Today’s New York Times Business page has an article titled “Companies Giving a Green Office”. The article reports how many large corporations have now added “Chief Environmental Officer” and “Chief Sustainability Officer” to their starting team rosters including the CEO, COO, and CFO.
Chief Sustainability Officers are the new hammers inside corporate mansions, driving efficiency and looking toward new innovation to reduce operational costs while entering into new product markets. Driven by the regulatory and business risks and opportunities surrounding climate change, resource constraints and global competitiveness, modern sustainability officers are both subtle chameleons and fierce lions. They are change agents working against a hundred years of industrialization and know-how, discovering new ways to do business while delivering profits and enhancing shareholder value.
Traditionally thought of as a cost center focused on reducing compliance, environmental and health and safety risks and corporate exposure, this new century’s corporate environmental officers are multidimensional strategists that navigate internal and external business opportunities and politics as they work to deliver on the bottom line. In doing so these modern day hero’s not only ensure a company is operating within compliance, they create new product, service and market opportunities for greener products and clean production. In the late 1970s and early 1980s corporate environmental efforts were about containment and treatments of legacy wastes and compliance with the law. In the late 1980s and early 1990s corporations became more attune to reducing risks and preventing pollution. In the mid-to-late 1990s corporations adopted environmental management systems, developed eco-efficiency tools and began to look at the life-cycle impacts of their operations, products and materials use. Since 2000 the modern corporation has continued all of its historic environmental, health and safety responsibilities, but has now also evolved to include more corporate social responsibility, sustainability and ethical guidelines in its mission, vision and operations.
No longer a discrete function in the modern corporation, today’s environmental officer now has its own trade and executive leadership training groups including AHC Group Corporate Affiliate Program, GEMI, Business Roundtable, and Business for Social Responsibility. In addition there are numerous executive briefing publications like The Corporate Responsibility Officer Magazine and Corporate Strategy Today.
President Lincoln is often referenced for his strong leadership. His experiences and actions throughout his distinguished life continue to teach us how to be better leaders. In World Inc., author Bruce Piasecki examines what makes an effective leader in this new era of social responsibility and corporate environmental strategy. In the chapter titled, “Developing Leaders We Can Trust” Piasecki notes, “It is my view that with the right kinds of social leaders, large multinational corporations can play the key role in solving the long list of challenges facing society in the 21st century.” Piasecki goes on to draw out leadership lessons from Donald T. Phillips book “Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times”. Phillips summarized many of Lincoln’s leadership strategies including building strong alliances, serving with honesty and integrity, persuading rather than coercing, being a master of paradox, and encouraging innovation. In his storytelling way, in “World Inc.”, Piasecki presents how he sees these Lincoln traits in the most impressive and effective executives he’s worked with over the past 30 years, including Chief Sustainability and Environmental Officers of major corporations.
We welcome our readers to watch firms like Wal-Mart, Nike, IBM, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, DuPont, Dow, GM, FirstEnergy, Shell, Whirlpool, Honeywell and other global giants in our Network that have elected to have Chief’s of environment, sustainability, energy and social responsibility. These leaders are influencing tomorrow’s products and markets as they seek to deliver value to their firms’ bottom line, and society’s bottom line. We welcome you to learn more about these leaders through our executive workshops. To learn more contact Mark@ahcgroup.com.
Mark C. Coleman
Senior Associate, AHC Group, Inc.
Mark@ahcgroup.com
Chief Sustainability Officers are the new hammers inside corporate mansions, driving efficiency and looking toward new innovation to reduce operational costs while entering into new product markets. Driven by the regulatory and business risks and opportunities surrounding climate change, resource constraints and global competitiveness, modern sustainability officers are both subtle chameleons and fierce lions. They are change agents working against a hundred years of industrialization and know-how, discovering new ways to do business while delivering profits and enhancing shareholder value.
Traditionally thought of as a cost center focused on reducing compliance, environmental and health and safety risks and corporate exposure, this new century’s corporate environmental officers are multidimensional strategists that navigate internal and external business opportunities and politics as they work to deliver on the bottom line. In doing so these modern day hero’s not only ensure a company is operating within compliance, they create new product, service and market opportunities for greener products and clean production. In the late 1970s and early 1980s corporate environmental efforts were about containment and treatments of legacy wastes and compliance with the law. In the late 1980s and early 1990s corporations became more attune to reducing risks and preventing pollution. In the mid-to-late 1990s corporations adopted environmental management systems, developed eco-efficiency tools and began to look at the life-cycle impacts of their operations, products and materials use. Since 2000 the modern corporation has continued all of its historic environmental, health and safety responsibilities, but has now also evolved to include more corporate social responsibility, sustainability and ethical guidelines in its mission, vision and operations.
No longer a discrete function in the modern corporation, today’s environmental officer now has its own trade and executive leadership training groups including AHC Group Corporate Affiliate Program, GEMI, Business Roundtable, and Business for Social Responsibility. In addition there are numerous executive briefing publications like The Corporate Responsibility Officer Magazine and Corporate Strategy Today.
President Lincoln is often referenced for his strong leadership. His experiences and actions throughout his distinguished life continue to teach us how to be better leaders. In World Inc., author Bruce Piasecki examines what makes an effective leader in this new era of social responsibility and corporate environmental strategy. In the chapter titled, “Developing Leaders We Can Trust” Piasecki notes, “It is my view that with the right kinds of social leaders, large multinational corporations can play the key role in solving the long list of challenges facing society in the 21st century.” Piasecki goes on to draw out leadership lessons from Donald T. Phillips book “Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times”. Phillips summarized many of Lincoln’s leadership strategies including building strong alliances, serving with honesty and integrity, persuading rather than coercing, being a master of paradox, and encouraging innovation. In his storytelling way, in “World Inc.”, Piasecki presents how he sees these Lincoln traits in the most impressive and effective executives he’s worked with over the past 30 years, including Chief Sustainability and Environmental Officers of major corporations.
We welcome our readers to watch firms like Wal-Mart, Nike, IBM, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, DuPont, Dow, GM, FirstEnergy, Shell, Whirlpool, Honeywell and other global giants in our Network that have elected to have Chief’s of environment, sustainability, energy and social responsibility. These leaders are influencing tomorrow’s products and markets as they seek to deliver value to their firms’ bottom line, and society’s bottom line. We welcome you to learn more about these leaders through our executive workshops. To learn more contact Mark@ahcgroup.com.
Mark C. Coleman
Senior Associate, AHC Group, Inc.
Mark@ahcgroup.com
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