Virtual Meeting with Chief Sustainability Officers

As a value creator, the private sector holds immense potential to unlock India’s development capabilities, and help the country achieve the 2030 SDG agenda and ultimately realise its vision of becoming a developed nation by 2047. Climate change, however, threatens to stall this growth trajectory, with extreme climatic conditions testing the durability and resilience of economic activities. Against this background, businesses need to action strategies which ensure that their operations continue to remain sustainable.

Building a business case for sustainability, however, hinges on bringing together a team of individuals who understand the topic, have the requisite competencies, and possess the passion needed for implementing sustainability actions. Such a business imperative requires undertaking meaningful skill transition and has emerged as a key ask of organizations. Practicing Chief Sustainability Officers are especially in want of frameworks that layout the requisite competencies expected of them as they work towards expediting actions on ESG within and beyond their organization.

TERI will organise a Virtual Meeting with Indian Chief Sustainability Officers on Thursday, 30 January, from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm. Over the past few months, Indian Chief Sustainability Officers, from a diverse set of industry sectors, came on board to share their inputs in developing a competency framework document, and in the process reaffirmed the significant role played by Chief Sustainability Officers in an environment of ever expanding ESG landscape, and an ecosystem where regulations are increasingly moving from a voluntary to a compliance-based regime.

The competency framework is being developed as a guiding document for businesses - tracing the expansionary job profile of the Chief Sustainability Officers, and the resultant changes in the competencies and skills expected of them as they fulfil their organization’s sustainability agenda. The Competency Framework also incorporates key insights from the Green Skills Report 2024, developed by LinkedIn.

The discussion in this virtual meeting will revolve around the key asks and themes that have emerged from the creation of the Chief Sustainability Officers' Competency Framework.