Systemizing the Business Case for Sustainability with Nicole Zethelius

In this episode of our podcast, Maximilian, co-founder of The Sustainability Circle, sits down with Nicole Zethelius, a seasoned sustainability leader with experience at CGI and Nordea, to discuss how sustainability leaders can systemize the business case for sustainability and turn it into a true value driver. Nicole shares insights from her work embedding sustainability into business strategy, navigating corporate decision-making, and balancing short-term wins with long-term impact.

Topics covered include:

• Why sustainability is often seen as a cost center—and how to change that perception.
• Using tools like the ROSI framework and business canvases to quantify sustainability’s value.
• Navigating internal politics and making a strong business case to executives.
• Lessons from real-world corporate sustainability challenges and trade-offs.
• The evolving role of sustainability leaders and the skills needed for future success.

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Resources:

Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI™) Framework

• NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business: https://www.stern.nyu.edu/rosi

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Maximilian: Hi, people. Welcome to another episode of the Sustainability Circle podcast. I am Max, co founder of TSC, and I am again your host today. Every two weeks, we bring you insights, success stories, and practical advice from top sustainability leaders driving sustainability in organizations around the world. And today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Nicole.

See a seasoned sustainability leader who has held key roles such as global head of sustainability at CGI Or her latest role head of people's sustainability at Nordia Nicole has worked with companies at different stages of sustainability integration Focusing on embedding sustainability into business strategies and turning it into a real driver of value.

And while building these business cases for sustainability over and over again, she discovered certain approaches or let's call them concepts that allow. to systemize this approach. And this is what we are going to be talking about today. Together, we will explore how sustainability leaders can systemize the business case for sustainability and turn it into a growth engine for their companies.

Nicole, welcome. It's great to have you here.

Nicole: Thanks so much, Max. I'm happy to be here. It's exciting to be on a podcast here for the

Maximilian: Sustainability Circle. member of TSC, I'm very much looking forward to that episode. I'm sure we will have a lot of insightful findings. So We almost always just dive right in and start by exploring a bit your journey. So you've been a leader in sustainability in many different companies and industries.

Can you share a bit about how you ended up focusing on embedding sustainability into the core business strategy and what drives you to make it a key part of business operations? Tell us a bit about your career path.

Nicole: I think it starts with a little bit of failure as well, like trial and error. when you work in an area of uncharted water, be prepared to figure that out. And I think I've been working for two decades within sustainability in 12 different industries. I've learned a thing or two about panacea promises and sunken cost fallacies.

That are being happening around the area of sustainability and this is making executives and board adverse to sustainability and leading the current cuts that are happening right now. It's been, cut globally, across different markets for the lack of probability. And I would say, personally, on a Dunning Kruger curve I've, reached the expert level, so I've gone down the valley and up to the other side so I have an understanding of how to pivot and stress test some of these things that are happening in corporations today.

Well, systemizing sustainability, right? We will get to that. But before we discuss all of it, let's maybe take a look on the current state of organizations and how they view sustainability. Because part of my day job is to talk to many sustainability leaders. And I find it over and over again that sustainability is still seen as a cost center.

Something that adds overhead, but doesn't directly bring in value, at least it is perceived like that. Why do you think this mindset is so prevalent? And what are the risks of treating sustainability that way, maybe?

Nicole: if we look at this pragmatically, Max should we be giving organizations a hard time for viewing sustainability as a money pit of sorts? I don't think so. I was having lunch with a few of my peers who are also sustainability executives, and we were discussing, One of them purchasing nearly half a million euros in carbon offsetting for Q4 just to meet the targets that were made, while another person spent over a million dollars. On this D. E. And I training this past year to fulfill s one requirements as one as an E. S. R. S. Which is the standardization for reporting for CSRD. In case those listening don't know  what s one is and also to become more favorable in their sustainability ratings for investors. that's a million over a million dollars in investment just to do that.

And I have to ask, Where is the proof that either of these things are doing good for the organizations that made these investments? No one can give me a concrete answer or proof, that we are we really making things better for business? That's the question. Are we really making things better for the environment and society?

