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Permanent Chief Sustainability Officer · hiring brief

Hire a Chief Sustainability Officer

Hire a Chief Sustainability Officer: name what sustainability leadership must deliver (reporting, a transition plan, customer or investor requirements), give the CSO decision rights over it, and choose the engagement.

Brief us on this role →How it works

Reviewed by Fractional Quest · updated 1 November 2026 · 4 sources linked below

  • 3–5on every shortlist
  • 5stages of vetting
  • IR35set out on every brief
Hire a Chief Sustainability Officer: leadership meeting in a Covent Garden office (illustration)

In the press

The brief

Hire a Chief Sustainability Officer: what must the role own?

Investor, lender, customer or regulatory reporting that has made the seat necessary.

  • 01DriverInvestor, lender, customer or regulatory reporting that has made the seat necessary.
  • 02ReportingWhich disclosures the CSO owns and who signs them off.
  • 03TransitionThe plan, targets and budget they are accountable for.
  • 04GovernanceHow sustainability reaches the board and its committees.

Role reference: GOV.UK: UK Sustainability Reporting Standards. GOV.UK sets out the UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, the kind of reporting a chief sustainability officer is often hired to own.

Which CSO

Hire a chief sustainability officer: which engagement?

First settle which CSO you mean; then the engagement.

A fractional chief sustainability officer suits a company with a reporting or customer requirement but no need for a full team. An interim suits a defined programme, such as a first disclosure.

A permanent CSO suits a company where sustainability shapes the business model. In every case the brief names the decisions, not only the reports.

The working pattern

What changes when the Chief Sustainability Officer is permanent?

CSO means chief sustainability officer on this page. Some companies use CSO for chief strategy officer; that seat is covered by our interim CSO hire page. A sustainability CSO owns the company’s climate and sustainability strategy, its disclosures and the governance around them.

The illustrative brief: a supplier asked for climate data by its largest customers. Two major customers now require emissions data and a reduction plan from suppliers. Nobody owns it; operations and finance each hold part of the data.

The appointment owns: A fractional chief sustainability officer sets the data process, the plan and the customer responses, two days a week.

Another owner retains: The board approves targets and spending; finance owns the numbers in the annual report.

The case is illustrative; it does not describe a Fractional Quest placement.

From brief to start

How do you hire a Chief Sustainability Officer, step by step?

Hire a Chief Sustainability Officer, in practice: the first three steps are ours; the last four are what has to be true before the first day. We don’t promise a shortlist by a date.

  1. Day 0
    01
    The 15-minute call
    What the Chief Sustainability Officer must own, the working pattern, the start date and the budget.
    You and us
  2. Week 1
    02
    Scope agreed in writing
    The outcome the seat exists for, the days, and how the engagement will run for IR35.
    Us
  3. Weeks 1–3
    03
    Search, references, shortlist
    We approach people who aren’t looking, verify tenure, take references ourselves and return three to five.
    Us
  4. Week 4
    04
    Mandate
    The driver, decisions, days or term, and review date.
    You
  5. Before day one · 2
    05
    Data
    Energy, travel, supplier and product data, and current disclosures.
    You
  6. Before day one · 3
    06
    Owners
    Introduce operations, finance and procurement leads.
    You
  7. Before day one · 4
    07
    Board
    Agree when the CSO first reports to the board.
    You

Assessment

How should you assess each candidate?

Hire a Chief Sustainability Officer on evidence: put the same work in front of each candidate before comparing answers.

  1. Comparable work
    Ask for a disclosure or transition plan they led, and what they did personally.
  2. Authority
    Test a target the board might resist and how they would argue it.
  3. Team
    Ask how they built ownership in operations and finance rather than doing the work alone.
  4. Handover
    Ask what data process ran without them.

Acas recommends a consistent, fair selection process: choosing who to interview.

Vetting

What happens before anyone reaches your shortlist?

Five stages before a candidate reaches a shortlist of three to five.

  1. Pedigree screen
    Tenure
    We verify prior tenure in the seat, at the scale and stage you need. No consultant presenting as an executive.
  2. Mandate fit
    Fit
    Fit to your stage, sector and the problem the seat exists to solve, not a CV keyword.
  3. Reference deep-dive
    Verify
    We take references ourselves, from recent clients and boards: what they delivered, not what they titled it.
  4. Shortlist
    Shortlist
    Three to five candidates, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
  5. Kick-off
    Start
    Scope, first-month outcomes and the contract agreed before day one.

The full process is on how we vet.

Questions

Hire a Chief Sustainability Officer: questions, answered

Both are used. This page covers the chief sustainability officer. For a chief strategy officer, see hire an interim CSO.

Read next

Related hiring and role pages

Sources

Where does every reference on this page come from?

  • gov.uk
  • HMRC
  • legislation.gov.uk
  1. 1
    GOV.UK: UK Sustainability Reporting Standards gov.uk
  2. 2
    Understanding off-payroll working (IR35) HMRC
    Status depends on how the engagement runs; medium and large clients make the determination.
  3. 3
    Check employment status for tax (CEST) HMRC
    HMRC’s own status check for each engagement.
  4. 4
    Employment Agencies Act 1973 legislation.gov.uk
    The law a recruitment agency works under; no fee to a work-seeker.

For hiring managers

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  1. A shortlist of 3–5, each with day rate, availability and IR35 position
  2. Fractional, interim, part-time, temporary or permanent — and non-executive directors
  3. Every candidate through our five-stage vetting
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