clearer.

Most companies, say Harvard Business School researchers, typically engage with sustainability because of compliance, for instance, as a response to new environmental regulations that affect the business or its suppliers. It then typically evolves into a more strategic approach to find ways to increase efficiencies and, ideally, boost the bottom line.

The most prevalent incarnation of sustainability in Asia has been corporate social responsibility (CSR), a popular practice rooted in charitable donations and one-off community projects as companies wanted to be viewed as 'giving back to society'. 

The reality today in Asia is that sustainability still tends to be pigeonholed as a reporting function—the guys who write sustainability reports then tell the market how well they’re doing, often without a third party to gauge their real performance.

“Sustainability reporting should be just one cog in the wheel rather than 90 per cent of your job,” says Thomas Milburn, director at sustainability consultancy Corporate Citizenship. “In Asia, there’s been a push for reporting and accountability. But the emphasis should be on the thinking rather than the doing—to set the strategy and be a centre of excellence for the rest of the business,” he tells Eco-Business.

"CSOs can’t afford to sit in a corner, write a sustainability report, issue a green bond, win some awards, then tell the market the company is a sustainability pioneer. If you’re not changing the core business, then you are not doing your job."

The job has evolved significantly over the last few years, and is different from one company to another, so there is no real template from which a growing number of people graduating with sustainability degrees—still a new qualification in Europe, let alone Asia—can learn.

Some sustainability heads, such as Beatriz Perez of Coca-Cola, which last year earned the ignominious accolade of the world’s biggest plastic polluter, sit in the communications department. So, their job is essentially telling the world about the good their firm is doing. 

Others, such as Andrew Buay of Singtel, one of Asia’s largest telecommunications companies and among the few firms in Singapore that take responsibility for electronic waste recycling, sit in human resources. So, their job is about aligning the workforce around their company’s sustainability ambitions.

Some, like DBS Bank’s Mikkel Larsen, report to the chief financial officer. So, their role is about making sure there is a business case for sustainability that helps, not hurts, the bottom line.

Then, there are those who report directly to the boss of the company, although this is rare in Asia.

Among them is Dr Steve Newman, the group sustainability director of Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, who reports directly to Claire Chiang, the Asian luxury hotel brand’s co-founder and senior vice-president who also chairs the company’s sustainability arm, Banyan Tree Global Foundation.

Banyan Tree is one of Asia’s few hospitality brands with a strong environmental sustainability track record, although it is also developing a resort on top of one of Singapore’s dwindling patches of rainforest. 

“Distance from power devalues sustainability,” says Newman, who has a PhD in marine ecology. “In our case, because of direct reporting, open and accessible communication [with Claire Chiang], the power distance is short.”

If sustainability executives are to wield serious impact, a seat at the management table is critical, says Gwyneth Fries, the Singapore-based senior manager for sustainability at global logistics firm Agility.

“The best way for sustainability officers to achieve impact is to have board level representation. If you don’t have that, you can still get a lot done. But you won’t see the degree of shift that can be transformational for a business,” she says.

The reality is, sustainability is only just starting to gather momentum in Asian business circles. As ESG factors appear on the radar of the investment community, listed companies are increasingly obliged to write sustainability reports, and consumers are becoming more discerning about the story behind the brands they buy.

As the pressure builds on companies to craft a credible sustainability story, so the question of what makes a great sustainability officer becomes more important. 

Eco-Business asked 15 sustainability leaders from companies ranging from global fashion brand Levi’s to Philippines banking-to-shopping malls conglomerate SM Investments to find out what it takes to be good at their jobs.

Sustainability is not just a desk job. It requires getting your hands dirty to get a feel for every part of the business, no matter how immaterial to the sustainability ambitions of the company it may seem.

This is a lesson that Hendrik Rosenthal, group director of sustainability at Hong Kong-based power company CLP, learned during his time at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks in Canada, where he was a policy analyst.

Rosenthal’s role involved preparing research reports and running assessments for wastewater treatment plants, but he was often out in the field lifting manhole covers and negotiating with cockroaches, he says.

Knowing the business inside out helps to track performance.

CLP, which in Hong Kong sources more than half of its energy from coal-fired power plants, aims to reduce its carbon intensity by 80 per cent by 2050 and invest more in renewables. But finding places to put wind farms and solar panels is tricky in a mountainous, space-constrained city of energy-guzzling skyscrapers.

“I need to understand the full portfolio of our business to consider how we can decarbonise our Asia Pacific operations in a responsible manner,” he says, pointing out that keeping the lights on and elevators running is essential in a city that never sleeps. 

“Imagine just 10 minutes without power in Hong Kong. People would get stuck in elevators. It would be chaos,” he says.

