As recently as 20 years ago, the title of Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) was a corporate novelty – Dupont’s Linda Fisher, the first known CSO, was appointed only in 2004.
By 2011, the number of CSOs in publicly traded companies in the United States had climbed to 29, and the demand for CSOs has soared by 228 per cent over the last decade. In 2020, Fortune 500 companies hired more CSOs than in the previous three years combined, with 31 of them appointing their first CSO.
Today, the role of a CSO is no longer a novelty but a necessity. Discussions surrounding sustainability, particularly environmental sustainability and climate change, have gained traction in recent years, with more and more stakeholders holding businesses accountable for how responsibly they act and operate.
