What Does a Sustainability Manager Do?: Understanding the Role

There was a time not too long ago when understanding the ‘sustainability manager’ role was quite straightforward. What did every sustainability manager do? Well, they managed an organization’s sustainability efforts of course. 

This was true maybe 20 years ago, back when sustainability was more of a box-ticking exercise than a strategic necessity. 

Today though, sustainability simply has to be at the core of any successful long-term business strategy. At the same time, the sustainability landscape has grown so complex that it is now very difficult for one person to manage every aspect of it. 

So basically, strategically embracing sustainability is now entirely crucial, and more challenging than ever. 

The result of all this; the sustainability manager role has become diversified. Many different types of sustainability manager exist, and having the right combination in place is pivotal for business success. 

What does a sustainability manager do, you ask? 

Right now, the answer to that is, lots of things! 

(Lots of necessary things, as you’ll find in the next section). 

What Does a Sustainability Manager Do? 

Optimizing energy usage across the entirety of business operations. Embedding sustainability into the intricacies of the supply chain. Designing the most sustainable products on the market. Communicating all of this in the best way possible to all key stakeholders, both internally and externally. The list goes on. 

Surely nobody could expect one person to manage all of this? 

Thankfully, these days (for the most part at least), nobody does expect that. 

Instead, companies appoint the following types of sustainability managers to focus on their respective areas of sustainability: 

General Sustainability Manager

Okay, so we did say ‘for the most part’ above for a reason. Because there are still cases — especially in smaller companies — where a general sustainability manager will be tasked with implementing and guiding a company’s overall sustainability strategy. 

This is of course completely understandable when resources and budget are limited. Hiring a general sustainability manager under these circumstances still represents an essential step on the sustainability journey. 

Once hired, a general sustainability manager will take on important responsibilities such as:

- Developing and implementing all sustainability strategies and policies. 

- Monitoring and reporting key performance metrics like energy use and waste reduction.

- Assessing the sustainability-related risks the company faces, and developing strategies to mitigate them.

- Collaborating with various departments to promote sustainable practices throughout the organization. 

- Engaging with internal and external stakeholders to communicate the company’s sustainability efforts. 

- Ensuring compliance with relevant regulations. 

- Preparing sustainability reports in compliance with legislation like the CSRD.

- Constantly exploring innovative ways to enhance sustainability performance. 

- Overall, making sure that the company’s goals are aligned with environmental and social responsibilities.

In larger companies, it might also be the case that a general sustainability manager is hired to oversee a team of more specialized sustainability managers. This helps to guarantee that all of the company’s sustainability efforts are aligned.

Environmental Sustainability Manager

Environmental sustainability managers are entirely focused on minimizing environmental impact. Several key tasks are required to achieve this:

- Conducting environmental impact assessments to understand the company’s current impact, and identify areas for improvement.

- Developing and implementing strategies aimed at reducing the company’s environmental impact. This is likely to involve reducing waste, water usage, carbon emissions, and energy use. 

- Monitoring the effectiveness of environmental initiatives and reporting on progress. 

- Ensuring compliance with any relevant environmental regulations.

- Engaging with employees to raise awareness about the company’s environmental initiatives, and providing training if needed. 

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Manager

Sustainability isn’t just about environmental performance. It is also important for companies to have a positive impact on society. 

Appointing a dedicated Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) manager is probably the best way to achieve this. They will help to ensure that the company contributes to the community and society in a number of ways:

- Assessing the company’s existing impact on society. 

- Implementing and managing CSR initiatives that improve this impact, such as philanthropy, community outreach, charity partnerships, employee volunteer initiatives, and ethical labor practices. 

- Monitoring the effectiveness of CSR initiatives and making adjustments where needed to improve performance. 

- Engaging with external stakeholders, such as NGOs and community groups, to build partnerships and enhance the company's reputation.  

- Collaborating with various departments to ensure that the company's practices align with social expectations. 

- Promoting employee involvement in CSR activities. 

- Ensuring compliance with all relevant regulations, and that all CSR activities comply with legal and ethical standards.

- Working closely with public relations and communications teams to publicize the company’s CSR efforts. 

ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Manager

Taking a broader focus than both the environmental sustainability manager and the CSR manager is the ESG manager. 

ESG managers oversee the integration of environmental, social, and governance factors into a company’s operations and strategy. While particularly accounting for investor expectations and regulatory compliance. Piece of cake right? 
 
Well unfortunately for ESG managers, their role doesn’t typically involve much cake. But it does involve:

- Developing and implementing strategies that align the company’s operations with ESG principles, while also considering long-term goals and stakeholder expectations.

- Working with various departments to integrate ESG principles across the company’s decision-making processes. 

- Collaborating with the governance team to enhance corporate governance practices, such as board diversity and ethical conduct.

- Tracking ESG metrics such as carbon emissions, community engagement, and governance practices, and identifying opportunities for improvement.

- Ensuring ESG-related transparency by communicating progress to internal and external stakeholders. 

- Responding to stakeholder inquiries and concerns regarding the company’s ESG performance.

- Ensuring compliance with relevant ESG regulations and guidelines. 

- Preparing ESG reports in compliance with relevant frameworks and regulations. 

Sustainable Supply Chain Manager

For some companies, their supply chain is so complex and extensive that they need a specialized manager just to focus on making it alone more sustainable. 

Sustainable supply chain managers can do this by:

- Assessing the sustainability performance of partners and suppliers. 

- Identifying and prioritizing partners and suppliers who adhere to sustainable practices.  

