61% Trust Corporations Most. That’s An Opportunity To Lead, Former Dell CSO Says

“Trust in the corporation today is higher than in your own government. That really gives them this moment that they should not squander, because the majority of Americans do believe in climate change and do want something done about it. And so, I think there are some real opportunities.” Those are the words of Trisa Thompson, former longtime Chief Sustainability Officer of Dell Technologies, and one of the pioneers in the field.

The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 61% of people agreed that “business is the most trusted institution,” and 70% trust “my employer.” This was a massive study, too, of 36,000+ respondents over 28 countries.

Thompson argues that trust presents corporates with both a tremendous opportunity and a tremendous responsibility today, in an exclusive interview on Electric Ladies Podcast recently.

These opportunities evolve from the convergence of this trust with three major trends:

(a) “the biggest driver is customers,” Thompson said. That is, the big market demand for sustainable practices, products and services, including as a requirement in many Requests for Proposal;

(b) that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is issuing its finalized climate risk disclosure rules any day now, which will require public companies to report their potential financial risk from climate change and more; and

(c) the over $1 trillion in potential combined funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the CHIPS and Jobs Act. The Inflation Reduction Act alone targets about $369 billion for climate change-related mitigation strategies, from heat pumps for home heating, to clean energy innovation investment, to electric vehicles and incentivizing low-carbon construction.

Thompson added that early in her time as CSO at Dell, “We did a review of our RFPs and over 70% of them had a requirement on something to do with environmental sustainability.” That was in 2010, and it’s likely a lot higher today.

Here are six ways Thompson said companies can seize this window of opportunity to make a huge impact and address climate change:

1. Start with the data: “Data is king anywhere,” Thompson said, so if she was a Chief Sustainability Officer today, “I'd be sharing all the data out there and all the studies that have been performed, shows that companies that are ahead in the ESG area over the long haul, outperform their competitors and other companies all through recessions.”

2. Make sure your senior leadership is aware of the “gigantic’ financial opportunity: “I would make sure my senior leadership understood (the data), because it really does make a financial difference to the bottom line,” she advised. “All the estimates are (that) in the sustainability growth options, there's over a trillion dollars to be had out there. So, it's a gigantic opportunity financially.”

3. Do a SWAT analysis, with key people: “If I were in that (CSO) position today, I would be forming a SWAT team. I would have the head of corporate communications involved because they're going to have a big role to play in whatever messaging we're going to put out, both internal, external communications. I would have the head of sustainability involved. I'd get our marketing person involved. I'd get my legal team. And my HR…to advise the company on some of these key issues,” she detailed.

4. Incentivize employees and suppliers: You need people across the organization and your supply chain to achieve your goals, and to collect the data that you’ll need to report. “If we're going to hit our goal, the people below us have to hit our goal too,” Thompson explained. “It's going to have to flow down through your supply chain….You have to have a plan in place to reduce your footprint,” across the organization. They reduced it in their packaging, energy use, water use, and beyond, “covering all of the areas.”

5. Partner with other organizations, even competitors: “You've seen some interesting actions where competitors are actually joining together,” Thompson said, as she did at Dell. “When I was with Dell, we did a global coalition of different companies to start creating an open source supply chain for ocean-bound plastics and how do we take those out of the waterways and use them in different products. So, we had furniture manufacturers, and HP joined the organization.”

6. “Get involved.” It may sound odd coming from a former top corporate executive, but Thompson insists that today, companies have a responsibility to get involved. “I know one of those sort of core tenants for companies is ‘don't get involved in areas that aren't in your swim lane, if you can avoid it,’” she explained. But, “now everything's blending (and) everybody owns it,” even if you think it doesn’t directly affect your business. “Sometimes you can't stay out….The demand is there and the need.”

Employees are demanding it, she said too, “I think employees are getting increasingly vocal about the position that their company does or doesn't take, and are pushing upper management to …make a statement. And, I think the employees will continue in that direction, and rightfully so.”

“If you want to retain or recruit your employees, you're going to have to do some of these things.”