What are we trying to solve here with all this this investment and money being made? This reminds me of, when I hired a personal trainer after having my first child and the trainer gave me like a broad and daunting list of all these like big exercises and nutritional advice and not accounting for,  personality, lifestyle, interest goals.

I ended up doing things that the wrong way, maybe putting my health a greater risk. And this was like many months in, I noticed that, I wasn't any healthier. I wasn't even more fitter than I was. And that's how companies are feeling today. they've put in so much effort, And they're not feeling. more sustainable, so to say. So human health and sustainability, I would say, have similarities in this perspective, and that they're both complex bodies are complex, sore organizations, and it depends on so many different variables. It's not an out of the box solution here.

And. there's no such thing as like a get thin quick scheme, nor is there a get sustainable quick scheme that you can take. It takes a great amount of time, trial and error, [00:07:00] and to this day, I still make trade offs for my own fitness. I think that, organizations and companies will also be facing this.

They're going to have to make trade offs, If they want to advance their business and balance sustainability and financial growth it's a long journey, but it's rewarding if done well.

Maximilian: Definitely. it's a journey, right? It's not only a business transformation, but also a cultural transformation. As you said, a company and organization is about its people. And the digital transformation took most of the companies 30 years, if not for some of them, it's actually still ongoing.

So sustainability, it will take time and it will also take a lot of failures. It's just a journey and this is what I find, yeah very interesting in also because it's so fairly new to everybody that still there is so much to be discovered and so [00:08:00] much potential. Maybe before we go to that, what are the tangible impacts of seeing sustainability as just a cost, right?

So how does that impact the decision companies make and the progress they are also yeah, they are able to achieve?

Nicole: Yeah, if we want to talk about, one major tangible impact that is, that the organization meets regulatory requirements and the competitive sustainability ratings for investors. That's a very expensive impact, I would say, and I discern that and this is my opinion, that the cost might outweigh the actual benefit in this current state.

Roughly 80 percent of the budget that's going towards sustainability right now is towards this whole reporting and investor relations. That's a lot. I'm not sure that's a long-term strategy that could be successful for organizations now, neither will actually, if you were to do all the reporting and have all this information at hand, neither will actually relay the understanding of business, resilience, longevity, and a healthy operation and value chain.

There's no, unless you were to look at correlations and findings, none of that would really, you're just taking information, putting in a report. Are we really using that for business advantage? That's questionable. The correlation. So weak at this moment that in almost every sustainability report I've read in my career, it's not connecting that dot to business resilience, to longevity, to healthy operation, to a really clean ecosystem and value chain that the company operates in or the organization operates in.

And in context, [00:10:00] it depends on who's running the show. You either have a hyper focused environmental expert or social sustainability expert with no business acumen. And then, that's, that happens. Or you might have a business expert with zero understanding, of, or deep understanding of sustainability. In this position, right? So you see this gap here and an easy way to tell which way your organization leans is to look at the double materiality results. Because then you'll start to see, either, you're gonna see one scenario where the DMA looks like a diner menu. you open it, it's we'll select everything.

And that's a little that's very ambitious and not realistic. And that's whew, yeah. Another scenario is this, that you see reasonable maturity as far as focus goes. With the E portion, or, but the S and G are just, copy paste, what is the rest of people doing?

It's going back to school, and you didn't study right, and you're like, looking over at your neighbor, oh, what did they answer? D, I guess we're gonna do that too. feels like that a bit, when you're out there. It's like you're just copy pasting what everyone else is doing, and it has nothing to do with the particular industry.

And that's where we're starting to see the money pit. I like to call this, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king, Oh, they made an answer. So we're going to just copy that because someone made an answer and we don't really want to make a decision on it.

And decision making is a huge part of sustainability, stress testing, scenario planning. These are things that are talking about longevity of resilience. So yeah, many times it's not the only role. That these people have, that these leaders [00:12:00] have, and that is also really hard on an individual, to split the domain in which you cover and spread yourself really thin, like a CFO or a slash CSO, for example, like you're your chief finance officer, but you're also the chief sustainability officer, it sets the leaders up for failure.

It's not fair, not that life is fair, but this is not a fair situation. And you're setting them up for failure during this critical transition for businesses. And we're facing economic challenges. Not only that and high regulation in Europe alone. what we're seeing today is this huge gap between sustainability experts between business experts, and this needs to be addressed.

