THE SUSTAINABILITY INTERVIEW
THREE SECRETS OF SUSTAINABILITY LEADERSHIP
When asked to share some secrets of sustainability leadership at a global company, Cassandra came up with three words:
1 AGILITY
“ Something that has always been true in sustainability is that being agile is really important because the space changes so quickly. A world event happens and you’ re shifting immediately. A new policy, anything... so many things can trigger you to have to act short-term, mediumterm and long-term.
“ Because our function is still in its infancy compared to finance, HR and other kinds of functions, we’ re still figuring out who we are. So being agile as a business leader has been something that’ s really, really important for a long time. I think that’ s a skill that you have to just be comfortable with. You have to almost thrive on the change and on figuring it out as you go.”
2 GRACE
“ A lot of times when you work in sustainability, you become so passionate about what you’ re working on and it’ s hard to understand that other people might not see it as important as you do. You want to walk into a room and say:‘ But don’ t you realise how this matters to humanity? Don’ t you realise how this matters to generations to come?’
“ You have to work with people and use grace in your conversations and recognise that they have their own business challenges that they’ re dealing with. They may be trying to protect their budgets, their employees, their work: working with them as a business partner with grace is incredibly important.”
3 GRIT
“ There has to be an amount of grit. People can easily burn out. Sustainability is hard and you can sometimes feel like you’ re getting beat up for something that really, really matters and you’ ll get maybe called names and you’ ll get walked out of the room on, or you won’ t be seen as a core leader.
“ It takes a lot of grit to stand back up, grab your seat at the table, show up and show the value you bring time and time and time again. So I think grit is something I didn’ t realise I was going to need so much of early in my sustainability career and now it has become core to navigating the unexpected challenges we face.”
24 May 2026