Spotlight on the NED-CSO relationship: four stories of collaboration and climate action

1. “When the board asks, the organisation listens."

One participant shared, “the right question from the board can unlock months of great work.” Conversely, the wrong questions can extract months of effort for little gain.

When a board member raised scope 3 emissions questions, the organisation used this as an opportunity to embed the sustainability function into the procurement function, creating a new sustainable procurement role.

Shifting away from a compliance-dominant perspective to strategy-dominant perspective is essential. To do so, businesses need the right ambassadors in the right places. To prevent silos, action cannot start and end with the CSO.

Boards have the licence to ask and explore difficult questions. Such as, is this a box-ticking exercise or are we doing it because it’s intrinsically linked to our operating model?

2. Identifying agents of change.

To embed sustainability across an organisation, the CSO needs ambassadors. A CSO may need to ask: who are my agents of change – on the board and at executive level – that must engage with these issues?

One participant found that involving the CFO, as a consequence of sustainability reporting, made the underlying issues relevant across the finance function. In another example, an executive-level Sustainability Committee found success flagging issues to the relevant board committees (Audit, Risk, etc.) rather than a standalone board-level Sustainability Committee.

Agents of change can be found across the business from the CFO to the CTO or procurement function. It is just as necessary to identify which board committee can make the most impact with the relevant information.

3. Communicating risk to drive action.

NEDs and CSOs shared stories of “disaster case studies” unlocking action or fixing attention on climate issues. One insurance NED explained that all sustainability conversations in their organisation start with the science, which naturally drives the conversation towards risk and repositioned internal thinking.

Similarly, another board asks its CSO review risk stories from other organisations and assesses if their own organisation faces similar exposure.

Both NEDs and CSOs need to think long-term, treating climate and nature risks as more urgent in the short term than they may initially appear. These case studies could ask:

• How would we respond if this happened to us?
• What could we do to reduce the likelihood of this happening?
• When do we need to make decisions on this?

4. The customer as a north star for sustainable value creation.

NEDs stressed the value of revisiting customer behaviour: “We need to start with customer-first.”

Sustainability-first action does not always create successful pathways for value creation. Instead, one organisation used refreshed customer profiles and personas to understand how customer needs can be met in the most sustainable way.

For an FMCG business, this might place focus on seasonality. “If it’s 25 degrees in October no one is buying a puffer jacket.” The relationship between goods and customer psychology reflects the reality of how business is done.

Similarly, the absence of effective air conditioning in summer can impact the bottom line, and wildfires and floods can close stores. Reinforcing flood action as both strategic and beneficial for business and for society.