First and foremost, we need to move away from this cost center conundrum that we're in and help each other out as well. I think that skill gap definitely needs to be addressed along the way.

Maximilian: Yeah, that's true. I couldn't agree more. I think most of the sustainability leaders are actually of the conviction that sustainability is a huge opportunity, and that sustainability is a revenue generating or can become a revenue generating function once it is fully embedded into into the org structure.

And just the other episode, I also did one with Sorouch Kheradmand, the global head of sustainability for Schneider Electric. And he put out this bold thesis that the role of the chief sustainability officer, as we know it today, should disappear because once sustainability is fully embedded, it is everywhere and everybody has a basically connected to their role.

So that's an amazing article that he wrote, and I can just suggest to watch that episode or go to Sarooj's profile and read the article. Because I think everybody who is spending their lifetime, or let's say most of their lifetime during the work life in sustainability is convinced that sustainability Can be a value driver and at the moment it can actually be a competitive advantage, right still maybe It will become Something normal, but at the moment you can definitely stand out.

So we always say okay Sustainability should be a revenue driver and we want to talk about how to systemize this approach How can we actually create and that's the next question a structure a repeatable approach to make? That happened across the organization. So how do we systemize the business case for sustainability?

Nicole: That's a great question, and I'm looking forward to reading the article. When we spoke about that earlier, I was like, Yeah I agree with this. There's a saying, and I don't want to misquote this, but this author said, never trust a man whose whole source of income is based on not knowing.

it's I misquoted, but it's this way, those who want to continue with sustainability and think it's this way. job that should never dissolve. They, it's in their best interest to pretend that it's never going to be resolved.  So I'm fully for that.

And I'm looking forward to reading that article. I would say that, for one society needs to stop. Thinking that there's this outer box solution. For all businesses. That all businesses should use. And corporate sustainability is so circumstantial. It depends on the industry the resources that are needed, the value chain, the business model, the economic growth potential in that particular industry and the strategy and the business case, they need to be, like, hyper focused, specific, bespoke to the organization and not only that, but you need to use a really wide lens, Of the economic model, where you have micro, mezzo macro mega, and you put that perspective on all the, all the challenges and all the actors that you have that you can start to. To see what you have direct impact with, what is indirect impact with, things that you can't control, how do you scenario plan those things that you can't control. That's a way to start with the systematizing. But it boils down to tailoring to that and understanding with a broader lens the impacts and the consequences moving forward.

Maximilian: Yeah, that's a very good approach. there is no one size fits all, off the shelf thing. That's of course, and this has also been a quite provocative statement. But I'm sure we can find some first steps for sustainability leaders to systemize that, right? So, is there a framework or a set of principles that can guide them, or how would you start?

Nicole: yeah. So in the past five years, just the last five years, it's really started to come together and I found success utilizing sustainable business canvases that incorporate profit and loss.  Into them as well as a rosi balance sheet. rosi is return on sustainable investment, and you can look it up.

There's some really great ones and templates out there. from MIT from and my stern from case ca, SC for example. These are just a few I suggest looking over them to ensure that it's a good fit. For for a base to start tailoring to the organization.

Yeah, you're gonna have to alter it to your organization, of course. But those, I would say, to systematize that, start looking at the expectation of how you view it every single time. So everyone knows within your organization that this is how it's presented, just as if you were to present a double materiality assessment.

Start to normalize things by gathering this balance sheet and the balance sheet and Rossi could have short term could have long term But then you're able to like look at projections. You're also able to have a litmus test. Does this connect to profit? Okay, it doesn't I see Things become more apparent when you have this visibility in a proper, you know, business canvas and a proper, balance sheet return on sustainable investment.

Maximilian: just have said in the episode description so that people can easily find it once we publish that episode. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. That looks interesting. Maybe, how do we balance short term wins with long term sustainability goals then?

how do you ensure that both are moving in the right direction, let's say, at the same time?

