A 2025 Korn Ferry report finds that the Chief Sustainability Officer role is becoming one of the most strategic positions in the enterprise. Sixty-two percent of executives surveyed plan to increase sustainability budgets. The shift is real. So is the nuance underneath it.
In this episode of The Responsible Edge, host Charlie Martin speaks with Katja Tuomola, Head of Sustainability and Marketing Communications at MM Group, a fibre-based packaging company with over four billion euros in annual sales and fifteen thousand employees, about what the Korn Ferry findings look like in practice.
Katja's read is precise and grounded in more than twenty years in the sustainability and forest industries. The article reflects large corporate reality, not the full market. And the strategic power that is being described does not come from championing sustainability. It comes from operating as a business executive who happens to own the sustainability function.
"I am not doing this for sustainability," she says. "I am doing this for business. My number one priority is that the business does not go out, because then I will not have a job either."
At MM Group, Katja is the final approver of CapEx projects exceeding two million euros before they reach the management board. She checks CO₂ considerations, supplier footprint, and energy impact on every major capital investment. The mechanism does not require any department to champion sustainability. It requires every major commercial decision to answer sustainability questions before it is ratified.
The conversation covers how the umbrella framing of sustainability changes what a CSO actually does, why commercial credibility is the precondition for strategic trust, and why better investment decisions, not larger budgets, is the magic wand that would change everything.
If your work touches sustainability leadership, organisational strategy, or the evolving CSO role, this episode is worth your time.
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