The rise of the chief sustainability officer

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: When Mitsubishi International Corporation’s president and CEO Ryoichi Ueda was asked to double as parent company’s (Mitsubishi Corporation) chief sustainability officer for North America earlier this year, it brought into limelight the trend of appointing sustainability managers at senior levels. Today, more and more companies are appointing chief sustainability officers, who report directly to CEOs.

It’s a step up from the usual practice in most companies where the EHS (environment, health and safety) head’s job is to comply with government regulations on safety and pollution and the CSR (corporate social responsibility) head’s job is to engage in corporate philanthropy. In fact, companies like HSBC started using corporate responsibility for social responsibility long back. The term has evolved into corporate sustainability.

Explains Malini Thadani, head of group communications and corporate sustainability at HSBC India, “Sustainability is an all pervasive term that integrates a company’s business objectives and vision with that of the environment it works in.”

A CSO’s role calls for integrating sustainability in the DNA of the organisation and pushing up the topline. For example, Moumita Sen Sarma’s role as vice-president and head of microfinance and sustainable development at ABN-AMRO Bank (India) is to work towards including triple bottomline (TBL) in the bank’s day to day operations. It includes influencing business departments to see the value of TBL and internalise the thinking in their daily operations.

Last year, ABN-AMRO launched India’s first socially responsible investing (SRI) fund called the ABN-AMRO Sustainable Development Fund. Moumita Sen Sarma had a key role in engaging with the bank’s asset management group to provide the rationale for sustainable development in such a product and ensure that all TBL issues were addressed in the offering. She adds, “My role also includes stakeholder engagement and benchmarking sustainability performance thro-ugh reporting, besides spearheading all community investment activities of the group through ABN-AMRO Foundation India.”

The emergence of the CSO also indicates that companies mean business. Says Annapurna Vancheswaran, director of sustainable development outreach at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), “The mere fact that companies are taking serious note of this function and position also means that they can’t be accused of greenwash. This is evident from the reporting structure of a sustainability manager in an organisation.” She also coordinates the work of TERI-Business Council for Sustainable Development (India).