Being a business all-rounder gives a better sense of where the risks to the business lie, and the skill sets needed to tackle emerging problems.

A new risk for power companies, for example, is cyber security. “This is not just about securing customer data, but keeping the infrastructure safe. A cyber attack [on a power company] just cannot happen. We need to ensure we’re not exposed,” says Rosenthal.

Being in touch with every corner of the business brings opportunities too. “It was one of our housekeeping staff who came to me with the idea to recycle used soap bars,” says Melanie Kwok, the Cambridge-educated group senior sustainability manager of Sino Hotels, one of Hong Kong’s largest hotel groups.

Talking to staff in every department is key to the sustainability of the hospitality industry, which suffers from high staff turnover. “Other hotels just focus on fire regulations [for new staff]. But we have a sustainability training session for all of our new people, from IT staff to the gardeners,” says Kwok. “People need to experience sustainability for themselves.” 

“The best CSOs are those who take the time to talk to people in and outside the company—to truly understand what is being said and what isn’t,” says Pat Dwyer, founder and managing director of sustainability consultancy The Purpose Business, and a former corporate director of CSR and sustainability at Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts.

Listening in budget meetings and brainstorming sessions can provide valuable insight for sustainability projects too. It also gives sustainability officers a sense of where the senior leadership’s comfort levels lie, and where change in the business is afoot. This will help to hone projects and win internal supporters, says Dwyer, whose work for Shangri-La included Embrace, a project that committed every hotel in the group to help a children’s organisation. 

CSOs need to get out of their comfort zones to get a healthy picture of the challenges and opportunities that lie around the corner. “Actively listening to industry leaders outside of your sector can give you much needed information on the competition, and valuable intelligence on customers. And it can bring fresh perspectives to internal teams which may have a tendency for tunnel vision,” she says.

For some sustainability officers, the job is made easier by a boss who gets it, and they are increasing in number as sustainability becomes more fashionable and is recognised as both a business risk and opportunity for growth.

“You can tell how much power a CSO has by how much access they have to the CEO,” says Milburn of Corporate Citizenship.

The brains behind the green ambitions of SM Investments Corporation, one of the Philippines’ largest conglomerates, is Teresita Sy-Coson, the billionaire daughter of the company’s late founder, Henry Sy, and co-chairman of the business.

SM has interests in retail (SM malls are synonymous with the country’s shopping scene), banking, property and portfolio investments. Sy-Coson chairs SM’s sustainability steering committee and the sustainability department is parked in corporate affairs.

“The Philippines has many socio-economic and environmental challenges, and they [the Sy family] want SM to be driving the Philippines’ sustainable development story,” says Koleen Davila-Palaganas, the firm’s vice president of sustainability. The conglomerate’s social inclusion programmes include providing education and health services for the underprivileged.

The regional head of sustainability for Sodexo, a global food services and facilities management firm whose 460,000 employees serve 100 million customers every day, is equally fortunate. Roshith Rajan, the French firm’s Asia Pacific head of corporate responsibility, compares Sodexo's chief executive Denis Machuel, who is just over a year into the top job, to one of the world’s corporate sustainability pin-ups.

“The CEO has taken corporate responsibility on as a focus topic, just as Paul Polman did at Unilever,” says Rajan, citing the company’s plan to cut food waste by 2025, wage war on single-use plastics, and empower small, local businesses in the 80 countries where it operates. 

“Because it’s top of mind, sustainability is allocated more resources. If it wasn’t for him, it would be business as usual,” he says.

But even with the backing of a woke CEO, sustainability officers need to be armed with the right tools to prove they’re more than a cost centre, says Davila-Palaganas of SM Investments. And they need to speak the language of the leaders.

“Sustainability officers need a comprehensive understanding of the business and the material risks and opportunities. This is the language that the president and the board speak. So you need to show how sustainability can deliver positive results for the company, particularly in building a good reputation,” she says.

For family-run business empires like SM Investments, which dominate the Philippines’s business landscape, wherever possible, it is important to work with the business culture and not against it to get on-side with the bosses, says Dwyer of The Purpose Business.

“We cannot all be renegades,” she says. “If the CSO is not part of the very family that owns the business, he or she needs to play a pragmatic role of bridge between the genius of the past—which got the business to where it is now—and future-proofing the business by ensuring that environmental and social risks are identified and managed.”

For sustainability officers, one day you’re a climate change expert, the next you’re expected to be an authority on human rights or the degradability of bamboo drinking straws.

“You need to be on top of a discipline that is constantly evolving,” says the vice-president of group sustainability at Singtel, Andrew Buay, whose career at the telecommunications firm spans roles in marketing, IT and as an executive coach for Singtel’s Australian brand Optus. 