Nicole: It's a drumbeat. And I think this is a cultural thing too, because some are very linear in working, right? Like you wait in line, you get your things and then you pay for them and you leave. While other cultures, you're like, you could be doing a bunch of things. One of my old mentors, he was like, Yeah.

in the UK, it's okay, you buy your thing and then you get helped and then you make payment. And he's but when you're in Italy, it's like you go to a butcher shop and they're like, okay, who wants ham? And then, one guy cuts ham for a bunch of people. It's going to be the same kind of way. So you're going to, a good start is to start with the Rossi, the return on sustainable investment balance sheet. Visualizing. You need to visualize. This is a huge part of communication. Visualizing the short term and the long term goals. What are you trying to solve? It's not just a tactic. The strategy isn't a strategy unless you define what.

What are we talking about here? What do we want to solve? And a good rule is that if you cannot provide hard, measurable facts on, on, on how the impact, how it impacts profits. It needs to go back to the drawing board until it is possible. And sometimes we have to kill our dar darlings. we're like, oh, I don't wanna get rid of this.

It's so important. And, you could be like, this is the future. But sometimes it's not the right time and we have to, practice restraint in that perspective. So if it goes back to the drawing where Yeah, painfully some of the darlings might be killed in the process, however. This does not mean that it can't be picked up later on in the process, at a later time when it's more connected to the business when the infrastructure externally exists, when you can provide connectivity to the profit more concretely. So it just because you kill your darling today doesn't mean that you won't pick it up, two years from now when Things are working even better or that you have the data to prove it or that, it's more possible and it's more you won't be at a loss.

Remember we're running a business here, so you have to talk about profit and loss balance. And one of the primary results. That may become evident when you start to do these ROSI balance sheets of short term and long term and hold them up together evident that the regulatory and ESG costs are way too high and inefficient in operations and I would say this has happened 100 percent of the time when we've done ROSI exercises in, in, in the organizations I've worked in where it's wow, That is very expensive.

And, it has to do with technology and a lot of other things. change management, looking at the risks from that perspective operationally. So it's a lot of, expectation on businesses to move fast and things like this happen when we pressure businesses to move fast.

Maximilian: Of course that's part of the game, right? If you would always do everything right, then I guess nobody would learn anything because you, learn the most from failures. So right now we have the theory. Okay, so we have the [00:22:00] rosy sheet. We have all of that fancy Concepts that we can use and we should use let's maybe leave the theory behind and get a bit more tangible So i'd love to hear about your hands on experiences because I am convinced that From those experiences when we get tangible the people can draw the most from, because then you really have the actionable insights to also see, okay, am I in the same situation?

Am I in a different one? What can I take from this? So can you share a couple of examples from your past experiences? Some lessons learned maybe.

Nicole: Yes, of course. So lesson number one, there are always trade offs. I have two examples of two global companies both headquartered in the EU, by the way, with around 50 to 110, 000 employees. So they're not small potatoes, they're big companies and, both are pressured about their mission targets and about, the reduction, how it's plateaued.

They're not going fast enough. It's not, it's not to the expectations. They're huge players in destroying our planet, et cetera, et cetera. So they've gotten a lot of pressure here. Company number one, this organization. Publicly, hails as a sustainable business and, they've had rather aggressive mission reductions.

However this has been tailing off because of the covert work from home policies that was one of their biggest ways to reduce the real estate emission reductions and while proud and they went very public about their aggressive. Oh, my God. We're almost to zero. Whoo. kind of thing. those were the short term impacts, right?

And the results, they were results from work from home. They weren't. They weren't strategy. There was no Rossi balance sheet. There was no, business canvas. Everything was just like tailing off kind of serendipitous circumstances of working from home now, because there was no real strategy and, They weren't even handling the low hanging fruits.

In the right way to reduction. but, but any type of scenario planning in general, could have helped them to understand the impacts on business long term. So now this company is cornered to use a large sum of revenue for, again, annual carbon offsets. At the end of the year. And this is to meet the self imposed targets, not even the targets that are regulatory targets. These are self imposed targets that they came out publicly, We can do this, we're amazing. And, oof, yeah, that's okay. Pump the brakes there. It's great, they wanted to be in a competitive advantage, so they put themselves in that situation as a competitive advantage.

