MERIT500

Sustainable management is the need of the hour. It is vital to create a balance between the social, economic, and environmental well-being of society. Sustainable manager in organizations helps in creating awareness among employees regarding sustainability and its importance. They create an environment that helps in reducing energy wastage, maximizing resource efficiency, cutting down pollution, and enhancing the quality of work life. 

According to MERIT500’s recent reports on Unique mapping of all the Head of Sustainability/the Head of ESG in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden of all 1,500 listed companies, only 15 percent of the sustainability managers have a place in the companies’ management groups. 

However, the good thing is the proportion is increasing rapidly. 

“Many investors demand it,” said Andrew Suneson Meiling, CEO of MERIT500, in an interview with Dagens Industri.

What Does a Sustainable Manager Do?

1. Sustainable managers are needed in organizations to promote sustainable practices and performance. They can assist an organization in making good business decisions while protecting the environment or limiting damage to the climate.
2. Sustainable managers help companies navigate an increasingly complex world of laws and regulations, as well as emerging technologies that can greatly impact the environment. 
3. They also help organizations make wise decisions about products and services, saving them money and increasing profits. 
4. They empower their employees by creating a positive work environment and emphasizing teamwork and improvement. They encourage employees to value efficiency and performance by investing in training programs, which help employees to understand their roles better and act as a part of an important organization.

Why Should Sustainable Managers Be Part of Boards?

According to our map of sustainability managers in all of the listed 1,522 Nordic companies, 102 positions are members of the Management Team, but only 14 of them have Board-level responsibilities. 

Sustainable managers have a role to play in today’s corporate environment, but there are challenges to this new role:

1. They can face resistance from senior management, who might see sustainable options as too costly or complex. 
2. They also have difficulties gaining approval for sustainable initiatives because of the short-term focus on profitability that is prevalent in many companies. 

However, these challenges are not insurmountable, and sustainable managers should be encouraged to be part of boards as they can bring much-needed expertise and knowledge to these boards when it comes to running an environmentally and economically responsible business.

Sustainable management makes the board more effective, enabling it to respond to company strategy and future challenges. A sustainable manager can contribute with insight into diverse areas such as groups, stakeholder expectations, and eco-systems, so that board members can fully understand these concepts through real-life examples.

What Can We Do For You?

You can access our M500 Sustainability Report, a unique mapping of all the Head of Sustainability/the Head of ESG of more than 1 500 listed companies in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

We can also deliver customed sustainability reports for individual companies with benchmarks of peers and other types of comparative figures. In cases where the company does not have a specially appointed sustainability manager, MERIT500 can help them find a person who would be responsible for this area. 

Bottom Line

The journey toward sustainable business practices has a long way to go, but the good news is that companies are beginning to take notice of the sustainable movement. That’s no small feat in an industry as deep-rooted as manufacturing, where companies have been producing products the same way for decades. As a result, the organizations that are willing to make a change and hire sustainable managers will benefit greatly from their decision.