Closing the Gap: How Organisations Are Turning Sustainability Commitments into Reality
The sustainability agenda has never been more prominent in boardrooms — or more difficult to execute. Regulatory pressure is intensifying, investor expectations are rising, and the gap between what organisations commit to publicly and what they can deliver internally is, for many, widening rather than closing. The challenge is not ambition. It is capacity, governance, talent and the organisational will to embed sustainability into the core of how a business operates.
This event, hosted by Endurisk Advisory during London Climate Action Week 2025, moves the conversation from frameworks and commitments to lived organisational reality. A panel of Chief Sustainability Officers and senior sustainability leaders from across sectors share honest, first-hand accounts of what sustainability leadership actually looks like inside their organisations today — the priorities, the politics, the progress and the persistent gaps.
The discussion will explore four themes:
What CSOs are actually working on. Beyond the headline targets and annual report narratives, what is consuming sustainability leaders' time and attention right now? Regulatory response, Scope 3 data challenges, board engagement, internal buy-in and the pressure to show commercial as well as environmental returns.
The resourcing reality. 91% of employers report lacking the skilled sustainability talent needed to achieve their goals. Green talent demand is growing at twice the rate of supply. For most organisations, building a world-class internal sustainability function is neither affordable nor realistic in the near term. How are sustainability leaders managing the gap between what is required and what they can resource?
Making sustainability stick — from strategy to operations. The organisations making the most progress are those that have moved sustainability out of a siloed function and into the DNA of business decision-making — linking it to capital allocation, executive remuneration, supply chain management and risk frameworks. What does that transition actually require, and what gets in the way?
The board relationship — what works and what doesn't. How sustainability leaders are getting climate risk and ESG performance onto board agendas in a meaningful way, building board competency, and translating sustainability data into the language of financial risk and opportunity that boards respond to.