Charles Darwin is coming for the chief sustainability officer. Either CSOs step up to work on material and strategic issues, interacting with the board, investors, and CFO. Or another executive will eat their lunch and push the CSO function back to where it came from: the forgotten world of corporate social responsibility (CSR). That’s our conclusion from Harvard Business Review’s must-read article, “Evolving Role of Chief Sustainability Officers.”
It’s another tale of “adapt or die” in the merciless savanna that is the corporate boardroom. As sustainability gains in importance, so do the expectations of the CSO. Gone are the days when CSOs could focus on feel-good initiatives or put out a shiny ESG report. Enter the CSO who has an impact on strategy, operations, and the bottom line, and has close ties to key company stakeholders and decision-makers, Robert Eccles and Alison Taylor write in HBR this month.
