Share of chief sustainability officers by sector
Empowered CSO
Light CSO
No CSO
Chief sustainability officers are certainly benefitting from the rising urgency surrounding ESG. But their influence may be limited. A recent study of 1,640 companies conducted by Strategy&, PwC’s consulting business, found that around 80% of those companies had some kind of CSO role. But only 30% had a formal CSO. The remaining 50% had a CSO with a limited mandate—what we call a “light CSO”—based on the nature of their role or their overall standing in the corporate hierarchy, with the companies in the light-CSO group reporting that their officers are two or more hierarchy levels below the C-suite. Companies in the consumer goods and products sector boasted the most formal CSO roles—perhaps not surprising given the high-level media and social media focus on sustainability issues in the food and apparel sectors, to name just two.
Today sustainability teams, led by the CSO, are typically pushing the rest of the business to become more sustainable. But as things advance, and ESG starts to influence every part of business, other parts of the organisation will gain their own sustainability expertise. While not a “silver bullet,” there’s a strong correlation between having a CSO and making progress on environmental issues. As part of our study, we reviewed the ESG ratings given to 1,455 companies by the market-data firm Refinitiv; of the companies getting an A rating, 98% had an executive who’s responsible for sustainability.
Get access to our full report on the state of the CSO
Contact us
Dr. Peter Gassmann
Partner, Managing Director Strategy& Europe, PwC Germany
Tel: +49 69 97167-470
Follow us
