December 2024

Connect the Dots

Companies

Influence

Climate Policy

Welcome back to Connect the Dots, a newsletter from ClimateVoice focused on exploring the connection between companies, political influence, and U.S. climate policy. So far, we’ve examined why policy is so important, the ways that companies and employees engage, the role of AI, and how sustainability professionals can be a powerful voice for climate policy.

This month we’re looking at what it means to be a sustainability ‘professional,’ and the responsibilities and ‘duty of care’ needed from sustainability professionals at this time. We are exploring questions like:

What does it mean to be ‘professional’? What can be learned from more established professions, like doctors, engineers and lawyers?
What is the current state of the sustainability profession? How can the practice and standing of ‘sustainability professionals’ be raised to meet today’s challenges?
How can sustainability professionals be more effective in combating the climate crisis?

We have both worked as sustainability professionals for more than 25 years. Bill with Google and Facebook (and more recently in the nonprofit sector), and David with a range of local governments, universities, large companies and nonprofits (after ten years as a professional civil engineer). One of the important lessons we’ve learned is that, given the magnitude of the global challenge, business alone cannot solve the climate crisis and other unsustainable trends like biodiversity decline and gross inequality.

Today’s society faces a fundamental challenge: how to transition to ‘fit-for-future’ social, ecological, economic and technological systems. Qualified and dedicated sustainability professionals, in all walks of life, are needed to help navigate the transition. Despite considerable incremental progress on multiple fronts (e.g. growth of renewable energy, EVs, conservation measures), fundamental sustainability metrics show that, at the global scale, we are falling short (e.g. transgressing multiple planetary boundaries). We now know that the collective human impacts on Earth’s life support systems can only be solved fast enough in a systemic way, especially given the current, global net population increase of 81 million annually.

Sustainability ‘professionals’ represent a new field of self-described practitioners, loosely defined as ‘those working, in some capacity, to create a more sustainable future.’ This community of thousands of practitioners brings diverse qualifications, benefitting a wide range of organizations, contexts, countries and cultures. Still, given the enormity of the unsustainability and climate challenge, there is a need to not only grow the number of sustainability professionals but also elevate their collective impact. But what does this look like? What does it mean to be a highly qualified sustainability professional, effectively contributing to a future where life support systems are no longer in decline and humanity flourishes?

Action Items

Watch the Sustainability Communicator podcast episode on ‘Corporate Sustainability in a Second Trump Term’ – an open door discussion with 350+ sustainability professionals moderated by Mike Hower.

Support local climate policy opportunities – Despite the national political climate, state-level climate initiatives can and must move forward – and employees and sustainability professionals can press their companies to uphold climate commitments through lobbying, trade association memberships, and public statements. The State Climate Policy Dashboard from Climate XChange is a useful tool to stay up to speed on emerging local policy opportunities.

Sign the LEAD Statement to add your voice to over 1,000 professionals who are taking a stand in support of climate policy solutions. (Curious about who has already signed? Check out the full list of public signatories.)

Read Auden Schendler’s recent essay in Harvard Business Review and discuss with your colleagues his insights into what companies need to do to accelerate the scale of systemic change required to address today’s complex global challenges.

The Big Picture

Sustainability Professionals Must Develop Stronger Professional Standards and Practices In Service of Broader Community Needs

Over generations, professions have developed to benefit societies in multiple ways and have become widely trusted to fulfill recognized societal needs. What lessons can be drawn from the most trusted and credible professions? The Hippocratic Oath on medical ethics for physicians, for example, dates to before 500 AD. It states among other things ‘do no harm.’ Today, professional doctors and modern medicine improve people’s health, wellbeing and life expectancy. Similarly, professional engineers apply science to develop safe and functional infrastructure and technologies that improve material wellbeing, safety and hopefully enhance environmental protection. As inevitable conflicts arise in society, lawyers solve conflicts in socially accepted ways. While imperfect, most agree that these professions benefit society in major ways compared to a world where they don’t exist.

