Role of the CSO in the sustainability transformation

We had a conversation with Anna Krotova , Head of Sustainability at Picnic Technologies – and a former GRI staff member – about her new book, ‘How to be a Chief Sustainability Officer’, co-authored with Jennifer Geary

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) marks a pivotal moment for over 40,000 EU-based companies. In less than six months, they will have to comply with new sustainability reporting rules, a mission that some corporate leaders may find daunting: new regulations to master, deadlines to meet, and reporting standards to apply.

What is unfolding, however, is more than just a new compliance task. As Anna remarks, “the CSRD is only the start of a much larger internal sustainability transformation” and we can expect “a new phase of corporate sustainability” – with Chief Sustainability Officers (CSOs) at the forefront.

Her new book, launched in June, “is very much about empowering sustainability leaders to be effective”, Anna explained, and at GRI we believe the timing couldn’t be better.

A holistic view with a gap to bridge

Anna’s exposure to sustainability reporting dates back to 2009. She reminisced about being “completely impelled” by her first experience with GRI, through an environmental policy course at her university. Even at that stage, she realized she wanted to “help companies run their business better”, a goal that has strong parallels with GRI’s mission. This was something she could put into practice when she joined us as Standards Manager in 2016. During four and a half fruitful years, her achievements included leading the work to revise and launch the GRI Water and Effluents Topic Standard and the new GRI Waste Standard, while building her understanding of how the GRI Standards can play a key role in shaping the role of CSOs.

Highlighting how companies are dynamic entities, the GRI Standards feature a comprehensive approach to impact assessment, providing the essential groundwork to understand a company's impacts on the environment, society, and people, and vice versa. As Anna points out, this holistic view also underpins the key features of an effective CSO: “CSOs need to have the basic understanding of how companies can impact the world around them and be a systems thinker. They also need to have focus and pragmatism; knowing where to find help and when to ask for it, while building in regular upskilling moments and learning networks”.

After moving on to sustainability roles in the corporate world, Anna sensed a crucial gap was persisting. With the impending CSRD and the ever-growing maze of regulations, how could CSOs navigate an increasingly complex sustainability landscape? To echo Anna’s words, “This is where the book comes in”.

A future-proof CSO

“The CSO role is professionalizing and institutionalizing. Even though we've had sustainability roles in the past, the CSO role today has really graduated to a new level of recognition and expectation of what it's meant to deliver”, she explained. ?

What emerges from our conversation with Anna is that the CSO is an evolving profession, characterized by increasing complexity and importance. “How to be a Chief Sustainability Officer helps orient CSOs about what corporate sustainability is all about these days," Anna told us. From harnessing the necessary technical skills, to building a team, procuring technology, setting sustainability oversight with the board, and much more.

A useful and timely resource, her book seeks not only to share knowledge and practical insights, but also to offer an accurate snapshot of trends characterizing the role of CSO and corporate sustainability in general.

As Anna predicts, “Organizations will become a little quieter on big announcements related to targets, partnerships and pledges, and much more focused on building quality data inventories, and rethinking their long-term business strategies on the basis of what those data tell them”.

Relationship, role and impact

Quality data can’t be unlocked without robust reporting practices. As Anna puts it, “Through reporting, GRI pushes companies to think about their relationship, role, and impact on the wider economic, social and natural environment. Impact reporting, as codified and explained so clearly in the GRI Standards, is the foundational work to inform sustainability strategy”.

The strategic realignment in support of sustainability is fast becoming a necessity for any forward-thinking company. CSOs would do well to reflect on the practical insights offered by Anna and Jennifer, as they seek to unlock the opportunities of a sustainability revolution.