Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO): Job Description, Role, & Salary

August 12, 2023

As the priorities and initiatives of organizations around the world continue to evolve, so will the role of Chief Sustainability Officers (CSO) and the importance they hold in achieving sustainability goals. CSOs are tasked with being the leaders of pursuing corporate sustainability initiatives for companies and institutions, which essentially means implementing new ways companies operate on a day-to-day and long-term basis.  

This heavy responsibility means the CSOs of tomorrow need the proper education, training, and experience to meet shifting consumer demands and to maintain efficient, sustainable organizations. We’re taking a deeper dive into CSOs and the value they bring to the corporate world, what a chief sustainability officer’s job description entails, how to become one, and how understanding CSOs impacts professionals both directly in and out of the sustainability industry. 

What is a Chief Sustainability Officer? 

A chief sustainability officer oversees and facilitates an organization’s internal and external environmental impact. Basically, everything a CSO manages is managed with sustainability as the dominant factor in decision-making and strategy implementation. CSOs identify inefficiencies in processes as well as non-ecofriendly practices and replace them with green practices while maintaining or increasing efficiency. 

The CSO is responsible for facilitating critical practices in a company, helping to guide them through three key transformative stages in the world of sustainability. These three stages are known in the industry as the Three Pillars of Sustainability: environmental, social, and economic. 

  • Environmental sustainability focuses on reducing and mitigating an organization’s negative environmental impact. This includes reducing unnecessary waste and pursuing leaner resource allocation. 
  • Social sustainability focuses on promoting sustainability practices and culture within an organization. Adhering or implementing fair labor practices, diversity initiatives, and community outreach programs are examples of social sustainability. 
  • Economic sustainability focuses on financial stability. It follows the traditional maximize revenue, reduce cost framework, but with adding sustainable practices to business operations like inventory or resource procurement. 

Chief sustainability officers play a pivotal high-level role in helping organizations identify sustainability goals and leading them to achieving those goals. Finding a balance between eco-friendly practices while maintaining efficiency and productivity without sacrificing company performance is the main goal of CSOs. 

Chief Sustainability Officer Job Description

A chief sustainability officer’s job description can vary from company to company, but here are some common duties and responsibilities you’d find on a CSO’s job description: 

  • Develop and implement strategies to address the Three Pillars of Sustainability. 
  • Facilitate sustainability projects by overseeing employee performance and provide clear direction for the goals of sustainability projects. 
  • Research environmental sustainability issues or concerns and align them with stakeholder interests. 
  • Ensure sustainability program processes and operations compliance with environmental, governmental, and industrial regulations. 
  • Monitor, report, and evaluate effectiveness of sustainability program implementations. 
  • Align proposals for sustainability projects with factors such as cost effectiveness, technical feasibility, and integration with other initiatives. 
  • Identify areas of inefficiency and unsustainable corporate practices. 
  • Connect with different channels of communication and media for marketing initiatives. 
  • Forge relationships with suppliers and other stakeholders and leverage these relationships towards conducting successful sustainability projects. 
  • Manage corporate sustainability risk assessments. 
  • Foster an internal organizational culture based on sustainable business practices and ethics while empowering employees with a positive social corporate climate. 

What Makes a Good Chief Sustainability Officer

Becoming a good chief sustainability officer requires a great handful of both tangible and intangible skills. Technical knowledge and abilities can only go so far without positive people skills and management style. Some of the key skills that make a good CSO include: 

  • Strong verbal communication skills to clearly articulate ideas and understanding. 
  • Technical writing skills to create and manage important documentation. 
  • Ability to identify areas of inefficiency or areas of opportunity for maximizing sustainability in corporate practices. 
  • Relationship-building skills to form meaningful relationships and connections with different stakeholders, suppliers, partners, employees and other important members of the organization. 
  • Critical thinking skills to solve problems and enact creative thinking to provide solutions. 

What truly makes a good chief sustainability officer is being able to combine these skillsets and leverage them in a leadership role to accomplish sustainability initiatives for an organization. 

Outlook for Chief Sustainability Officers

As sustainability as a business practice quickly shifts from being a corporate trend to the basis for processes and culture, the role of the chief sustainability officer will constantly grow and evolve to meet the changing needs of companies and their consumers and the demand for strong CSOs will continue to grow as well. Recruiter.com reports demand for Chief Sustainability Officers is expected to go up, with an expected 56,740 new jobs filled by 2029, representing an annual increase of 3.12 percent over the next few years. The average Chief Sustainability Officer in the US makes $220,743.  

How to Become a Chief Sustainability Officer

Becoming a CSO happens through a wealth of experience and years of service in the sustainability field. Acquiring degrees and certifications showcasing a specification in sustainability empowers individuals to become more well-versed and skilled to meet the demands of organizations searching for sustainability professionals. 

Whether you want to pursue a career in sustainability or want to upskill and add important skills to help boost your career prospects and performance at your current organization, continuing your education with a certificate in corporate sustainability is a great place to start. 

Take the next steps toward prioritizing corporate sustainability in your firm by enrolling in the online Global Certificate in Corporate Sustainability, offered by the Vanderbilt Owen School of Management and UBC Sauder School of Business. 

* National long-term projections may not reflect local and/or short-term economic or job conditions, and do not guarantee actual job growth. Information provided is not intended to represent a complete list of hiring companies or job titles, and program options do not guarantee career or salary outcomes. Students should conduct independent research for specific employment information.