As sustainability moves from a corporate checkbox to a fundamental driver of business strategy, the role of Head of Sustainability is undergoing a seismic shift. In 2025, these leaders will face unprecedented regulatory challenges, increasing demands for transparency, and the pressure to position sustainability as a competitive advantage- not just a compliance exercise. But beyond regulation, what will define success in this role?
Peter Cabrera, talks to Anna Foden, Head of Sustainability at Permasteelisa, to find out.
They discuss the biggest challenges facing sustainability leaders, how sustainability supports business innovation, and what skills the next generation of sustainability professionals must bring to the table. Whether you’re stepping into the role for the first time or looking to evolve your approach, this conversation offers key insights into what it takes to drive meaningful, business-aligned sustainability in 2025 and beyond.
What are the biggest challenges facing Heads of Sustainability in 2025?
Number one is understanding the regulatory environment – getting your head around what will impact your business. On day one you need to get your business ahead of the regulatory requirements and understand how deeply they will reach into the business. For example, in Europe you have worldwide reporting requirements, and you need a Head of Sustainability who understands how it will affect the immediate business as well as how it will affect your legacy business and then your supply chain in turn. The new EU Omnibus package around CSRD and the EU Taxonomy reporting requirements is a prime example of how fast the ESG regulatory landscape is changing and how companies need to be prepared to dance around what is perceived to be voluntary ‘value-add’ transparency today, and what might ultimately become regulatory compliance in the coming years.
The next challenge is then to explain these requirements, often at Board level, before working with colleagues in IT and finance to make sure you’re compliant. This will require a high level of transparency and cooperation across departments.
At the same time, while regulatory requirements will certainly be the biggest challenge for Heads of Sustainability in 2025, you don’t want regulation to drive your sustainability strategy – sustainability should be a USP and a driver of innovation. Regulatory requirements are just the starting point for a strategy. A key challenge is to find ways to embed sustainability in your innovation and R&D strategies so that it adds to the overall value of the business.
How do you make sustainability a USP for a business?
This is work in progress, but sustainability absolutely can drive innovation. It’s no longer siloed, and it should be a part of a business’s drive for operational excellence. Most of the Fortune 500 companies have already been through a difficult journey towards embedding sustainability in their businesses and it seems like most parties (businesses and regulators) have learned from the experience. There are still things to be learned however from how they went about it the first time around.
How has the role of a Head of Sustainability changed in recent years?
Sustainability used to be a buzzword, and businesses were able to get by with doing the bare minimum but still look quite innovative. This has changed drastically. It’s no longer just about having a recycling bin in the office, it’s moved way beyond that to encompass a business’s supply chain. Now you have to work with all your partners and be much more externally focused as a Head of Sustainability.
Companies are just waking up to the scope of things covered by sustainability requirements. You need to go deep into your supply chain which requires transparency and a higher level of cooperation with your business partners. Heads of Sustainability are taking the lead on this and it’s become a different, more outwardly focused role with a different skillset. All departments are now involved – crucially the finance teams when it comes to financial risks and opportunities around ESG topics, but also all enabling and operational teams.
What will the next generation of sustainability leaders need to bring in terms of skills and experience?
You will need to have a good technical understanding of the business you’re going into and there will always be people within a business who push for the importance of technical skills in a Head of Sustainability. While those skills are important, more important still, will be the need to be able to deliver organisational change. You will need the ability to define a sustainability strategy which brings people along. You will also need the ability to communicate at different levels, from the Board all the way to the shop floor with consistent messaging to all the different stakeholders.
Organisational change is an art form and the next generation of sustainability leaders will need to be experts in delivering change. A background in the industry you find yourself in will be a bonus, but not necessarily a deal breaker, but you’ve got to be an advocate for sustainability and get people on board. One of the ways you can help yourself is by bringing strong data analysis skills, or ensuring you have a team around you to provide this skillset.
What advice would you give to someone going into their first Head of Sustainability role?
In order to convince people of the need to change, you will need to back up what you’re saying with data. The task of collecting and collating sustainability data can seem herculean at first, but it will force you to get under the hood of the business and give you a deep understanding of it by exposing you to people right across the organisation, at all levels. Getting that support to go out into the business and talk to people will require the buy-in of senior leadership and realistically of the Board too.
A good way to do this is to get sustainability to be part of the company’s five-year plan. A top-down approach is essential along with the understanding of the value of sustainability amongst the senior leadership team. Your job is to convince these key stakeholders though constantly re-iterating the value and the importance of sustainability to the business. Focus what you’re saying on how it will re-define the organisation’s USPs and in turn, bring commercial benefits.
What role can technology play in making the role of a Head of Sustainability easier?
One of the reasons there’s such a challenge is because there’s a requirement to be transparent, and data and transparency don’t always go hand-in-hand. A newcomer to the role will find that there’s data you need from 10-20 different sources and there’s a big problem if it’s not joined up.
There is no panacea in the form of some particularly clever piece of software. The software is only good as your own understanding of the data. One way you can help yourself however, is to automate some of the data processing as manual processing is a real hinderance. We’ve done a cost / benefit analysis on the value of doing in-house processing and it showed that there are huge benefits to investing in this rather than asking your sustainability team to do it themselves. They should not be data-entry people. If sustainability is to be one of your USPs, make sure you’re treating it as such and not making it about data collection.
What benefits are there in working with sustainability consultants as opposed to doing the work in-house?
You need to be comfortable with your consultant and there needs to be a very high degree of trust. We have used consultants for double materiality assessment and they’ve been great in giving us a steer, however, you should be aware that when using consultants, the work they’re doing and the data they need doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We ended up with a lot of homework as a result of using a consultant, but we understood going into the process that we wanted both to keep it cost effective in terms of fees, and to keep a bit more control of the process internally. You also need to be aware that you could end up giving an external organisation access to a huge amount of commercially sensitive information. You can’t simply outsource this work in other words!
What other advice would you give a new Head of Sustainability or someone looking to transition into the function?
Our clients are a huge part of what we do in the sustainability function at Permasteelisa. You can get into a trap of assuming that all your clients want to see is that you’re compliant from a regulation perspective, but what they really want to know is what you’re going to offer them that will set them apart from their competitors. A big part of my role is getting out there and showing our clients what we’re doing and how we can work together. As a Head of Sustainability, you really need to understand your clients and what’s driving them in their sustainability goals, and in turn steering your business in a way that’s adding value both internally and externally.
To find out more on how we can help your organisation with your leadership challenge please contact us.