Navigating a changing landscape is the hardest part of the job, he says. “Often, the team has to engage with issues long before the organisation catches up with them,” says Buay, who is currently developing a framework on modern slavery in the supply chain for the telco group.

Buay, who reports to Singtel’s group head of human resources, has a core sustainability team of 10 people—five in Singapore, five in Australia—working on issues that might not have seemed important for a telco until recently: decarbonisation, packaging reduction, and human rights.

Getting your head around new, complex issues means engaging with experts in the relevant fields, working out what emerging problems will mean for the business, then translating them to the various stakeholders in a language they understand. “In sustainability, we use a lot of semantics and acronyms which might mean nothing to the business leaders,” says Buay.

Building a strong sustainability function that could stand up to continual, sometimes sudden change was the toughest challenge Dr Simon Lord faced when he joined Sime Darby Plantation, the world’s largest oil palm planter and biggest seller of sustainable palm oil. 

He was appointed its CSO in 2017, following the demerger of Sime Darby Group and the listing of Sime Darby Plantation.

He then developed a framework for the business that is based on three principles—people, planet and prosperity, an adaptation of the triple bottom line theory coined by corporate responsibility guru John Elkington.

A broad landscape of issues are graded in terms of their potential risk, and a feedback mechanism enables the company to respond to problems as they arise.

An ability to adapt to a changing world builds resilience, says Lord, a Briton who has a doctorate in environmental science. He suggests that CSOs will one day be known as chief resilience officers. 

One CSO who should probably already have that job title is Esther An, chief sustainability officer of Singapore real estate giant City Developments Limited (CDL).

The indefatigable Hong Konger, who has performed the role of CSO with more energy and warmth than a coal-fired power station for almost 25 years, believes that to stay ahead in her field requires an unending thirst for knowledge. “I’m not smarter than anyone else, but I am curious, committed and competitive. In this job, you have to keep learning,” she says.

An joined CDL in 1995 with a background in communications, advertising, media and investor relations. More than two decades later, she is a panelist at almost every sustainability event in Singapore, speaking with experience on topics ranging from green bonds to gender equality. Her tireless efforts have recently earned her the accolade of SDG Pioneer, an award given by the United Nations to business leaders who are particularly good at advancing the Sustainable Development Goals.

“I get bored easily and that little bit of craziness in me has helped to keep on top of a changing industry and learn how to adapt what I’ve learned for CDL,” says An, who adds that her capacity to network both in and outside of construction and sustainability circles earned her the nickname of ‘chief connecting officer’ by Singapore’s Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Masagos Zulkifli.

Data, says Vincent Cheng, Hong Kong-based director of sustainability of global building design consultancy Arup, is the most powerful way to influence people of the value of sustainability.

In a company of 2,000 staff in Hong Kong, Cheng’s sustainability team of 10 consults building developers on mechanical and electrical systems to, as the slogan goes, “shape better worlds.” They use data visualisation tools to demonstrate how buildings can be built more efficiently. 

“We want digital innovation to push the boundaries of sustainability to the extreme,” says Cheng, whose firm is helping Hong Kong work towards an ambitious target for its buildings to be zero carbon by 2050. 

Mikkel Larsen, the chief sustainability officer of DBS Bank, says data is the only real way of determining progress—but only if used in a context that stakeholders understand. 

“I never hear investors ask companies about their carbon score—because they don’t really understand what it means. If I told you our carbon output, could you really tell me whether it was a good or bad figure?” says Larsen.

He adds that meaningful, contextualised data is key for companies to give a real sense of their performance, both to external stakeholders and employees who want to work for a company that is doing the right thing.

DBS uses a sustainability scorecard to set objectives, measure performance and even determine the remuneration of its staff. The scoreboard is updated every year and approved by the board.

Measuring success is not always easy. But the best sustainability officers will focus on the impact of their projects rather than the projects themselves, says Newman of Banyan Tree. 

“Success [in this job] is more than operational efficiency and KPIs. All too often, people focus on outcomes rather than impact,” he says. Rather than focus on, say, the hospital a company has built, think how it has reduced mortality and increased life expectancy, he explains.

“If we are to have any measurable contribution towards the Sustainable Development Goals, we must be impact-oriented,” he says.

Measuring impact means collecting data. At logistics giant Agility, Fries’s sustainability team requires all of its operations globally to report electricity and fuel use to enable the company to measure the carbon footprint of its warehouses.

This requires people in the 100 countries where Agility operates to record their energy consumption. “Someone has to write it down—and they won’t do it unless they’re offered something in exchange,” says Fries, whose team reports to the marketing department.

