What is a Sustainability Officer?

A Sustainability Officer is a specialized type of Chief Executive. Also known as: Certified Sustainability Officer, CSO, Chief Sustainability Officer.

Ecology has become a very important factor to consumers and governments. It is only within the last twenty years that corporations have begun to make the environment a priority while producing goods or providing services. This is an ideal position for a person interested in business and a company's ecological impact.

This vocation is also referred to as a Certified or Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO). The CSO analyses and predicts a company or institution's future outlook, present stability and environmental impact. Previously, companies would hire outside consultants to make these predictions based on past performance. Corporations decided that hiring outside the company made no sense financially. The CSO sets policy, goals and objectives to assure that the corporation maintains and even exceeds productivity and profitability, and meets or exceeds environmental policy.

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What does a Sustainability Officer do?

The CSO is responsible for providing an ongoing evaluation of the company's profits, personnel, ecological outlook and other factors that affect company performance. The CSO reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or an Executive Management Team. The position of the CSO is to have direct contact with most, if not all, of the personnel involved in the production process. The job requires a person who is dedicated to reducing the company's carbon footprint, in and above compliance to environmental regulations set by the government. The position is multi-faceted and provides the opportunity to be involved at almost every level of production.

What is the workplace of a Sustainability Officer like?

A CSO's workplace is throughout the company. Personnel are interviewed while qualitative and quantitative data are gathered in order to provide 'white papers' or reports to the CEO or Executive Team Members. Reports are generated every quarter or three months. During those times that the CSO is not gathering data, he or she usually has a private office suite in which to study relevant data and compile reports.


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