The other option though, Now, this would be if they were to have used, more business acumen in the way that they've made these decisions. The other option would be properly planning this, long term investment that would provide higher profit operational lead time reduction within a projection of five years, even.

It wasn't like, oh, this will happen in, never. this was like a five year, this will happen in five years. Yeah, if you do this long term investment and even if, if they're lucky, it could have been sooner, but I'll leave it at that. The other company is in an industry that is spotlighted as the enemy of sustainability and the sustainable activists, right?

They're a baddie. And however, this company, I must say, has invested a great deal. Into their sustainability and have worked arduously for decades, to improve their impacts, both negative and positive. But yet they're still bad, they're still bad guys. And their emission reduction project, plateaued. And is projected to actually rise in the next two years. Now, this company normally says nothing publicly as to, to why this is happening, they just disclose it in their, reports and remain silent. this has enraged activists and also like the political sphere. And this creates, this created more negative impact on the company itself.

And this has led to some investors, also major investors divesting in the company overnight, And however, No one is explaining the reason why they've plateaued. The reason why they plateaued and the rise extremely rational, by the way. It's extremely rational and mature for this  company. The bottom line here is, the promised infrastructure that, was made by regional governments, by other stakeholders, it never went through right? it hasn't gone through and it hasn't been completed for the transition. for this whole project for them to be profitable, for them to be functional, thus the setback, if they were to move forward, regardless of whether the government's followed through or whether there are other, stakeholders followed through it, I think this is the problem here because if they were to move forward with the reductions, they could lose thousands of jobs.

And affect so many different communities financial stability. That's scary to think about. That's super scary to think about. now they're cornered with Potential fines, of course, in addition to, the pressure to purchase carbon offsets to meet these regulatory expectations as well as investor expectations to meet these emission targets and this is like to the sum of millions of euros. This company has to do. And the other option would be this to push back on the criticisms and be transparent about why the company has decided to park their investments until the governments and other institutions in their value chain meet their end of the deal. That was made 10 years ago, by the way, but this particular company has not made noise for decades. They haven't said anything. And I think this is like a, it's attuned to, how CEO's are looked at, it's just like another politician, it's just like a term, this is your four year term, they don't want to put their head on the chopping block by coming out and being transparent, and boards don't protect their CEO's or leadership or anyone who wants to come out and say, I'm criticizing this because, you're pushing for the reduction, but look, you're [00:29:00] going to lose thousands of jobs, Across the area. That's not sustainable.

Maximilian: No. And I actually love those two examples because they are so different from one from another. I think there is really a lot to learn from. maybe let's dissect that a bit. What were some of the results from those examples? So were there any specific metrics or indicators used to track success and how did you communicate that impact to the key stakeholders?

Is there something that you can share?

Nicole: And this is a big lesson learned, I think. And it's a really good question and approach to this. But, company one, they went for the short term. They didn't want to lose face. And especially their C suite did not want to lose face. Because they're the ones that are like, Yay, we're a sustainable company. So they paid the hefty sum. Of carbon offsets. And, the crazy thing is this, they continued to publicly announce that they were on track to the net zero. And then company to remain silent and they paid some fines and they bought some carbon offsets. And, unfortunately, so far, a couple thousand employees have been laid off.

Maximilian: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. in hindsight, everything seems so obvious, right? And

Nicole: Yeah,

Maximilian: I'm sure there have been a lot of challenges and also pitfalls along the way. What were maybe the biggest lessons learned that could help also others to avoid those mistakes from those two examples? Is there something you can share?

Nicole: yeah. And this is why we need to pay attention to these failures, right? We shouldn't just pay attention to, the inspiration aspects. But like, how do you flip this? How do you pivot? For company number one, it boils down to the head of sustainability being unable to create, a proper business case.

That laid out not only the upfront costs, the clear return on timeline and all the long term benefits that could be made, but also they didn't really get the voice and there's an explanation for that later on the business acumen and the ability to maneuver through internal politics is what this is here and it was a pitfall and I would say, Hey, It's set off the sustainability initiatives to becoming, the cost center that it is and will remain.

