Perspectives of a Global Sustainability Director: Innovating through your own business

In 2025, we explored the question “Is ESG dead?” as the Chief Sustainability Officer role began to shift. High‑profile moves, such as Apple’s [1] decision not to replace its standalone CSO, reflect a broader change: sustainability is increasingly being embedded within core operational, legal, and financial decision‑making rather than held by a single executive title.

Political backlash against ESG, rising regulatory complexity, and the pressure for measurable returns are accelerating this evolution. It is a clear signal that the traditional CSO role, as it has existed over the past decade, is under threat. Against this backdrop, my own experience as Sustainability Director at the heart of a sustainability consultancy offers a unique lens.

Over 25 years, I’ve gained a wide-ranging skill set: from driving voluntary sustainability initiatives with SMEs to advising large organisations on compliance and performance. Taking on both a client‑facing and internal role was alluring; each informs the other.

The dual perspective helps me bring clients’ challenges to life while shaping SLR’s own sustainability ambition. A consistent thread through my work is translating complex data into accessible insight and explaining the “why” behind action.

What does it mean to “walk the talk”?

In sustainability consultancies, there’s an expectation that your own house is in order. Even when it isn’t, many firms rely on the fact that client impacts dwarf their operational footprint - but not at SLR. My job is to keep our house in order across a wide global footprint, improve data quality, and report robustly. That’s a sizeable remit in shared offices where energy data is hidden in service charges, and there’s over a quarter of a million lines in the accounts ledger.

This year, our Practical Decarbonisation experts developed our plan for improving office data, and our new Procurement Director - who brings a strong sustainability focus – has helped shape our 2026 ambitions, which are already delivering improvements.

I am also fortunate to draw on our global Corporate Sustainability Advisory experts; what better way to showcase our best-in-class services than to use them internally?

Working internally is very different from external advisory work. Instead of supporting clients in making changes, I must drive that change myself. Research shows that executive buy‑in, strong communication, and collaboration are key to sustainability success [2], and this has guided our approach.

Engaging teams across SLR has shaped our Double Materiality Analysis [3] and our revamped Sustainability Strategy. The enthusiasm across the business has been energising, creating a clear, shared direction.

What did it take to reimagine our Sustainability Strategy?

A highlight of last year was shaping our Sustainability Strategy, which launched early in 2026. Rather than reinventing our strategies, we are consolidating elements of our People, Culture and Inclusion and Health and Safety strategies, along with all others that intersect with sustainability, to identify strengths, opportunities, and any gaps we want to fill. We’re creating a coherent narrative to guide decisions with our stakeholders and to provide a clear way to measure our wider impact.

Demonstrating our own sustainability strengthens bonds between people and the business. Often with sustainability, it’s the small things that signal seriousness: noticing recycling behaviours in our London office sparked useful conversations and highlighted the value of clearer signage. Building on our ISO 14001 certifications, we’re launching a sustainable office checklist to help local teams make simple, visible changes.

To maintain momentum, I ensure every initiative has executive support and is communicated widely. This is achieved by working with SLR’s internal communications teams on regional materials, town halls, intranet articles, and office posters. I’ve established a sustainability focused employee network that facilitates discussion with colleagues around the world, plus an “Ideas Forum” for quick feedback.

Our regional champions follow up and help scale the most promising ideas globally. This two-way engagement strengthens trust and builds pride in being part of a consultancy committed to Making Sustainability Happen for both our clients and ourselves.

With more than 45 technical discipline teams at SLR, our organisation is highly complex. We optimise our strategy to include as many teams as possible and empower everyone to move ideas forward. For example, helping our Archaeology team develop project-specific carbon reduction offers. As more teams get involved, I hope the storytelling grows and inspires colleagues globally.

How is working within a sustainability consultancy different for a sustainability leader?

I have sustainability expertise across all disciplines at my fingertips and can deploy expert teams quickly, likely making my role easier than in other sectors.

Sitting across both our Corporate Sustainability Advisory team and global internal leadership gives us a valuable opportunity to better understand the challenges clients face in implementing strategies, and we can test and refine our own tools internally before taking them to market. As an early adopter of TNFD, SLR will produce its first TNFD disclosure for FY25, combined with TCFD to reflect the interlinked nature of climate and nature risks.

Looking at market needs helps us secure investment to improve internal systems and pilot tools that later support clients. One key project for 2026 is improving how we measure the impact of our client work. A growing but still nascent area across the sector. This will help quantify the wider social and environmental impacts we enable.

Of course, as with any global business, the work comes with challenges: navigating diverse interests, time zones, resourcing, and internal networks. Sustainability leaders often feel like a lone voice, but it shouldn’t be that way. Our unique position lets us transfer insights between internal operations and external projects, strengthening both.

Real momentum comes from tapping into the passion, insight, and lived experience of our people - creating forums, empowering regional champions, and encouraging collaboration.

If sustainability is to be truly embedded rather than bolted on, we all have a role in sharing knowledge, leaning into collaboration, and contributing to collective progress to evolve our behaviours.

Advisory Digest

---

Enjoyed this article? For more like it, get SLR's quarterly sustainable business briefing straight to your inbox.

Sign Up