15 things that frustrated chief sustainability officers in 2023
- Media Manager
- Dec 19, 2023
- 1 min read
Eco-Business
Written By: Robin Hicks
Published: December 19th, 2023
From supply chain decarbonisation to evolving trade regulations, here are a few of the things that got under the skin of Asia’s corporate sustainability leaders in a year that geopolitics complicated climate ambition in the boardroom.
2023 was the year that chief sustainability officers (CSOs) struggled to make the business case for sustainability amid a global economic slowdown and conflicting business priorities as geopolitics wormed its way into the boardroom.
Some companies scaled back their climate ambition. Big polluters such as BP and Shell, and multinational consumer brands such as Canon, rolled back decarbonisation pledges, while major banks, including Standard Chartered and HSBC, stepped away from the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), the United Nations-backed organisation that aligns net-zero targets with a climate-safe planet, over concerns that SBTi validation could hinder their ability to finance fossil fuels.
But other companies ramped up climate ambition despite governments postponing or adjusting climate targets. In November, 367 finance firms and multinational companies worth US$33 trillion joined forces to demand science-based targets to limit global warming to 1.5°C, including carbon intensive firms such as Dow Chemical, Nippon Steel and JD.com.
But the life of a CSO didn’t get any easier in 2023, amid resource constraints and rising expectations of what the sustainability function should deliver for the business. Eco-Business spoke to CSOs and sustainability consultants to get a sense of the things that kept the corporate conscience awake at night this year.
