CSO BACK STORY - Weinreb Group

THE FIRST CSOThe title, Chief Sustainability Officer,connotes different things to differentpeople -- and across industries. Withindustry-specific variations common,companies tend to seat this role ina number of departments, includingcompliance, marketing, public affairs,and operations.What to call the leader of this functionvaries. The options are long andcomplicated with no formal guidelinesdictating a sustainability chief’s scopeof work. Many refer to the term “chiefsustainability officer” as the senior-mostexecutive in charge of a company’ssustainability activities. To narrow ourresearch, we wanted to study seniormostsustainability leaders who werealso at the very senior seats offered attheir company. We chose CSO’s whoformally hold this title “Chief SustainabilityOfficer.”In 2010, Ellen Weinreb wrote a GreenBizarticle 12 questioning the semantics of thetitle, CSO. She confessed that the firsttime she had heard about the title -- andshe has been in this space for almost15 years -- was from a reporter back in2006 who was developing a story on theemergence of the CSO.At that time, Ellen told the reporter thatthe title did widely not exist, and the storywas dropped. However, the position didexist, and has continued to evolve witha widely diverse palette of duties and nodefined parameters of job responsibilitiessince. Writing in 2010, she ended with ahopeful prediction:CSO Back Story“Few big companies operate without aCEO, COO (chief operating officer) andCFO (chief financial officer). Many haveCMOs (chief marketing officer). Whenthey are joined in the C-Suite by theCSO, we’ll know that sustainability hasfinally become integral to the core ofbusiness.”As she had predicted, some companieswere starting to take note. In 2004,DuPont 13 appointed Linda Fisher as itsChief Sustainability Officer, making herthe first CSO among America’s publiclytraded companies. Today, there are 29.Fisher, who graduated with a Bachelorsdegree in History and later went on toearn an MBA and a JD, is one of onlyeight women Sustainability Chiefs. Anindustry veteran, Fisher, unlike mostother CSOs, was an external hire. Beforejoining DuPont, she served as the DeputyAdministrator for the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA). Her expertise:Environmental, Health and Safety.The past seven years have seen Fisher’swork constantly increase in scope. Today,she is not only in charge of environmentalhealth and safety but also owns DuPont’sCSR reporting process, compliance andgovernment affairs, as well as its productstewardship and regulatory affairs.There has been noone true and testedpath to the chiefsustainability officer’schair.However, as you will see magnifiedfrequently in the next few pages, therehas been no one true and tested path tothe chief sustainability officer’s chair.Being a leader in an emerging sectorbrings with it several challenges, butmost importantly, a lack of precedent;i.e., there are no guidance or successmodels to follow. Fisher’s mission wasclear: to tie the sustainability strategy tothe company’s overall strategy.For Fisher, the position evolved fromdecades spent in environmental research,safety and policies. For PG&E’s SteveKline, the path involved internationalpolitics, economics and a Master’s inDiplomacy. Today, he reports directlyto the CEO and handles the company’sfederal affairs as well.What is clear, say Fisher, Kline andthe other CSOs we interviewed, is thatthe strategic necessity of their roleis increasingly becoming obvious toorganizations.Weinreb Group