These professions and others, like architects, teachers and accountants, have developed over generations in response to a societal need of some kind. They begin by responding to an identified problem, then respond with expertise and a community of practice. With maturation, comes professional standards and rules for membership. These typically begin with voluntary associations. Later, they often become codified in law and enforced by governments. With social acceptance, legal standing and public expectations, come consequences for transgressions (e.g. malpractice).

But what are the essential qualities that make professionals, ‘professional’? We suggest that our most credible and trusted professions, like doctors, engineers and lawyers, distinguish themselves by their essential qualities of higher knowledge, competence, ethics and accountability.

Professional Knowledge. Professionals acquire higher levels of foundational scientific, technical and humanistic knowledge than non-professionals. They acquire higher education and experience on a particular subject, situation or topic. Doctors attend universities and acquire advanced basic knowledge about physiological, etiological, clinical, epidemiological, pharmacological and social behavioral sciences. Engineers complete rigorous education on physical sciences and apply science, employ advanced problem solving and further specialize (e.g. mechanical, electrical) to develop and manage technologies and infrastructure that benefit society. Lawyers take rigorous advanced degrees and draw from sociology, psychology, anthropology, language, ethics and other fields to resolve conflicts. An important defining feature of established professionals is their ability to apply knowledge by reasoning from fundamentals: no matter the new technique, the surgeon never forgets how the circulatory system works, the engineer never forgets the laws of physics. Knowledge of fundamentals, continuous learning, and the self-awareness and humility to know one’s limits are all essential for professionals.

Professional Competence. Professionals learn, through experience, to apply knowledge in ways that are effective and valuable to society. They not only know something but can do something. Professional engineers can design and certify infrastructure to be functional and safe and improve people’s lives. Doctors can diagnose, prescribe treatments, improve people’s health and save lives. Lawyers can interpret the law and resolve otherwise intractable disputes. Setting aside popular criticisms of ‘professionals,’ we all benefit from their service.

Professional Ethics. Professional knowledge and competence without a strong ethical commitment can cause harm. The engineer could allow untested materials to be used in a structure, thereby endangering occupants. The surgeon could conduct risky surgery without full and prior disclosure of risks. Established professionals recognize ethics are essential to earn credibility and public trust. Ethical principles can be described in various ways but, in general, professional ethics demand honesty, integrity, fairness, humility, empathy, clear values and respect for others, especially the most disadvantaged or marginalized members of society. In general, professionalism means serving the best interests of society over selfish or employer interests.

Professional Accountability. Professionals take on responsibilities, communicate them (and their limitations) and make themselves accountable. Established professionals commit to codified standards. Their professional associations establish expected commitments, good practice and accepted standards. High ethical standards and clear accountability are essential qualities of credible and trusted professions.

The Credible and Trusted Professional. To earn credibility and public trust, professionals demonstrate all four essential qualities of knowledge, competence, ethics and accountability. Qualified professionals integrate these qualities amidst high uncertainty, challenging power dynamics and potential conflicts of interest.

To whom is a professional accountable?

Professionals can influence their employers through their work and companies influence professionals (and professional norms) through hiring practices, employee directives, allocation of resources, project choices and lobbying efforts. For example, the pharmaceutical industry’s influence on medical schools led to questions about ‘corporate capture’ of professional practice. This may be a cautionary tale for sustainability professionals. How does this power dynamic shape the way a profession and its ‘association’ or ‘society’ evolves? What is a reasonable, ethical standard?

For some professionals, the primary allegiance is to clients or employers, with only a secondary responsibility to a less clear ‘greater good.’ However, the secondary responsibility can’t be discounted. For example, how should a professional geotechnical engineer act when their employer insists on saving money by certifying a project as safe without essential ground testing? What responsibility does the engineer have to act or communicate the concerns? In general, it is not considered professional to prioritize concentrated, short-term interests, company profitability or expediency over the protection of the general health, safety and wellbeing of society.

