When a company goes through ESG growing pains, the collective reflex of a busy Executive team is to throw a FTE body at the situation and hope it fixes itself so the rest of the business can get on with revenue generation.

In reality, if you are breaching reporting/client thresholds and your business has under-resourced ESG to date, it is already too late for a solo ESG manager to turn the ship around:  Sustainable business requires a raft of cross-functional strategies (eg DEI, carbon, community, governance), converging into a central implementation plan. For businesses in catch-up mode, most requirements will be both simultaneous and overwhelming. The critical path to sustainability therefore lengthens dramatically.

You will end up: outsourcing work streams, hiring additional staff, OR falling short of client/ investor/ regulator/ employee/ expectations (a.k.a. losing contracts, ignored by top talent, facing financial penalties or reputational harm).

The optimum approach (at least for our clients), has been to hire a fractional sustainability team: An experienced ESG Programme Manager dedicated to your business who knows how to pull together resources simultaneously, surrounded by a cast of subject matter experts across strategy and the three pillars of E, S and G that can pitch in where required. This way, you can turn firefighting into change-inspiring implementation.

This means more resource available for those pinch points. No employment considerations (are there even any good ESG managers left on the market?!). No advanced resource planning and minimal costs in quieter periods, eg out of reporting periods.

ESG resource requirements fluctuate. Don't let your sustainability ambitions get bogged down.