Most CEO’s take ‘Sustainability’ and ‘Efficiency’ as added responsibilities and extended governance. Doing things repeatedly eventually turns into a habit. Sustainability is no different. Practicing sustainability will eventually make it ”business-as-usual”. It is just another way of generating brand value, stakeholder interest and profits. Does that not sound like regular business goals? Yes, it does.
Sustainability is all about doing business in a different way. Perception of sustainability and efficiency as a added responsibility (read burden) takes out the enthusiasm of doing business in an innovative manner. Business old-style exerts externalities that cost the society in cash and kind, while embedding sustainability exerts externalities that generate societal advantages.
As far as the role of CRO is concerned, I always advise that a CRO/SO is just a facilitator, and at best, they can be liaisons between different departments. Expecting that they should solely spearhead a corporation’s sustainability efforts is not appreciatively right. Sustainability is a type of corporate culture and should be woven into the corporate fabric.
My one-liner advise to CEO’s: ”Sustainability is an individuals altruistic greed.”
Remain greedy, altruistically though!
_______________________________________________________________
I so often thought of writing a sustainability blog, but then always remained skeptical about its sufficiency and my efficiency. Eventually my motivation surpassed my skepticism and here is my first post. The content here originally was posted as a comment on Vault’s CSR blog by Aman Singh Das (In Good Company).