If countries fail to report, then they won’t feature in a global presentation of energy use from the sustainability team. If they do, a star is placed next to their country. The report also shows the relative carbon weights of each operation.

“In the private sector you want to do well and be the best, and it’s human nature to want to compare,” says Fries. “The most common question I get asked is, ‘how are we doing relative to our peers in other countries?’”

A force of nature like CDL’s An is hard to ignore, even for those outside of her sustainability department. “I’m obsessed with ESG and sustainability, and I think this rubs off on people. But some people are scared of me. I am always demanding something, like electric vehicle chargers for our parking lots,” she says.

To be that “annoying sustainability person who is always asking for stuff” requires the ambassadorial touch of a diplomat who can build bridges across the business, says Rosenthal of CLP. Gathering information for the company’s sustainability report is one instance of when the sustainability officer needs to be a “people person,” he says.

“I deal with people as diverse as engineers and legal advisors. Sometimes it might not be easy to get buy-in from some parts of the business, yet it is important to get insights from these departments,” says Rosenthal, who compiles reports for sustainability indices such as SustainAlytics and the FTSE4Good Index.

Preaching to the unconverted requires “an advocating spirit,” says Davila-Palaganas of SM Investments.

"You’ll sometimes be the lone voice, so you need to be able to work with people positively. Some may not necessarily reject the sustainability message, but it’s the manner in which it’s sold to them that is so important."

No one likes to be preached at—particularly by people who could be seen by their colleagues in other departments as a cost rather than a serious, revenue-generating part of the business like sales, marketing or finance.

DBS Bank’s Larsen says his role does not give him the moral high ground over colleagues in the more hard-nosed functions of the bank. To reach the bank’s 20,000 staff with sustainability principles takes humility, he says.

“You need to push the urgency of an agenda like climate change or human rights without bullying people,” says Larsen, who wields more power internally than most CSOs in Asia. He reports to the CFO and has a dotted line to the CEO, Piyush Gupta, who has been increasingly vocal about the bank’s role in the shift to a low-carbon economy.

Sustainability leaders need to be humble about what they can achieve, says Larsen. “We can’t achieve all 17 SDGs. We know about the importance of the IPCC report [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] last year which warned of the consequences of failing to reduce carbon emissions], but we need to be clear about what we can actually do about it.”

After pressure from green groups and the media in recent years, DBS said earlier this year that—after the projects it has committed to are completed—it will stop financing new coal-fired power plants by 2021. “The only thing that really matters is the carbon emissions of our lending book,” says Larsen.

To some CSOs, humility could be a handicap at times. “Asians are not very good at blowing our own trumpets,” says An of CDL. “I think that's partly why sustainability reporting took off so late in Asia—because it's not in our culture to talk about how good we are.”

An is both a fighter and an agitator. “I'm not the type who will just sit around and wait for the world to crumble around me,” she says.

But in the context of sustainability reporting, there is no room for hyperbole. “Sustainability reporting is not about public relations. You have to be honest. In these days of increasing transparency, you cannot greenwash. Or it will backfire,” says An.

Lord of Sime Darby Plantation, a pioneer in human rights disclosure in the palm oil sector, cautions against allowing success to compromise integrity. 

Quoting Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem If, he says that sustainability officers need to “meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.” 

Triumph, he says, “can go to your head and you can become arrogant, while disasters can make you feel unworthy. You need to develop a personal level of self worth, and realise that not everything will run perfectly to plan.”

This makes the job like sailing a yacht. “You tack sideways to go forwards,” says Lord, adding that a sense of humour is critical to survive in the role.

Michael Kobori, the San Francisco-based global vice-president of sustainability at clothing firm Levi Strauss & Co, says his survival guide for the job was influenced by the former sustainability chief of McDonald’s, Bob Langert, who pioneered the burger chain’s waste reduction plan.

“Bob told me that there are three things you need to be good at this job: passion, patience and perseverance,” says Kobori. “To those three Ps, I’ve added a C: charm. You need a twinkle in your eye to let people know that you enjoy what you do, and you believe in it,” he says.

Lifestyle guru

Walking the talk is key for sustainability executives; the sustainability chief turning up to work in a gas-guzzling sports car won’t do their credibility much good. So how do CSOs keep their personal footprints in check?

Robin Hu, the head of sustainability and stewardship at Singapore state investment firm Temasek, has given up driving his car and now uses ride-sharing apps to get to work. 

An of CDL drives an electric car, a BMW i3 that she bought after seeing the vehicle in a Mission Impossible movie. “It’s expensive, but I have to walk the talk,” she says.

