為何 CSO 必須成為企業策略團隊的核心成員
The false dichotomy of strategy vs sustainability
For too long, corporate strategy and sustainability have been treated as parallel tracks within organisations – related perhaps, but primarily separate disciplines. Strategy teams focus on growth, market positioning and competitive advantage, while sustainability professionals work on ESG reporting, carbon footprints and stakeholder engagement. This artificial separation has created a dangerous blind spot: corporate strategies that fail to account for sustainability realities are not just environmentally irresponsible but strategically unsustainable and increasingly unviable.
The time has come for chief sustainability officers (CSOs) to claim their rightful place as core members of corporate strategy teams, not as advisors or consultants but as integral architects of business strategy. The fundamental premise is simple: any corporate strategy that doesn't consider sustainability constraints, opportunities and dependencies is not a strategy but a plan for managed decline in a resource-constrained, climate-changed and socially conscious world.
策略相關性革命
The traditional view of sustainability as a cost centre or risk mitigation function misunderstands its strategic relevance in the 21st-century business environment. Sustainability issues are not external considerations that companies can choose to address or ignore; they are the basic conditions within which all business strategies must operate.
Consider the strategic implications of resource scarcity, climate impacts, changing consumer preferences, regulatory evolution and shifting investor priorities. These core constraints and opportunities define the strategic landscape for every business decision and therefore should not be addressed through separate sustainability initiatives alone.
A technology company developing AI solutions cannot create a sustainable competitive advantage without considering energy consumption, data centre sustainability and the social implications of automation. A consumer goods company cannot build a lasting market position without understanding supply chain resilience, packaging innovation and evolving consumer values. A financial services firm cannot develop growth strategies without considering climate risk, sustainable finance opportunities and changing regulatory requirements.
領導策略發展
The most forward-thinking organisations are moving beyond simply integrating sustainability considerations into existing strategy processes. Instead, they are positioning their CSOs as co-leaders of strategy development, recognising that the sustainability lens provides unique insights into market evolution, risk identification and opportunity recognition that traditional strategy frameworks often miss.
This shift requires CSOs to develop sophisticated strategic thinking capabilities beyond traditional sustainability expertise. They must understand competitive dynamics, market mechanisms, financial modelling and organisational capabilities. But more importantly, they must help strategy teams understand how sustainability factors reshape these traditional strategic considerations.
The CSO's role becomes that of a strategic translator, helping traditional strategy teams understand how sustainability trends create new competitive moats, how resource constraints redefine cost structures, how stakeholder expectations alter value propositions and how regulatory evolution changes industry dynamics. This is not about adding sustainability considerations to existing strategies; it's about reconceptualising strategy through a sustainability lens.
系統策略優勢
CSO 擁有獨特的系統思考觀點，在策略規劃上的價值與日俱增。傳統的策略通常著重於離散的競爭優勢和市場地位，可持续性 專業人員則受訓從相互關聯的系統、回饋環路和長期後果的角度思考。
This systems perspective reveals strategic opportunities and risks that linear strategic thinking often misses. It identifies how supply chain vulnerabilities can cascade into market disruptions, how social license issues can erode competitive positioning, how resource dependencies can create strategic bottlenecks and how circular business models can create entirely new value creation mechanisms.
The CSO who understands these systemic interactions can help strategy teams develop more resilient, adaptive and ultimately more successful strategic approaches. They can identify strategic moves that create multiple forms of value simultaneously – financial, environmental and social – rather than optimising for single metrics that may prove unsustainable.
重新定義競爭優勢
Perhaps most importantly, CSOs can help strategy teams understand how sustainability factors redefine the nature of competitive advantage. Traditional sources of competitive advantage – cost leadership, differentiation, market access – are transformed by sustainability considerations.
Cost leadership increasingly depends on resource efficiency, circular design and sustainable supply chains. Differentiation increasingly relies on purpose alignment, stakeholder value creation and positive impact. Market access increasingly requires social license, regulatory compliance and stakeholder trust.
那些能夠及早意識到這些變化，並將可持续性 考慮因素融入其核心競爭戰略中的公司，將會創造出持久的優勢。那些繼續將可持续性 為獨立於戰略之外的公司將發現他們的傳統競爭優勢被更全面的競爭對手所侵蝕。
整合的必要性
For CSOs to effectively serve as strategic guides, they must be embedded in strategy development processes from the beginning, not consulted after strategic directions have been set. This means participating in market analyses, competitive assessments, scenario planningand strategic option evaluations. It means having access to the same strategic information and decision-making authority as other senior strategic leaders.
這種整合還需要開發新形式的戰略分析，將傳統的商業指標與可持续性 指標相結合。戰略規劃必須將碳影響與財務預測、利害關係人影響與市場分析、系統復原力與競爭定位結合起來。
最成功的整合創造了新的混合分析框架，使可持续性 考慮因素與傳統財務指標一樣具體和可操作。這可能涉及開發包含氣候和社會變量的新形式情景規劃、包含可持续性 定位的新競爭分析，以及計入環境和社會資產與負債的新估值模型。
不可持續的策略問題
The argument for CSO integration into strategy teams is not just that it creates better outcomes – it's that strategies developed without sustainability consideration are increasingly unsustainable in the most literal sense. They cannot be sustained over time because they ignore the basic constraints and opportunities that define the business environment.
A growth strategy that depends on linear resource consumption in a finite world is a countdown to obsolescence. A market expansion plan that ignores social impact and stakeholder concerns is a recipe for reputation risk and regulatory backlash. And a competitive strategy that fails to account for climate risk and the energy transition is a managed retreat from market relevance.
建立策略性 CSO
This evolution requires CSOs to develop new capabilities while maintaining their sustainability expertise.
They must become fluent in financial analysis, market dynamics, competitive strategy andorganisational design, while being able to communicate sustainability insights in strategic terms and translate strategic objectives into sustainability imperatives.
Perhaps most importantly, they must develop the confidence and authority to challenge traditional strategic assumptions and propose alternative strategic directions based on sustainability insights. This means moving from the advisory role of highlighting sustainability risks to the leadership role of identifying sustainability-driven strategic opportunities.
策略領導的未來
Organisations that successfully integrate CSOs into their core strategy teams will develop more resilient, more adaptive and ultimately more successful strategies. They will identifyopportunities earlier, avoid risks more effectively and build competitive advantages that prove sustainable over time.
Those that continue to treat sustainability as separate from strategy will develop plans that are increasingly disconnected from market realities, stakeholder expectations and resource constraints. In a world where sustainability factors are becoming business-critical, the distinction between sustainable strategy and good strategy is disappearing.
The CSO's role as a strategic guide is a necessity for organisational survival in an era where unsustainable strategies are simply unsuccessful strategies by another name.