The Professional ‘duty of care’

It is now widely expected (and often legally mandated) that well-established professions demonstrate a higher duty of care to society than non-professionals. When a structural engineer certifies a bridge as safe, it means more than a layperson saying: ‘the bridge is safe.’ When a medical doctor prescribes treatment, it means more than a layperson’s health tips. And, while all of us ought to be concerned with health, this doesn’t qualify us as health professionals.

For credible and trusted professions, the public expects a higher, professional ‘duty of care,’ since, in many ways, their lives depend on it!

The Nitty Gritty

We’ll use this section to wade deeper into top news in the climate world.

The Vital Role of ‘Sustainability Professionals’

Today, self-declared ‘sustainability professionals’ include people such as corporate sustainability officers, reporting and compliance specialists, energy engineers, environmental advocates, ‘green’ marketing experts, ecosystem scientists, human rights advocates and green building certifiers. Experience and formal education vary from months to decades, and from a two-day certificate to a PhD.

Sustainability practitioners in business are often tasked with providing positive stories to tell, dealing with external stakeholders (compliance, voluntary reporting, adversarial groups), or marketing. They are typically not asked to consider broader systemic change. However, they increasingly recognize the need for an honest assessment and response to systemic global challenges: not only in what they demand of themselves, but also for their company – and business and society more generally. There is today, however, no widely held definition, standard, nor code of ethics for what it means to be a sustainability professional. Early-stage, voluntary associations and certifications (e.g. International Society for Sustainability Professionals) focus on sustainability knowledge, competencies and community-building, but not yet on professional ethics, duty of care or accountability.

Given the increasing complexity and risks to humanity and planet from the systemic degradation of biophysical and social systems, there is an increasing need for highly qualified sustainability professionals. However, achieving the credibility and trust of the more established professions won’t be easy. The apparent societal need is not as widely recognized and, by their nature, (un)sustainability risks are less direct and immediate (e.g. compared with the immediate health of a patient). Furthermore, powerful business and geopolitical interests, along with today’s (dis)information age, undermine the perceived value of science-based knowledge, rationality and the good judgement of qualified professionals.

Sustainability Knowledge: remember what is fundamental. The meaning of sustainability and ‘sustainable solutions’ will always be contested. That said, the growing field of peer-reviewed ‘sustainability science’ is helping to build valuable consensus about the fundamentals of global sustainability (and ‘unsustainability’).

Qualified sustainability professionals should understand the fundamental dynamics and limits of life on earth, including the functioning of the planet’s dynamic life support systems, biogeochemical cycles, laws of thermodynamics, the hydrologic cycle, agroecological systems, ecosystem functioning and resilience. They also should understand important normative social principles concerned with intra- and inter-generational equity, human rights and basic human needs along with the procedural principles necessary for effectively engaging and co-creating solutions with diverse communities.

Systems thinking and foresight are at the heart of sustainability knowledge: recognizing the global gap between today’s unsustainable present (e.g. in terms of systemic trends) and sustainable, fit-for-future socio-ecological systems. Sustainability professionals need to understand ways of co-creating the transformational change needed to achieve fit-for-future solutions, in any given context (e.g. company, project, community, network). Science-informed frameworks such as planetary boundaries, planetary health, related concepts like Raworth’s doughnut economics, and key metrics like ecological overshoot and GHG accumulations all help to usefully communicate large amounts of sustainability science to inform decision-making.

Serious sustainability professionals can apply fundamental knowledge with robust reasoning. They complement the basics with specialized ‘instrumental’ knowledge to catalyze practical actions, focused on topics such as energy technology, human rights, business processes, corporate sustainability reporting, and economic analysis. Importantly, qualified sustainability professionals understand the difference between instrumental and fundamental knowledge: ROI for a new sustainability investment or LEED points are instrumental, contributing to transformation and stabilized life support systems is fundamental.

