In September, Starbucks Chief Executive Brian Niccol celebrated two years of a turnaround plan that has reshaped the company around the café experience, streamlined operations and tighter cost controls. In May, the company included its independent chief sustainability officer position within its broader remit as part of a round of more than 300 corporate job cuts. Sustainability is now headed by Kelly Goodejohn, a 20-year company veteran who also leads the social impact effort, two job functions that the company says are complementary. But Starbucks is also reassessing its 2030 greenhouse gas reduction goals, raising the question of how to maintain its sustainability commitments as work is reorganized.
Many commentators viewed the decision as a verdict on corporate climate commitments. That’s less useful reading. What’s more useful is what the decision says about a model that most big companies have adopted over the past 15 years, and whether that model is designed to handle the weight it’s been thrust upon.
The role of the CSO is rapidly growing. Weinreb Group’s 2025 survey included a record 215 chief sustainability officers, nearly 90% say they now spend more time on regulatory compliance than they did two years ago. The title does work: it gives sustainability a seat, a budget and a name in the annual report. What it rarely brings, however, is control over the decisions that determine the company’s footprint, including capital allocation, procurement, product design and executive compensation. In most organizations, this is an unvoted voice.
Starbucks’ own data shows this, and there’s no one to blame. its carbon footprint grew by 3% Between 2019 and 2024, driven primarily by dairy and coffee, the company reported emissions from its operations and electricity down 17% Fiscal 2025 compared to 2019 baseline. Parts that the sustainability team can move directly to. The bigger challenge lies in the menu, supply chain and storefronts, which fall under the purview of other executives. It’s not a failure of the character; It is a description of the lever position.
The question worth asking, therefore, is not why the character was cut, but whether the production could survive. If firing a senior executive significantly changes a company’s approach to climate, then the strategy resides in a division rather than the business model. If the work happens within the business units, as Starbucks says, the change could be a step forward. On the day the news was announced, the two looked identical.
Finances are often where this is decided. Kearney’s 2025 survey of 500 finance chiefs found that 93% realize The business case for sustainability, from which 69% expect higher returns than traditional investments, is still seen primarily as a cost by 61%. This is less a contradiction than a matter of timing: Returns can take years to materialize, and budgets are set on a quarterly basis. When sustainability is viewed as a cost line, it tends to suffer when margins tighten. When it is viewed as a risk or a revenue issue, it tends to survive.
Companies with commitments that outlast leadership place work in operational positions. Walmart operates the “Gigaton Project” through procurement and supplier relationships and announced in 2024 that suppliers have reported that they expect to achieve the “Gigaton Project” exceed its goals By 2030, reduce, avoid or sequester 1 billion tons of emissions across the entire value chain years in advance. At the same time, the interface has Fulfilling the Zero Mission Commitment Since 1994, over three decades of leadership changes, sustainability has been integrated into product design and operations.
From the inside, the pattern looks familiar. Having led and advised FTSE100 and Fortune100 companies, I’ve found that the toughest conversations are rarely with skeptics. They are with the faithful, and their reporting structure makes cuts a rational choice. It’s never the seniority of the title that changes the outcome. The question is whether the treasurer, procurement chief and remuneration committee each own part of the results.
This shows the actual division of labor. The chief financial officer has capital allocation and carbon pricing authority. Operations and procurement have supply chain risks. The Board’s Risk Committee is responsible for physical and transition risks. Compensation committees own incentives. Sustainability leaders become architects and auditors of the system rather than the sole owners of outcomes beyond the control of that role. Investors can ask the same question to any company in their portfolio: Does sustainability strategy change business decisions?
None of this makes dedicated sustainability leaders redundant. Most large companies still need people who can interpret regulations, translate scientific knowledge, and capture the big picture across functions. The argument for consolidation is about ownership, not headcount, and cutting specialists before the business takes on the work will only shift the gap to where it’s harder to see.
There is also a measurement issue behind this. Like economies, companies operate to maximize output, which is the corporate equivalent of GDP, measured in terms of sales, profit margins and quarterly growth. A better companion metric is what I call aggregate domestic resilience: the ability of businesses to continue delivering amid supply shocks, climate impacts, new regulations and consumer shifts. Measured this way, people concerned about the risks of coffee crops and dairy products are not overhead.
The title will change, the structure will change. The test is simpler: If the people who supported the strategy left tomorrow, would the strategy survive?
Sandhya Sabapathy is the former Director of Sustainability and Founder of FTSE 100 kaleidoscopea consulting practice based on the Impact Prism resilience methodology. she is Burn bright, build slowly: How to build a just climate future, and has spoken at the World Economic Forum, COP and SXSW.
