What's the staffing and structure of your sustainability team?
Sandy Nessing
June 18, 2012
We’ve all been there. As a sustainability professional, I have seen this profession grow during the last six years from obscurity (even ridicule) to top level management. Like so many, I started as a solo act; today I have a team of three. But I was curious – what is the typical staffing level for sustainability at companies? If I had to make the case for a certain staffing level, what would that number be?
To get a lay of the land, I conducted an informal poll* of 15 companies – ten in the electric utility sector and five non-utilities. What I learned was that the numbers are all over the boards. Sustainability teams range in size from one person shops to teams in excess of two dozen. In the utility industry, the average is two to four-person teams with some as large as seven. The non-utility companies also varied widely but they tend to be somewhat larger and closer to the CEO than their utility corporate social responsibility (CSR) peers typically are.
Few have Chief Sustainability Officers – still a bit of a rarity – and everyone relies on people across their organizations to make it happen. I thought my informal poll would provide clarity, but the moral of this story is that it’s a numbers game that relies heavily on management’s commitment to sustainability. The higher the commitment, the closer you tend to be to the CEO but that doesn’t always mean you have the big teams. I don’t necessarily think I need a bigger team but at least my suspicion that we are doing quite a lot with fewer resources than some of our peers is an accurate assessment. I’m happy being in the middle of the average in our sector with my three-person team, thank you very much.
How is sustainability managed in your company and do you think there are sufficient resources to support it?
*This poll was not scientific in nature and asked five simple questions:
- How many people are dedicated to sustainability?
- How far removed are you from the CEO?
- Do you publish a corporate sustainability report annually?
- Do you have a dedicated sustainability web site?
- In which part of the company is sustainability located?
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About the Author
Sandy Nessing
TRC Companies
Sandy has nearly three decades of transformative leadership in the utility sector, during which she served as a driving force behind innovative corporate sustainability and communication strategies. Her expertise spans ESG and sustainability reporting, corporate governance, stakeholder and community engagement, culture transformation, strategic communications, materiality assessments, and risk management. As a Senior Advisor at TRC, Sandy helps clients identify and implement strategic sustainability solutions to better navigate evolving reporting requirements and meet the growing demand for transparency.