Chief Sustainability Officers Wield ‘Extraordinary Power’

July 5, 2007

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Chief sustainability officers are becoming more popular with companies that want to profit from going green and want to guard the value of their brand, The New York Times reports.

“Environmental vice presidents usually spend company money, but this new breed is helping companies make money,” said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

The titles vary, mixing and matching “chief” and “vice president,” “sustainability” and “environmental,” making it impossible to track how many people fill the role. But whatever they are called, the new environmental chiefs – many of them named in the last two years – wield extraordinary power, according to The Times. They are exploring partnerships with vendors and customers to create green products – and they have the power to close the deal. They are also getting a vote – often, the deciding vote – on product research and advertising campaigns.

AMR Research’s John Davies has noticed that the chief green officer reports, just like other top executives, directly to the CEO. Organizationally, he or she oversees both internal and external opportunities, according to the article. This translates to having direct and indirect reports that oversee environmental health and safety, energy, procurement, and regulatory affairs. In addition to these organizations, the chief green officer in many cases is also responsible for environmental stewardship, corporate communications, strategic partnerships, and product innovation.

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Reader Comments

it will take hundreds of these sustainability officer to correct the damage that chaney has done. in addition there will be a line by line accountability documentating all the damge,lying,covering up,that chaney has done and it will not be pretty. the day of accountability is now here.and when there are tools to measure climate change in less than 3 yrs chaney will be held accountable to the metric ton for his
falsly changing climate reports.the days under the bush administraion of silencing critics of climate change are over. there will be a financial cost for chaneys action and it will be displayed in full when he is in the grave. we will not see 4 presidents at chaneys funeral….and we all will see “how the most powerfull vp in history” conducted himself

domainguy | January 30th, 2009