SINGAPORE: Ensuring that a company does well and also does good at the same time – this is the task of a newly created C-suite position called the chief financial and sustainability officer (CFSO).
Firms are familiar with the chief financial officer (CFO), the numbers-crunching person who keeps a keen eye on the bottom line.
Increasingly, firms have also started appointing a chief sustainability officer as the pressure mounts for companies to do some form of reporting or disclosures on their climate impact.
But experts are saying that these roles are complementary, which makes sense for them to be rolled into one, as awareness grows of the intertwining of finance and sustainability in a company’s operations, and how both aspects affect its long-term growth.
One such example is Beh Siew Kim, CFSO of Lodging, CapitaLand Investment.
CapitaLand’s lodging business unit, called The Ascott Ltd, has properties in over 220 cities across more than 40 countries.
Beh oversees the finance, capital management, investor relations and sustainability of Ascott, while also serving as the managing director for Ascott’s operations in Japan and South Korea.
She told The Straits Times: “I believe that profitability and sustainability are two priorities that go hand in hand.
“In fact, sustainability is oftentimes a window of opportunity to drive change, and this needs to be done from the senior leadership level.”
She added that she can leverage the CFO role to emphasise the importance of sustainability with a collaborative approach, which strengthens the firm’s commitment to corporate responsibility while still contributing to the company’s long-term financial health. — The Straits Times/ANN