And, every year since this has happened an increase in carbon offsets for this company is 20 to 20, 20 to 30%. So not only have they paid a huge chunk, but it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and I honestly predict this company is, they're going to cut this business unit and it's going to be super sad and it's going to not be nice at all and they're going to remove, they're going to move the remaining responsibilities with either legal finance and under regulatory reporting in the not too far future, I think, because the amount of money that they're just losing from this, I don't think that they're gaining the same business.

There's a saying this might sound crazy, but there's a saying, play stupid games, win stupid prizes and company one should have really pumped. The breaks on publicizing all of this net zero boosting Instead they should have focused on you know properly planning You know their investments and long term thinking and that would have provided a heart higher profit better lead times later on shorter operational times for them would have given them Far more competitive advantage than, just saying, oh, we're not zero. we're losing traction. What's happening in the world? What's happening in North America? Things are being tested, so we need to be a little bit smarter about this. And making clear in the, reporting disclosures, the plans of how they plan to, how it will affect not only the targets, but, in the interim, along with the long term benefits, so they could come out and say, you know what, in the next two years our environmental impact will go up.

We know this is the reason why we're doing this long term thing. And we need to focus on that and we need to focus our investments on that. We need to be smart about it because this is going to help our. Our employees. This is going to help our business to remain resilient. This is a long term thing, and it will help us deliver our products to you faster.

Oh my god, if they were to say that, that's so mature, that's they're adults in the room, yay! less this marketing show off, and be more humble in your approach.

The fault doesn't sit alone with the sustainability head here. It also is the C suite, the executives for doubling down on this campaign of net zero to make them look good. And that's a hard criticism. But yeah, they could have reviewed other alternatives and other options that this head of sustainability and experts prepared that got shot down by management, although along the way, before it even hit them, so a lot of times like companies have evidence to prove like, okay, this would be the long term option and it gets shot down. It doesn't get chosen at all. And that's a shame, right? That's a huge shame.

Company 2, oh goodness, you know the battle and the criticism and the scrutiny continues. And. I would say the investor confidence is completely shaken. It's like they continue to be divested in, investment portfolios, not only in Europe, but also in North America and parts of Asia, which is making their non EU regulated competitors, who do far worse, by the way, far worse. It's making them stronger in this market. So by putting pressure on this company, who's trying their best? Who's doing their best? You're letting their competitors win. This is game theory. It's a hard, it's a hard lesson to be learned here. We need to be more forgiving to the companies who are trying hard.

And so The company experienced a huge blow, obviously, with the government pressures to reduce the environmental impacts, despite the governments and other players in the value chain not holding up to their end of the deal on the policy.

And they had, a change of leadership. This company did. With a new CEO who's committed to cutting costs by two billion British pounds. Two billion British pounds, that's a huge amount of cuts. And, this is, thousands of jobs gonna be, are gonna be lost. And, many communities are gonna be affected.

In addition, their clean investments are still not profitable. This is bad. how are we going to prove the business case that clean energy is the way to go when they're still not profitable? Now, hindsight 2020, the company has this golden opportunity to become trailblazers and in, in more mature in corporate sustainability.

They can write a whole book about it. If they were to actually if there was someone out there bold enough to be backed up by the board and by the owners of the company to push back, On the criticisms publicly, and be transparent about why the company decided to pump the brakes on the investments.

Number one, until the governments and other institutions held up their end of the bargain and have met their deal and thousands of jobs could have been saved. If they were, given more thought to and this is a concept that we should also put in the chat or whatever is just transition.

And that is, with consideration to, the green transition, like the just transition talks about the social aspect of that, what is  the job loss? What is the impact of these communities? will they have to move away from their livelihoods?

So look up just transition if you want to understand that a little bit further. And it opens up the conversation about strategy and alignment. And to balance people, planet, and profit. All of those things should always be considered. It's not one, or the other. It's all together, right?

the external collaborators are an essential part to balancing people, planet, and profit. And if they're not holding up the end of the bargain. that's, of course you can't do that. So there, right now this company is hemorrhaging potential profits. From, it's a thousand paper cuts, right? Of hemorrhaging potential profits. Of nonsensical pressures, like nonsensical pressures meaning that, everyone's they're such a bad industry, it's a bad, but, what is the trade off if you make these pressures, Are we thinking about the people? Are we thinking about, GDPs of like countries and how that's connected to pensions and, are we thinking about the complexity of it economically?

