Increasingly, companies have been tapping chief sustainability officers and dedicated staffers to handle the complex realm of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. In this Q&A, Emily Gigot, senior manager of sustainability at Top 40 supplier SanMar (asi/84863), shares her thoughts on what it takes to be a sustainability-focused professional and how to make environmental stewardship an integral part of your company’s mission.

Q: Do you think it’s important for companies to have a person whose role is dedicated chiefly to sustainability?
A: I think it’s important for companies of a certain size to have a person or team dedicated to sustainability, and for smaller companies to have someone with sustainability as part of their job role. I’ve seen sustainability efforts implemented best when you have a three-legged stool of executive buy-in, functional roles like sourcing and operations having engagement in sustainability efforts, and a sustainability person or team to steward the work. Without all three, sustainability initiatives can fail or lose steam.

Q: What are some of the typical responsibilities for this type of role?
A: Responsibilities will vary based on the nature of your business and industry and what ESG issues are most material to your company. A sustainability professional at a company that sources product from a global supply chain may spend the majority of their time on supplier assessments and capacity building, whereas a manufacturer may be focused on process improvement, facility upgrades and ensuring workplace standards are upheld.

“Sustainability is like building a house – start with a concept, make your blueprint and build from the foundation up.” Emily Gigot, SanMar

Q: What kind of background or career path do you need to take on a role like this?
A: It can really vary and depend on what type of business you’re in. In the early days, sustainability professionals typically were employees from another part of the business with a passion for social and environmental issues. However, these days there are sustainability undergraduate and graduate degrees, so people are able to jump right into a career in sustainability.  

Q: How can smaller and mid-size companies best tackle sustainability?
A: I think it goes back to the three-legged stool. Company leaders need to see it as a priority, sustainability needs to be embedded into the work of core teams, and someone needs to be responsible for keeping the work moving.

Q: How do you get buy-in from the whole company – to make sustainability part of the brand DNA, so to speak?
A: You first have to recognize that a core competency for sustainability practitioners is effective change management. By making the company “more sustainable” you’re asking people and teams to change, so you have to be prepared to socialize the issue and help people understand why the change needs to occur. You need to be patient – some people and teams will take longer to adapt than others. And when the time comes to implement, make sure you’re meeting the business where it is and embedding changes into existing processes or tools to avoid shocks to the system and ensure the change will stick.

Q: The number of chief sustainability officers at companies has been on the rise in recent years. Do you think that upward trend will continue?
A: This will absolutely continue to rise. With recent moves by both state and federal regulators to legislate sustainability-related issues globally and growing demand from sustainability-minded consumers, there’s a need to grow sustainability as a core business function, including representation in the C-suite.  

Q: Anything else you want to add?
A: Don’t be afraid to start. Sustainability is like building a house – start with a concept, make your blueprint and build from the foundation up.

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