Post-Election Career Realities: The challenge for your environment/ climate/ sustainability role

Corporate environment/climate/sustainability leaders may face some serious ethical, personal and career challenges over the coming months. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. And the worst is to find yourself in a career defining – or threatening – moment without being ready for it.

Will anything really change?

Yes. Get ready for your company to face acute challenges in light of the election results.

On one hand, there will be substantial motivation to retreat from the goals, targets and policies you worked hard to get your company to sign up for. Your company will face less pressure to move forward, with no new legislation and eased regulation (including probably an end to the threat of meaningful SEC action on climate). There may also be more pressure from emboldened price-driven shareholders, and even fear of punishment from the new Administration.

This retreat can come in different forms. It might be a clear decision from your Board or C-Suite. It might be the death of a thousand cuts, as you find your budget nickel-and-dimed, or deadlines pushed back. It might just be retreat by omission, with deadlines ignored, your requests for face time postponed repeatedly, your invitations to meetings lost.

On the other hand, attention and focus on corporate behavior may go up:

• Changed political realities don’t change scientific realities. Physical climate change’s extreme weather doesn’t care about voter turnout.
• Foreign markets will have little patience for US backsliding (especially if they are dealing with harsh new US tariffs).
• Foreign regulators may move ahead faster to fill the leadership gap caused by US retrenchment.
• Other key stakeholders may be even more attentive, including some customers but especially employees (current or potential).

After all, for over 25 years, the focus on corporate sustainability behavior did not come from public policy; it came from the failure of public policy, which left stakeholders to focus on corporations as more accessible (and sometimes more pliable) levers of change. If we expect to see more failures in public policy, don’t be surprised if that translates into more attention on corporate behavior.

There could be an upside, with a reduction in the often-dysfunctional pressure for bigger and bigger promises without substance. There might be less tolerance of empty claims. Companies might need to narrow the gap between ambition and achievement: “Promise less and deliver more.” For those who have struggled to get their companies to focus on operationalizing sustainability rather than performative public claims, this could be a relief. For companies who have sought to differentiate themselves as true leaders, it will be even easier – but perhaps more dangerous – to stand out from the crowd.

Be careful of assuming what your company will do based on what your company may have done in 2017. A lot has changed since then, including quite possibly your CEO. Since then, we have had the uptick in DEI and climate attention followed by the ESG wars. Europe has kept moving ahead with regulation. And the physical impacts of climate change have been harder and harder to deny (though some still try).

What can I do about it?

Be ready for your company’s challenge to become your personal and career challenge. You may face difficult decisions, if your company backslides:

• Do I go along and maybe become complicit?
• Do I push back, and maybe risk my job and career?
• Can I find a middle ground where I can be constructive but keep my job?
• Should I start looking for a different job, either in a less vulnerable (or frustrating) role in my own company or in a more promising organization?

Those are personal decisions that each person has to make for themselves. Here’s a quick roadmap for approaching those decisions:

1. Think about where your company is going.

2. Develop strategies to help your company go in the right direction:

• Look for the levers that might help your company go/stay there. 
• Look at the “on the other hand” list above, especially the global drivers– are there any opportunities there for leverage in your company?
• Look for the champions who might help your company go in the right direction. Who with corporate power might care about those levers? Can you build a coalition to keep moving?
• Develop those middle grounds to avoid all-or-nothing decisions. For example, maybe it’s time to reconsider “agnostic adaptation,” preparing your company for and protecting employees from physical climate change without debating causality.

3. If you’re not comfortable with the options likely to be available in your role in your company, start looking for other options now.

Do not jump prematurely, but do start to explore discreetly:

• Other functions in your company, including roles where you can keep doing your work in a different setting (maybe inside a business unit with strong global markets and stakeholders, or inside engineering working on energy projects); or
• Other companies that are going different directions.

4. Talk with your partner, spouse or anyone else who may have a real stake in your decision. 

If and when a moment of truth comes, you need to already know which lines you will or won’t cross, and what steps you realistically can or can’t afford to take. I know from personal experience: being on the same page with your life partner can make all the differences at those times.

Keep these four short guidelines in mind:

• Don’t wait. The worst possible situation is to find yourself in front of the Board of Directors, asked a question which forces you to take a stand on these issues, without being prepared. It’s an awful feeling, believe me.
• Don’t panic. Don’t create your own problem by assuming the worst or forcing the question when you may not like the answer. If things go badly, there will be time for that later. As they say, “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”
• Don’t compromise your credibility. Don’t keep asserting that the SEC is about to ride in and demand honest climate reporting, for example.
• Don’t think you’re alone. You’re not.

Keep the big picture in perspective. Values are what you keep doing when it’s no longer convenient. That’s true for companies. It’s also true for individuals.

These times are uncertain. Whatever decisions you make, remember who you are, why you were called to this work and how needed your skills are.