We recently held a Chief Sustainability Officers Discussion Group in Sydney, hosted by Moir Group ESG.
The event provided an opportunity for CSOs and senior sustainability leaders to connect, share challenges and insights, and discuss the evolving role of the CSO in today’s business landscape.
Key Takeaways from Chief Sustainability Officers Roundtable:
Beyond Compliance to Value Creation: The real challenge is shifting from bare-minimum compliance to demonstrating tangible business value. Even some ASX 100 companies are compliant but not ambitious; the focus must evolve from reporting to value-driver models.
The Reporting Landscape: Monash University research reveals only around 20% of Group 1 reporting entities are ASX-listed, with foreign-listed companies twice as likely to have quality climate disclosures. Power generation and heavy-emitting industries are notably lagging, while telco and tech are advancing rapidly. With Groups 2 and 3 representing thousands more organisations (particularly around Scope 3), there is significant work ahead.
CFO Integration – Opportunity and Risk: Sustainability now sits under the CFO in many organisations, initially driving budget cuts for compliance. The opportunity lies in upskilling CFOs to understand sustainability’s value-creation potential. The challenge is ensuring sustainability doesn’t become purely a finance function divorced from strategic impact.
Real vs Reputational Risk: For critical infrastructure (water authorities, mining, transport), climate risks aren’t PR exercises; they are operational imperatives affecting service delivery to millions. Greenwashing concerns have created distrust. Authentic communication focused on business impact and actual change is essential.
Scope 3 – The Data Dilemma: For many organisations, Scope 3 represents 70–90% of total emissions. While plug-and-play solutions and global databases can mislead, 80% data accuracy can be sufficient to drive decision-making on product selection, energy ratings, and vendor roadmaps. Understanding value chains matters more than perfect precision.
Talent and Skills Evolution: Critical gaps exist as unqualified professionals take cheaper roles without cross-departmental understanding. Evidence of senior stakeholder engagement and quantifiable project experience is crucial. Meanwhile, the CSO role is evolving, shifting from a standalone function to a C-suite advisor and cross-functional influencer as board-level interest increases.
Nature Reporting: TNFD adoption remains in its early stages across industries. Limited capacity and competing priorities mean most organisations aren’t there yet.
Sector-Specific Approaches: The triple bottom line means vastly different things across defence, water authorities, mining, fashion, and cultural institutions, each requiring tailored strategies. Cultural organisations face unique challenges with limited resources, different government frameworks, and creative partnership-based solutions.
Language Matters: A shift from “ESG” to “sustainability” aims to elevate conversations beyond compliance to resilience, longevity, and economic growth—particularly critical in constrained economic environments.
The Opportunity Ahead: Lift the gaze from pure compliance and leverage expertise in climate scenarios, financial analysis, and governance to create value across risk management and strategy. Ensure board engagement is driving systemic change, not just better compliance.
The key question remains: How do we operationalise compliance without drowning in it, while simultaneously proving sustainability’s commercial value?
If you have any recruitment needs in your team on a permanent or temporary basis we would be delighted to assist. Contact us here.
Moir Group is a specialist finance, accounting and ESG recruitment company. We cover temporary and permanent roles from Financial Accountant to CFO level. We also recruit Sustainability and ESG positions across all industry sectors.