I'm not sure everyone is doing this. And so let's not forget that this company's stability and success is directly connected. To two major countries GDPs, by the way, not to mention, as I said, pensions and social welfare. the lesson learned here and this also is if you had Rossi available in your balance sheet, in a very clear, concise way, you'd be like, boom.

this is why we're going up. We could go down we will go down in the next five years. But everyone else needs to hold their end of the bargain. So show me the money and the time and the energy. But lesson learned here is be bolder be the adult in the conversation and push back and question and discuss the consequences publicly.

There should be a logical chain. And rationale here.  

Maximilian: Thanks I think there is a lot, to reflect on. I think we can really keep on talking for hours, but we are already quite far ahead in the time. So I say let's do one more question and then we go towards the closing of the episode.

So maybe very briefly, one or two minute comment. we say, okay the role of sustainability leaders is changing. You need to systemize this approach. So as a, as sustainability becomes more integrated into business strategy, and it will certainly be more integrated, what skills do sustainability leaders need to have in order to make the business case effectively in your point of view?

Nicole: So then there's two prongs here. So if it's a sustainability expert with a deep environmental or social area, they're going to need to upskill the corporate aspect, right? And that's eight areas. So strategic thinking stronger financial literacy market awareness of the company's respective industry leadership, communication, and influence. Data analysis and decision making in the context of business. Not just, their area. Reading, emissions and impacts. Risk management and scenario planning. They should try to master that. That's an operational understanding and change management. I think that's a lot of times this is why it's becoming costly.

On top of that, adaptability and continuous learning. Now, if you're a business expert, I would say you need to up your game in the sustainability knowledge overall. So this is like environmental sustainability principles and policies, whether it's climate, carbon, biodiversity, social principles and policies.

So ethics, social justice, just transition economic sustainability principles and policies double materiality. important and the just transition, both of these models and these are models you can look up sustainability reporting frameworks, of course, risk management scenario planning, and then innovation and circular economy, which is really the cool part.

I would say that I gave eight for each, whether you're on one side or the other.

Maximilian: Long, long lists. We will also put them into the session outline so that everybody can find them and I'm also sure that you can reach out to Nicole through LinkedIn if you have any kind of questions. As I said, we are coming to an end and maybe one personal question before we end. I know that you are currently in transition, right?

Nicole: Yeah.

Maximilian: What's next for you in your sustainability journey? How does the future look like?

Nicole: Oh, moving on up in the sense of, after successfully building, the first Europe's first sustainability business unit around human capital for the largest bank of the Nordics, I'm now venturing to sit on executive and advisory boards. For large and midsize capital companies and also working with investment firms to evaluate sustainability and working with ESG portfolios, basically like taking it to the next level of maturity, looking at things like.

We discussed today and the future of sustainability, I would say the future of sustainability looks a little bleak in the short term, I would say but, there will be a great deal of budget cuts and job losses and tightenings of belts, but it's not all bad news. It's not all bad news.

Because after the dust settles, I think the companies are going to move away from these manual reporting, data collection, Excel files, and, we're going to see the skill gap that I discussed, growing closer and closer. And then we'll have much more data to actually connect sustainability elements to profit and a deeper understanding of double materiality that, the longterm, there'll be numerous conflicts and trade offs, right? We might go down in order to go up, take a few steps back to say, take more steps forward. But we will be better off than we were yesterday, for sure.

Maximilian: Very true, and you said so many things, right now You just dropped the word that you that you built the first people sustainability business unit I am sure that we can do one episode just about that topic So maybe we will bring you back in some time to the show because that sounds interesting And I think to everybody who is looking for people to sit on the board For not only sustainability professionals, but also people with business acumen.

There is Nicole. I'm also happy to do an intro. She is also a founding member and a big part of TSC. So thank you so much for joining me today. Nicole, it was a pleasure. It was a pleasure, a true pleasure to have you on the show and that you shared all of your insights,

Nicole: Thank you,

Maximilian: to everybody who has been listening today.

Thanks for tuning in and see you next time at the TSC podcast. Bye bye.

Nicole: Bye bye.

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