- Working with suppliers to develop criteria for assessing sustainability performance, and integrating these criteria into procurement and sourcing decisions. 

- Optimizing processes such as transportation, inventory management, and packaging to help reduce the supply chain-related footprint.

- Tracking and analyzing supply chain-related sustainability metrics such as carbon footprint and waste reduction.
 
- Developing and implementing strategies to minimize resource usage, and ensure ethical labor practices across the supply chain.

- Ensuring compliance with all relevant — environmental and social — supply chain-related regulations. 

Sustainable Product Manager

It would be a real shame if the sustainable supply chain manager went to all this trouble, but the products being supplied weren’t sustainable. Wouldn’t it!?

That’s why many large companies also have a designated sustainable product manager. In various ways, they help to develop and manage products that meet the company’s sustainability standards:

- Conducting market research to identify trends, and to understand consumer demand for sustainable products. 

- Analyzing competitor’s products to help with product development strategy.

- Leading the development of new products (or redesign of existing products) with a focus on sustainability. This might include incorporating sustainable materials, using energy-efficient production processes, or enhancing the product’s durability and recyclability. 

- Managing the entire lifecycle of each product, from materials sourcing to end-of-life, and ensuring that each stage creates minimal environmental impact. 

- Tracking the environmental performance of products and identifying areas for improvement. 

- Ensuring that products comply with relevant environmental regulations and standards. 

Energy Manager

To design and produce products, to move them around a supply chain, to do any of these things, companies need energy! But ideally, for financial and environmental reasons, they want to use as little as possible. 

So they go and hire an energy manager, who waves their magic energy wand and minimizes the company’s energy usage. Okay that’s not exactly how they do it. It may seem like magic, but it’s more of a rigorous process that involves:

- Conducting energy audits to identify how and where energy can be used more efficiently. 

- Developing and implementing strategies to reduce energy usage and related costs. 

- Assessing and integrating appropriate renewable energy sources. 

- Negotiating contracts with energy suppliers to secure favorable rates and to ensure reliable energy supply.

- Promoting sustainable energy practices across the organization.

- Coordinating across departments to implement energy-saving initiatives. 

- Constantly analyzing energy data to identify further opportunities for reduced energy usage and cost savings. 

- Ensuring compliance with relevant energy-related regulations and standards. 

Sustainability Communications Manager

Nearly as important as implementing these kinds of sustainability initiatives, is telling people about them. This is how a company can improve its reputation, gain a competitive advantage, and ultimately, be seen as a sustainability leader. 

Getting this communication spot on is so important in fact, that most companies have a dedicated sustainability communications manager. In the following ways, they ensure that all the right people become fully aware of the company’s sustainability successes: 

- Developing and implementing communication strategies that effectively convey the company’s sustainability goals, initiatives, and achievements. 

- Through these strategies, crafting clear, consistent, transparent, and compelling messages that resonate with the relevant stakeholders. 

- Creating and overseeing the production of all sustainability-related content, including press releases, social media posts, blogs, case studies, white papers etc. 

- Ensuring that content is communicated both internally and externally in the most effective way possible. 

- Educating and engaging employees about the company’s sustainability goals and initiatives. 

- Coordinating with other departments to align messaging, and make sure it fits with the company’s overall brand and communication strategies. 

- Working with the public relations team to help manage media relations, and respond to sustainability-related media inquiries. 

- Tracking the effectiveness of sustainability communications and continuously improving them.

- Overseeing the preparation of sustainability reports, ensuring that they are accurate, transparent, compelling, and in compliance with applicable regulations.

Sustainability Reporting Manager

Many companies take sustainability reporting so seriously — as they should with regulations like the CSRD coming into force — that they appoint a dedicated sustainability reporting manager. Their job is to oversee the preparation and publication of the company's sustainability reports, in accordance with applicable regulations and standards. 

This involves key responsibilities such as:

- Gathering data from various departments about sustainability metrics such as energy use, carbon emissions, waste management, and social impact. 

- Ensuring that this data is accurate, consistent, and reliable for reporting purposes.

- Leading the development and creation of sustainability reports. 

- Writing and editing content for these reports, ensuring that complex sustainability data is communicated clearly and effectively. 

- Ensuring that sustainability reports comply with relevant regulations and standards, such as the CSRD for example. 

- Coordinating external audits of sustainability reports, to ensure that they are verified as credible. 

Interim Sustainability Manager (Perfect for Maternity Cover and Sick Leave)

No matter what kind of sustainability manager a company needs, it’s becoming increasingly popular for companies to hire them in an interim capacity. 

This is because interim sustainability managers offer the same quality of work and expertise as full-time sustainability managers, but with added benefits like extra flexibility and cost-effectiveness. 

(This also makes interim sustainability managers the ideal solution when companies need seamless, competent cover for maternity leave or sick leave). 

Basically, interim sustainability managers can do everything traditional sustainability managers can do, but they’re available on demand.

Speaking of available; the best interim sustainability managers around are available through Dazzle! 

Hire a Top-Tier Interim Sustainability Manager Through Dazzle  

Dazzle is a platform that offers the world’s best sustainability freelancers on-demand, and we have every type of sustainability manager you could need. 

Through Dazzle, quality and track record is guaranteed, because we carefully pre-screen all of our sustainability experts. And the process couldn’t be more flexible, as you can choose to work with our freelancers on a project-based, on-demand, or interim basis.

So if you feel you could benefit from hiring any kind of sustainability manager on an interim basis, don’t hesitate to contact us today.

We can find you the perfect solution by the end of the week.