Chief Sustainability Officer - Where's the beef Chief...

The 21st century has seen the emergence of a new chief on the block - the Chief Sustainability Officer. A well heeled recruitment consultancy recently produced a report heralding the arrival of the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) to the "C suite" along with the emergence of sustainability and corporate social responsibility to the strategic agenda. Sadly the recent spate of high profile resignations US and in UK the imprisonment of former members of parliament for unethical conduct paints a less rosy picture of the importance of social responsibility  amongst the business and political elite.
The concept and use of the prefix "Chief" is a truly American phenomena in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth the term Director is preferred. Therefore depending on the corporate culture of your organisation Chief Executive Officer or it's British equivalent Managing Director is used to describe the same role.
 The tribe of the corporate suite or "C suite" in the last 20 yeras has undergone an extraordinary expansion of "Chiefs" such as Chief Information Officer average salary £76000 responsible for the development and implementation of information technology strategy within the firm but so also does the Chief Technology Officer average salary £86000 and who can forget the Chief Web Officer. The aforementioned chiefs have emerged through the proliferation of the information technology, internet use and dare I say the lack of insight amongst some Chief Executives Officers in the 1990s to envisage the change being created by a then very young Internet.
Information technology concerns aside the "C suite" has seen it's share of exotic "Chiefs" such as Chief Visionary Officer, Chief Customer Officer and Chief Creative Officer. In terms of their value added contribution to strategic growth the question can be asked Where is the beef chief?
There is a danger that the new chief on the block the Chief Sustainability Officer may go the way of some of the other chiefs a mere title consigned to irrelevance. Sustainability is the key opportunity facing corporations in the 21st century and by nature should be the sole domain of the Chief Executive Officer as the firm's principal strategist. The advent of the Chief Sustainability Officer is an attempt to delegate the sustainability agenda and normalise it's role within existing paradigm of the corporate structure. Sustainability by its very mandate to incorporate the survival of future generations into present economic decisions is by nature inherently disruptive. The dynamics of the corporate structures are not designed to adjust to disruptive change. In order for sustainability to take root in organisations we need more sustainability warriors and champions not any more chiefs. As simple as it may seem lets make the philosophy of sustainability chief in the new capitalist model for the 21st century.

To learn more about Sustainability/CSR visit www.sustainabilitycsr.com