Management Systems and Performance Frameworks for Sustainability

3 Sustainability and CSR leadership

3.1 Introduction

The twenty-first century has seen the emergence of a new chief on the block – the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO). A well heeled recruitment consultancy recently produced a report heralding the arrival of the CSO to the C suite along with the emergence of sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the strategic agenda. Sadly the recent spate of high profile resignations in the United States, and in the UK the imprisonment of former members of parliament for unethical conduct, paints a less rosy picture of the importance of social responsibility amongst the business and political elite.

The concept and use of the word “Chief” is a truly American phenomena; in the UK and the ...