What is a Sustainability Manager?: A Quick Guide

For any company that wants to be successful moving forward, embracing sustainability really isn’t an option anymore, is it? It is very much a necessity. 

Customers, employees, clients, investors, you name it. Today, all of your important stakeholders expect you to take sustainability seriously. And in order to do that, having a dedicated sustainability manager (or managers!) in place is absolutely crucial. 

Really, with new regulations like the CSRD and Green Claims Directive adding to the sustainability challenge lately, sustainability management has never been more important. 

But if you don’t have one in place already you might ask, what is a sustainability manager? 

What kind of background and expertise do they have? Is it a ‘one-size-fits-all’ kind of situation, or do different types of sustainability managers exist? 

These are all very valid questions, which we will now happily answer! 

What is a Sustainability Manager? 

Generally, a sustainability manager is a skilled professional who develops, implements, and guides an organization’s sustainability strategy and related initiatives. 

To achieve this they will assume several key responsibilities, while typically working alongside multiple departments to incorporate sustainability across an organization. 

But as the scope of the average company’s sustainability responsibilities has broadened, several different sustainability manager roles have emerged. 

Types of Sustainability Managers 

In ancient times — somewhere around the 2000s, which is ancient in sustainability terms! — the sustainability manager role was really just a single, easily defined role. 

But today, the role of a sustainability manager can vary depending on factors like company size, industry, and sustainability goals and priorities. 

There are now several different types of sustainability managers knocking around, each focused on optimizing different aspects of sustainability within an organization. 

Below we look at the most common types: 

General Sustainability Manager

General sustainability managers are more common in smaller companies today. Companies that have maybe just started their sustainability journey, and where budget is quite limited. For these companies, general sustainability managers oversee the overall sustainability strategy. It is their job to implement and coordinate sustainability initiatives across various areas. Environmental impact, energy efficiency, stakeholder engagement, it all falls under the realm of the general sustainability manager. What a job they have on their hands, right? 

(Depending on the organizational structure, it can also be the case that larger companies have a general sustainability manager in place. In these cases, their job would be to oversee the more specialized sustainability managers, to ensure that all sustainability efforts are aligned).

Environmental Sustainability Manager

Increasingly though, especially in larger companies, it’s more common to have several specialized sustainability managers in place. One of those might be an environmental sustainability manager, who would focus particularly on reducing the company’s environmental impact. 

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Manager

CSR managers on the other hand, oversee the social aspects of sustainability. Their job is to make sure that the company has a positive impact on the communities it operates within, and on society in general.
 

ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Manager

Some companies might choose to have one manager who focuses on environmental, social and governance issues together. Enter, the ESG manager, who concentrates on integrating ESG factors into the business strategy and operations. 

Sustainable Supply Chain Manager

Often, a company’s supply chain alone is complex enough to warrant its own sustainability manager. That’s where sustainable supply chain managers come in, who focus entirely on making the supply chain as sustainable as possible.

Sustainable Product Manager

What do you need a sustainable supply chain for? To deliver all of your sustainable products of course! But sometimes to make sustainable products possible, you need a sustainable product manager. And you guessed it, it’s their job to manage the development and promotion of sustainable products. 

Energy Manager

The truth is, you can’t really do any of this without energy. But the trick is, to use as little energy as possible. To achieve this, many companies have a dedicated energy manager, who focuses on energy management and optimizing energy usage.
 

Sustainability Communications Manager

We can probably all agree that if you’re going to implement loads of great sustainability initiatives, you should probably tell as many people as possible about it. That’s what sustainability communications managers are for; communicating the company’s sustainability efforts and successes to key stakeholders. 

Sustainability Reporting Manager

As new regulations and reporting standards make sustainability reporting more and more complicated, sustainability reporting managers are becoming more commonplace. These are managers that solely concentrate on creating effective sustainability reports that comply with related regulations and standards. 

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

Whatever kind of sustainability manager or managers you’re looking to hire, increasingly, hiring them in an interim capacity is growing in popularity.

