State of Sustainability

Just 25% of industry experts believe the standalone sustainability function will exist in five years. So what is the next great frontier for sustainability leaders?In this episode, host Saif Hameed asks a provocative question fresh from hosting the Chicago State of Sustainability Summit: Will corporate sustainability functions still exist in five years? To help answer, Saif breaks down the three massive shifts currently challenging the sustainability professional's day-to-day workflow.First, integrating green goals into mainstream roles means CFOs, procurement officers, and supply chain teams are absorbing sustainability tasks - a double-edged sign of success.Second, rapid advancements in automation and agentic AI is likely to completely overtake routine tasks like carbon accounting, data aggregation, and stakeholder reporting in the coming years.Finally, a macro backlash against corporate sustainability has stifled the ambitious blue sky thinking that characterised the late 2010s, leaving behind more mundane compliance work.The good news, as Saif explains, is an exciting new horizon for the profession: Volatility Management. Driven by geopolitical conflicts and the terrifying reality that seven of our nine planetary boundaries are now breached, businesses face unprecedented high price variability in crucial commodities like rice, wheat, and cocoa. True business resilience now requires constant transformation and stabilisation to survive these shocks.Saif explains how sustainability professionals can secure their future by repositioning themselves as volatility managers. By leveraging their three bedrock skills - systems thinking, data insight, and storytelling - and combining them with deep business context, sustainability experts can build the crucial playbooks CEOs need to navigate an increasingly unpredictable world. What are your thoughts on this? Are you already pivoting towards volatility management as a way of insulating yourself from these developments in the sustainability space? I'd love to hear from you. Email [email protected] to transform your sustainability reporting? Start your journey at Altruistiq.comThis podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.