“I don’t think I’m a very popular person, because I go to people’s houses and switch off the lights and aircon,” adds An, who says she throws zero-waste dinner parties.

Larsen of DBS is vegan, carbon-offsets work travel, avoids air-conditioning and takes cold showers. Kobori of Levi’s takes the subway and walks to work. Dr Lee Hui Mien, vice-president of sustainable solutions at Mandai Park Development, the company behind the expansion of Singapore’s zoo attractions, says that if sustainability officers do not practice what they preach, they risk being seen as “hypocritical”.

She drives a hybrid car, uses reusable shopping bags and food and drinks containers, and buys from companies that have “strong principles”, such as clothing brand Patagonia.

Lee, who is the former regional sustainability chief of Ikea, says that leading by example is key to a CSO’s credibility, but adds that employees in other departments cannot be forced to lead more sustainable lifestyles.

“We can’t expect everyone to be as eco as we are. People need to have that ‘aha’ moment and learn what’s in it for themselves,” she says. 

Youth influencer

This part of the role won’t feature in many job descriptions. But to someone like CDL's An, who gives talks regularly at universities, it’s very much part of the job—selling sustainability to young people.

Rajan of Sodexo points out that while a career in sustainability may be niche now, there is a growing cohort of young people in Asia who want to work in sustainability.

“Most young people now want to work in a job that gives them a purpose,” says Rajan.

Kobori of Levi’s points out that more than a third of the world’s population will be from generation Z (those born after millenials, from the early 2000s) by 2020, and influencing youth is not just about attracting young talent but appealing to a new generation of consumers who seek out ethical brands.

So what advice do sustainability heads have for young people following in their footsteps? Davila-Palaganas of SM Investments says that aspiring sustainability officers need discipline and perseverance, and should never lose sight of why they chose the career. “Idealism is nothing to be ashamed of,” she says.

Rosenthal of CLP says that young people starting out in sustainability need to take their time to understand a business’s operations. “You need to start with the basics and get your hands dirty. Don’t think you can write a sustainability report without having been in the field,” says Rosenthal, who adds that he learned a lot from early in his career when he lifted manhole covers.

Cheng of Arup says that the role demands a broad understanding of a wide range of complex issues, so young people entering the field should do so with an open, inquiring mind. “They should be interested in some, if not all, the [sustainability] issues, as so many are interconnected. An issue like climate change affects everything and everyone,” he says.

Perhaps above all, young people need the drive to succeed in a role that is still some way down the pecking order in corporate Asia. “When I recruit, passion is my top priority,” says An of CDL. “I can teach knowledge, but not passion. If you don't believe in it, even if you have a PhD, I can't make you do the work.”

Soh Bee Lian, a former Apple and Lego executive, has been running Ikea’s Southeast Asian sustainability department since 2017.

Soh has been working with departments across the Swedish home furnishing retail giant’s business to integrate the sustainability agenda across Southeast Asia. “Full integration means the business will directly manage sustainability in its strategy and operational processes,” she says.

“We believe that sustainability is not the responsibility of one department, and needs to be truly embedded in the business – a value and direction we all own – so it becomes a natural way of working,” says Soh. 

So how does her typical working day break down? Here's an insight into a day in the life of a CSO.

As the world gets hotter, water scarcer, and food prices reach for the sky, the role of the chief sustainability officer will—in theory—disappear, as environmental and social issues force their way into the boardroom and sustainability becomes as embedded in companies as office gossip and coffee machines.

But for the next 20 years at least, the role of a CSO will be critical in navigating a topsy-turvy world, says Peter Bakker, president and chief executive of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a CEO-led organisation of more than 200 multinationals that helps businesses find sustainability solutions.

What form will the CSO of the future take? Bakker says the job could go in two directions.

The CSO will either be the head of a technical competence centre designed to stay on top of sustainability topics to ensure the company makes strategic decisions through an environmental and social lens.

Or they could be part of the finance department and incorporated into the role of what Bakker calls the chief capital officer (CCO), whose job is to look after not only financial capital, but environmental and social capital too.

“A key part of the job will be educating the finance guys about other returns besides financial ones,” he says.

Either way, Bakker, who was previously chief executive of Netherlands-based global delivery and logistics firm TNT, says that one of the most important changes the corporate world needs to see is for finance people to wake up to sustainability thinking.

“If environmental and social issues are not truly integrated into capital markets, we will not win the battle for sustainability. We will continue to see CSOs make great speeches with nice powerpoint slides and collectively we will still fall off the cliff,” he says.

But if businesses change to reflect the real value of the environment and social issues, “we can save the world,” says Bakker. “It’s the only way.”