By choosing this option you can avail of added advantages such as cost-effectiveness and flexibility. These benefits also make interim sustainability managers the perfect solution as cover for maternity leave, sick leave, or in other situations where seamless temporary cover is required. Allowing you to easily fill in the knowledge and skill gaps during these periods.

The interim option is also very popular when companies require help with a particular sustainability challenge such as the CSRD. By hiring an interim CSRD manager, you can benefit from an experienced CSRD expert, who can join your team for a fixed amount of hours or days per week. This allows your team to bring in an expert with real-world CSRD experience, and ensures knowledge transfer during the collaboration.

Speaking of which.

What Kind of Knowledge and Skills Does a Sustainability Manager Have?  

Clearly, no matter what type of sustainability manager we’re talking about, their role comes with significant challenges. So to be successful, all sustainability managers need to possess a certain level of knowledge and skills:

Education

First off, sustainability managers really should hold a bachelor’s or a master’s degree in a related field. Sustainable development, environmental science, renewable energy, or natural resource management for example. This kind of study allows future managers to gain a foundational understanding of essential sustainability practices.

Environmental Knowledge  

You would also expect an accomplished sustainability manager to have built on the knowledge they gained from their degree. To be successful, they should have a firm understanding of ecological principles, resource management, climate change, renewable energy, and other key sustainability-related topics.
 

Understanding of Regulations 

Keeping tabs on how all the new regulations work seems nearly impossible these days, doesn’t it? CSRD, CSDDD, ESPR, EU Taxonomy; even remembering all the names can be difficult. Well, if you want to be a sustainability manager, you better get memorizing! Seriously though, top sustainability managers should always be knowledgeable about local, national, and international environmental laws and regulations.

Business Acumen  

Of course, sustainability managers need to know more than just sustainability. They are there to help a business thrive, and to do that, they also need to have strong business acumen. Having the ability to develop and implement sustainability strategies that align with business goals is absolutely crucial for success. This involves understanding the financial reality of sustainability initiatives. 

Project Management Skills 

Whether it’s energy optimization, carbon reduction, or sustainable product design, sustainability tends to always involve projects. So a quality sustainability manager should have experience in managing projects from the planning stage through to execution and monitoring. Cross-functional collaboration is also essential when integrating sustainability practices across an organization. So sustainability managers should be able to seamlessly work with several departments.  

Communication/Collaboration Skills 

It goes without saying that to work seamlessly across multiple departments, the ability to communicate and collaborate effectively is critical. Sustainability managers also need these skills to communicate complicated sustainability concepts with key stakeholders, and to prepare comprehensive sustainability reports and presentations. 

Analytical Skills

To develop any type of sustainability strategy, and guide it in the right direction, data collection and analysis is key. Of course, sustainability managers will often have teams around them who specialize in this. But managers should still understand how procedures such as life cycle assessments or carbon footprint assessments are conducted, and be able to identify and manage any related risks. 

Leadership 

For a company to really become a sustainability leader, the whole culture of the organization needs to align with that mission. In most cases, this involves at least some level of organizational change towards sustainability. Each type of sustainability manager has a responsibility to help lead and inspire this evolution. This goes beyond the day-to-day management of the team around them, and extends to communicating the sustainability vision throughout the company, in a way that energizes people and brings them on board. 

If you can find sustainability managers with these qualities, you’ll be off to a very strong start indeed. 

Luckily, you won’t have to look very far, because Dazzle has already found them for you. 

Find Best-in-Class Interim Sustainability Managers Through Dazzle 

Dazzle is a platform that offers the world’s best sustainability freelancers on-demand, including all types of sustainability managers. 

We have environmental experts, interim CSRD experts, energy experts, communications experts; anything you need. And as we carefully pre-screen all of our freelancers, any sustainability manager you hire through Dazzle comes with a guaranteed track record. 

The process is also very flexible, as you can choose to work with our freelancers on a project-based, on-demand, or interim basis. So if you need various managers for particular projects or time periods, we’ve got you covered. 

If you contact us today, we can send you several potential candidates within hours.

Our goal is to help you achieve your sustainability goals, as efficiently as possible.