Sustainability Professional’s Competence: sustainability professionals are able to apply their knowledge and act as effective change agents. They have the leadership qualities, skills and abilities necessary to understand context, engage diverse interests in positive ways and co-create new, fit-for-future realities. Unfortunately, they are often not empowered to do so. More often, they are tasked with isolated, incremental, short-term instrumental and/or ‘performative’ initiatives that look good and may lead to incremental improvements, but ignore sustainability fundamentals.

To be effective change agents, sustainability professionals need to be empowered to apply their leadership skills to catalyze and scale transformational change. The systemic nature of the work requires cooperation with other professionals, across industry sectors and multi-institutional networks from business, government, academia and civil society. Sustainability professionals can play a critical role, including holding a clear – and inviting – sightline to a principled, fit-for-future society where life-support systems are no longer in decline.

Sustainability Professional’s Ethics: Sustainability professionals have a higher professional ‘duty of care’ to society. As with more well-established professionals, building credibility and trust will require a clear demonstration of ethical principles: part of a higher professional ‘duty of care’ to society. It includes honestly communicating critical sustainability knowledge and competently practicing without fear of reprisal. As a minimum, sustainability professionals should be empowered to provide reasoned, diplomatic and direct advice to employers, clients and governments.

Unfortunately, employers and/or powerful corporate lobbies and government actors can unreasonably restrict or punish individual sustainability professionals for speaking and acting ethically. As with other more established professions, professional associations are needed to ‘speak with the voice of their members’ to protect individual professionals. Conversely, when ‘sustainability professionals’ act unethically, professional associations can adjudicate and, potentially, sanction their members.

Sustainability Professional’s Accountability. Current efforts with accountability and sustainability tend to be focused on organizations, not professionals. Standards attempt to ensure companies ‘do what they say’ (e.g. SASB, ISSB). However, if the sustainability profession wishes to build its stature in society, sustainability professionals will also need to be accountable for their advice and actions. This could eventually include codified standards (e.g. including substantive and procedural standards and/or metrics). Qualified sustainability professionals from all institution types should actively participate in shaping these standards.

Just like other professionals, sustainability professionals will increasingly be expected to make difficult decisions involving compromise, balance or reconciliation between different interests and actors. Professional judgement for sustainability professionals, however, cannot be prescribed. It depends on professionals integrating and applying their knowledge, competence, ethics and accountability, as change agents in various contexts. But one thing is sure: these four qualities, including a higher professional ‘duty of care’ to society, are essential.

What do you think? What kind of ‘sustainability profession’ do we need, and how do we get there?

For a Deeper Dive

What Can Sustainability Professionals and Their Profession Do Now?

We offer the following as immediate next steps you can take to further advance the field of sustainability professionals. We urge readers to hold one another accountable, and to publicly elevate the challenges faced by sustainability professionals today.

1. Develop your Professional Practice. High quality educational, employment and volunteer opportunities help elevate your knowledge, competence, ethics and accountability. But don’t stop here. How you apply your expertise with ethics and duty of care at the forefront is critical.

2. Become a workplace advocate. Join with other employees either within your company or across companies in the common purpose of aligning professional values with action and accountability. Ensure your workplace isn’t captured by norms that are contrary to a ‘duty of care’ and ethical responsibility to society. Learn about Advocating for Climate Policy in the Workplace, including exposing the hypocrisy and/or the inadequacy of individual corporate efforts.

3. Strengthen the professional practice community. Join with thought leaders, CSOs, academics, and environmental activists to continue to elevate the standards of the sustainability profession and its members. Advocate for the highest standards of professionalism, including protecting and empowering professional’s ability to integrate sustainability knowledge, competence, ethics and accountability in their workplace, networks and associations. Bring the challenges you face into the public sphere and normalize action with ethics and ‘duty of care’ as your primary responsibility.

Coming soon...

Stay tuned for our next issue where we’ll continue digging into corporate climate policy advocacy and how companies can lead the charge.

Have a specific question about Corporate Political Responsibility that you’d like us to address? Shoot your questions to us with subject line "Connect the Dots."