CSOs will have to use their skills to mediate between polarised fractions and dispel myths during the next years of President Trump
A cartoon does the rounds on social media every so often of a stressed-looking chief sustainability officer juggling multiple hats. Is it a fitting update to now depict the CSO entirely subsumed by an oversized, pitch-black Texan oil baron hat? Donald Trump’s victory in the US election has given agency to those who don’t want to engage positively with sustainability, as well as licence to air Trumponomics views in corporate America’s boardrooms and C-suites.
This turn of events will hinder CSOs from implementing and delivering a sustainability strategy and, at worst, sustainability could be shut out from strategic discussions entirely. But CSOs are a resilient bunch, united by a shared trait: an inherent, indefatigable sense of optimism — which is, hopefully, not misplaced.
The challenge to the CSO will vary by the firm’s size, the stage of its corporate sustainability journey and the volume of its internal anti-environmental, social and governance voices. Although most US business leaders are Republican, I hope not all share Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” views.
Firms that have established and embedded sustainability strategies need to hold the line, as they have a critical role to play in the new Trump order. For those that are smaller, less well-known and earlier in their sustainability journey, there are reasons for concern.
For one, naysayers will speak out more confidently, believing their views are legitimised and supported. This could range from blocking sustainability initiatives due to short-term profit impacts, to dismissing physical risks from climate change as insurmountable, and downplaying the role that sustainability plays in talent acquisition and retention.
A Herculean task
Working as a CSO in the US is already hard. My experiences included finding it a Herculean task to gather energy usage data from US offices because it is common to be allocated a share of the building’s collective utility bill with no control over heat or cooling on separate floors.
For new office spaces, the prevailing assumption was that leasing energy-efficient ‘green’ buildings would be more expensive. Hygiene concerns shut down efforts to put in bins to sort waste and the lack of dishwashers in staff kitchens perpetuated the use of single-use lunch items.
We made limited progress on using public transport or car sharing as it was thought that highlighting emissions from commuting would promote working from home.
Our legal team removed the published targets for diversity, equity and inclusion as corporations are expected to be the next in line to face legal challenges, similar to those encountered by US universities’ affirmative action policies.
I regularly had to respond to puzzled senior US colleagues who asked: “But why have we agreed to science-based emissions reduction targets?”
Our ability to progress our sustainability agenda was also impeded by negativity from staff who felt burdened by requests from my team. This grumbling was generally caused by sustainability being an extended role to an existing job. If individuals are already positively predisposed then this gives well-received agency, but the opposite is also true.
For example, we asked office managers to include sustainability in purchasing and the choice of utilities. This resulted in a range of outcomes: one made the whole culture in his office more sustainable, while another bluntly declined.
If some of my colleagues’ unwillingness to engage with sustainability was politically motivated, I never heard this openly aired. However, bringing politics into the workplace will now be more acceptable, risking polarisation across gender and age lines — especially as many younger workers want to work for employers aligned with their values.
Furthermore, the Trump ideology of individualism, centred on the drive to “Make America Great Again”, will motivate short-term profitmaking. This could create further division among employees, as those who directly benefit from profitmaking activities (such as bonuses or profit shares) may do so at the expense of longer-term responsible business practices.
Resilience, patience and tenacity
Going forward, our most valuable skills as CSOs will be our ability to mediate between polarised fractions, build alliances, tailor arguments to persuade different audiences, and dispel myths. Our depths of resilience, patience and tenacity will be tested over the next four years.
We have one carrot and two major sticks to keep sustainability on track.
The carrot is identifying ESG drivers that increase short-term profitability, either by creating competitive advantage through sustainability or by reducing costs or negating tangible risks to profit. Examples include promoting energy efficiency with the resultant double whammy of reducing emissions and costs; using recycled materials in manufacturing with lower production costs than virgin materials; and considering forest-fire risk rather than sea-level rise.
The two sticks are regulation and supply chains. While ESG regulation in the US is going one way, other jurisdictions such as the UK and Europe are generally going the other.
Non-compliance with EU environmental rulings may close off the European market, with tangible consequences that are enough to influence attitudes. Likewise, executives will be motivated to meet the sustainability credentials required by corporate supply chain partners to avoid the risk of losing contracts.
Other routes are to seek external partnerships and collaborations. Direct engagement with landlords can be highly effective in collaborating to reduce energy consumption in buildings. Check investor attitudes in your sector: investor pressure in favour of ESG is variable and possibly waning, but it is still a force.
Finally, it may be a contrarian hope, but if Trumponomics does make corporate America more profitable, senior executives may once again become more generous with their spending on sustainability.
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