Grounded World’s Post

The state of the sustainability profession report 2024 has just been published by the Trellis Group – and it makes interesting reading. 🔦   Did you know for example that 63% of vice presidents in sustainability are female in 2024 - making roughly $22,000 more in base compensation than their male counterparts? But, as the national political landscape here in the USA shifts to the right – in many respects it would appear – away from any real concern or accountability for ESG, the role of the ‘ESG controller’ and the need for sustainability reporting and carbon accounting software is predicted to grow and keep pace with the mandatory reporting requirements at the company level. (CSRD and California legislation both require the reporting of scope 3 emissions, for example). As such, the size of the sustainability reporting market for software is expected to grow to $4.34bn by 2027 and sustainability professionals collectively earned 460% more on Upwork in 2022 than they did in 2019! According to data in the report, only 11% of CEOs in 2024 'own or are very engaged' when it comes to sustainability, and 31% say they are interested but don’t consider it a priority. And yet, the percentage of sustainability executives reporting to the CEO has increased from 22%-30% over the past 2 years! Based on my own experience over the past couple of years, 'greenhushing' is on the rise, budgets are being scaled back, teams are being asked to do more with less (or not bother at all) or they are being disbanded or ‘restructured’. So what’s going on I wonder? Are we just witnessing more lip service, political bullet dodging and corporate posturing? Or are we in fact still tracking along on a slow but inevitable transformation to a stakeholder economy? Will the more future focused strategic and intersectional role of the executive level sustainability professional continue to hold any sway? Is it, (as the report suggests) going to come down to how seriously companies are committed to true sustainability in the form of innovation, incubation and horizon scanning (vs. sustainability as form of corporate reporting and data gathering?)   What do you think? I’d love to know! #timetogetgrounded.