White Paper - Sustainability as a Leadership Competency, Not a Side Initiative

Sustainability has historically been organized as a specialist function: a Chief Sustainability Officer, an ESG reporting team, a set of disclosures filed once a year. That model is no longer matching stakeholder expectations. Deloitte research finds that 80% of C-suite leaders say their employees have already influenced their sustainability plans, or will soon, and 59% of leaders report that employee activism specifically caused them to increase sustainability efforts over the past year. On the capital side, a UN Global Compact–Accenture study of nearly 2,000 CEOs found that 99% plan to maintain or expand their climate, environmental, and social commitments over the next two years.