Doing ESG and sustainability well remains an insurmountable challenge for many companies.

Everyone agrees that ESG and sustainability have a key role to play in the corporate world. Business leaders, however, are still scratching their heads as they try to figure out where—and how—ESG ties into their broader commercial strategy.

As pressure mounts to implement successful ESG policies and demonstrate return on investment, ESG executives are struggling to demonstrate what value they bring to the table, and at a time when few businesses can afford to indulge in unprofitable corporate initiatives.

The problem is that too many businesses rely on specialists with a narrow focus on ESG and sustainability, or an even narrower focus on a specific area of it: usually sustainability. They’re hampered by a lack of ‘bigger picture’ thinking.

This is where generalists come in: executives with a breadth of experience across all functions of a business. Armed to the teeth with corporate experience and leadership skills, they hold the key to a brighter future for ESG and sustainability.

Core business principles

With specialists at the ship’s helm, ESG and sustainability strategies are so often doomed from the get-go. Driven by well-intentioned, world-bettering goals, the strategies drift away from core principles of business.

If these strategies don’t follow the same business rulebook as any other, then they’ll continue to be treated as separate from more traditional strategies, such as those relating to finance, marketing, and sales.

ESG and sustainability initiatives, like any other, need to be fully aligned with the business’s commercial objectives. And they need to further those objectives, and be communicated to shareholders in those terms.

If, as is routine, ESG and sustainability executives build strategies primarily around societal impact, then they become philanthropic cost centres, not value generators. But sustainability must simultaneously drive societal and commercial value—and this can only be done if it starts with the commercial.

This is where ESG and sustainability specialists fail. Without breadth and depth across all areas of business, they don’t have the tools to develop strategies and initiatives that work across all areas of the business, from marketing and sales to operations and technology. And they don’t have enough experience to push these initiatives through boards and shareholders.

The case for cross-function generalists

A study by the Open University found that four-fifths of UK businesses reported that skill gaps were holding them back from successfully deploying their ESG and sustainability strategies.

I have seen this skills gap at the coalface as I speak with CEOs, executives, boards and ESG leaders. And the gap I’ve spotted is for leaders who understand all the complex areas that make up ESG—as well as the business fundamentals.

Businesses need to bring in cross-function generalists who both understand ESG and have a track record of implementing complex initiatives at a company-wide level.

These generalists will be grounded in core business fundamentals—namely, commercial ones. And they’ll have the toolkit to build ESG strategies out from these same fundamentals, ensuring they have a sustainable and value-generating impact on the business, as well as society.

With years of experience doing so, they’ll be able to communicate powerfully with the board, enabling them to secure buy-in and support for initiatives. They’ll understand the concerns and motivators of board members and be able to effectively navigate these to bring all parties together.

They’ll also have a track record of working with C-suites and lower leadership to execute strategies that require synergy between varied departments. ESG and sustainability can’t exist in a silo—to be impactful, it requires data, tech, operations, culture, marketing, and much more. And if all these elements aren’t brought together, ESG and sustainability initiatives will fall at the first hurdle.

Here’s another way to put it. A CIO can’t just be a good coder, a CFO isn’t just a spreadsheet whizz, and being a good meeting moderator isn’t sufficient to be a chair. All of these roles require technical expertise combined with breadth and depth across key business fundamentals. The very same must apply for ESG leaders.

It’s time businesses rethink their approach to ESG and sustainability from the ground up, starting with the executives charged with developing and deploying their corporate ESG strategy.

Instead of turning to ESG and sustainability specialists, business leaders need to look further afar, towards generalists with broad business experience, leadership skills, and a track record of executing impactful company-wide initiatives. They’ll be exactly the right people to steer ESG towards success.

Scott Lane is a lawyer and CEO of Speeki, an ESG and sustainability reporting consultancy.