The new role of sustainability executives: between dreams and numbers - OPINION - August 25, 2025
- Ana Cunha-Busch
- Aug 24
- 3 min read
The new role of sustainability executives: between dreams and numbers - OPINION
By Claudia Andrade
For more than two decades, I have closely followed how sustainability has gone from being a "nice department" within companies to becoming a central strategy for survival and competitiveness. This is not just a theoretical analysis—it is the result of my experience in the field, engaging with vulnerable communities in the backlands of Bahia, working with circular agriculture in Mozambique, and negotiating with investors, governments, and large corporations in search of real solutions for water access and social transformation.
In the projects I developed in rural and quilombola communities in Brazil, I realized that people don't want pretty reports; they want clean water coming from their taps. This is the practical translation of the critique of so-called green talk. The time for vague promises is over.
Today, sustainability executives—and I include myself here, as someone who experiences this role daily—must deal with the demand for measurable impact. The smile of a child who can finally drink clean water is, indeed, an indicator. But I know I also need to translate that smile into metrics, reports, and robust data to ensure continuity and scale.
I've participated in crucial spaces—from meetings in communities in the Northeast to conferences in New York on the Sustainable Development Goals. And in all these places, it became clear: sustainability cannot be treated as an appendix, but at the core of the strategy.
If previously, the sustainability executive was called upon only to "embellish" annual reports, today they are invited to discuss investments, climate risks, and the future of operations. And this requires a posture of someone who connects worlds: the technical world of boards of directors and the real world of communities that feel the impacts firsthand.
Between Friedman and Freeman: the constant dilemma
I remember projects in which I had to justify the costs of social technologies that, from a financial perspective, seemed "too expensive." But when we demonstrated the logic of preventive resilience, as in the case of installing technologies that prevent disease and reduce future public spending, the outlook changed.
This is exactly the dilemma described by Friedman and Freeman: generating profit or generating shared value? My practical answer is: it is possible—and necessary—to do both simultaneously. A project is only sustainable if it is financially viable, but it only generates reputation and continuity if it transforms realities.
In Mozambique, I experienced women transforming their agricultural practices through circular projects we developed. The impact was not only on income, but also on self-esteem, food culture, and even the way children ate.
These memories remind me that being a sustainability executive isn't just about dealing with KPIs—it's about dealing with people, with dreams, with hopes. It's about having the courage to say "no" to shortcuts that destroy the future, even when the short term seems tempting.
What's Changing in Skills
Today, I see that the role of CSO requires more than a passion for the environment. It requires:
• understanding global regulations, because a local project needs to align with the requirements of ISSB, CSRD, TNFFD, and CSDDD;
• Dialogue with investors, because they finance the future;
• Empathy in the field, because communities don't understand acronyms, they understand transformations;
• And, above all, be a universal translator, capable of transforming science into narratives and narratives into impact.
This is exactly the practice I apply at SDW: one foot in the field, the other at the decision-making table.
Questions that move the future
• Will we, sustainability executives, have real power to veto decisions that harm the climate and communities?
• How long will quarterly pressures limit 10-, 20-year plans?
• Are we ready to stop treating sustainability as marketing and start treating it as strategic DNA?
Conclusion: More than a job, a life choice
My career has taught me that sustainability isn't just a work topic. It's a life choice. It's knowing that every water access technology implemented, every community strengthened, every child who gains health is also a living argument against the idea that ESG is just window dressing.
The role of the sustainability executive in 2025 is to be a bridge: between profit and purpose, between the board and the community, between metrics and humanity.
And perhaps the question that guides me most—and which I leave as reflection—is this:
Do we want to use sustainability as a showcase or as a real transformation?
Because the difference between the two isn't in reports, but in the lives we can change.
@cauvic2
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