Sustainability Director Recruitment

Sustainability Director Recruitment

Exec Capital provides senior Sustainability Director recruitment for UK firms across listed, private, PE-backed and family-controlled businesses. The Sustainability Director role typically reports to a Chief Sustainability Officer (where one exists), the General Counsel, or directly to the CEO depending on firm structure. The role is increasingly central across UK firms as ESG reporting requirements mature, customer and stakeholder expectations on sustainability strengthen, and the substantive commercial dimensions of sustainability become more visible. Senior Sustainability Director candidates evaluate firms carefully on whether the role is genuinely strategic or primarily reporting-led — the same dimension that recurs at CSO level.

Our practice covers UK senior Sustainability Director appointments across firms at different stages of sustainability maturity — from firms making their first dedicated sustainability appointment, to established firms refreshing senior team composition. We also handle Head of Sustainability and ESG Director searches, which sit at the same level in many organisations and draw on the same candidate pool. Every search is run by our specialist team, with Adrian Lawrence FCA overseeing each mandate. For Chief Sustainability Officer recruitment (C-suite level) see our CSO recruitment service.

How Sustainability Director recruitment works

Every Sustainability Director search follows the same six stages. The detail inside each stage changes with the brief — a first dedicated sustainability hire at a mid-market manufacturer is a very different search from a Head of Sustainability replacement at a listed group — but the sequence does not. We agree the timetable with you at briefing, once we understand the market for the profile you need.

Sustainability Director vs Chief Sustainability Officer vs Head of ESG vs EHS Director

Titles in this field are used loosely, and the same title can mean quite different jobs in different businesses. Getting the title right matters for search: it decides which candidates respond, what they expect to be paid and what authority they expect to hold. The table below sets out how the four most common senior titles usually differ in UK organisations.

In smaller and mid-sized businesses the Sustainability Director often covers ground that a large group would split between a CSO, a Head of ESG and an EHS lead. That is not a problem in itself, but the specification has to be honest about it. A candidate from a pure reporting background will struggle with site-level environmental compliance; an EHS specialist will rarely have the investor-facing reporting experience a listed company needs. We help you decide which of these profiles the role really calls for before the search starts, and whether the job is better split or combined.

What the Sustainability Director role covers

The substantive Sustainability Director role typically covers four dimensions, with weighting varying by firm.

Sustainability strategy and integration. Translating board-level sustainability commitments into operational reality across the firm — product strategy, supply chain, customer engagement, operational performance. In practice this means owning the sustainability plan, agreeing targets with each business unit, building them into budgets and making sure progress is reported to the executive team on the same footing as financial performance. The best Sustainability Directors are judged on whether operations, procurement and product teams change what they do, not on the quality of the sustainability report.

Reporting and disclosure. ESG reporting frameworks (climate-related disclosures originally built on the TCFD recommendations, now moving to the UK Sustainability Reporting Standards, plus transition plans), sustainability sections of annual reports, and (for listed firms) shareholder advisory body and ESG ratings agency engagement. The Sustainability Director usually works alongside the CFO and the financial reporting team here, because UK SRS disclosures are designed to sit with the financial statements and to be held to a similar standard of evidence. Data quality, controls and readiness for third-party assurance increasingly fall within the role.

Operational programmes. Decarbonisation initiatives, scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions reduction programmes, supply chain due diligence, water and waste management. For most businesses the bulk of emissions sit in Scope 3 — in purchased goods, logistics and the use of products sold — so the Sustainability Director spends much of their time working through procurement and with suppliers rather than on the firm’s own sites.

Stakeholder engagement. Customer-led sustainability requirements, regulator engagement (where applicable), and broader public-policy and stakeholder dimensions. For many B2B businesses the most immediate pressure comes from customers: large buyers increasingly ask suppliers for emissions data, reduction targets and evidence of supply chain due diligence as a condition of tendering. A Sustainability Director who can answer those questions well protects revenue directly.

Alongside these four areas, the role usually includes building and leading a small team, managing external advisers and data providers, and briefing the board or its committees. Where the business has a Chief Sustainability Officer, the Sustainability Director typically runs delivery while the CSO owns strategy and board engagement; where there is no CSO, the Sustainability Director does both. Our guides to the Chief Sustainability Officer job description and the CSO’s board role set out the C-suite version of the job in more detail.

The UK regulatory context a Sustainability Director now owns

Much of the change in Sustainability Director briefs over the past two years comes from reporting and conduct rules. Candidates expect the hiring business to know which of these apply to it; a brief that is vague on the point tells the strongest candidates that the board has not yet engaged. The position as at November 2026 is set out below. It is a summary for hiring purposes, not legal advice, and the detail for any particular business should be checked with its auditors and advisers.

UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS S1 and S2)

The government published the final UK Sustainability Reporting Standards in February 2026. UK SRS S1 covers general sustainability-related financial disclosures and UK SRS S2 covers climate. They are the UK-endorsed versions of the ISSB’s IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, with limited amendments — for example, reliefs for non-climate topics and for Scope 3 emissions that do not yet have an end date. On publication the standards were available for voluntary use only; mandatory application depends on separate rules from regulators or legislation.

FCA rules for listed companies

The FCA has now set those rules for listed issuers. In PS26/19, published on 30 September 2026, it replaced its TCFD-aligned climate disclosure rules with a requirement to report against UK SRS on a comply-or-explain basis, for accounting periods starting on or after 1 January 2027, so the first reports appear in 2028. Transitional reliefs give one year for Scope 3 emissions and two years for the wider UK SRS S1 disclosures. Companies in the commercial companies category must also state whether they have published a climate transition plan, and where, or explain why not — there is no requirement to produce one. For a listed company hiring now, the Sustainability Director will be the person who builds the first UK SRS report.

TCFD and existing Companies Act requirements

The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures completed its work and disbanded after its final status report in October 2023, with the ISSB taking over monitoring of company climate disclosures. TCFD remains familiar shorthand, and many candidates will describe their experience in TCFD terms, but the forward-looking skill set is UK SRS and ISSB. Separately, large UK companies and LLPs already report climate-related financial disclosures under the Companies Act, and quoted and large unquoted companies report energy use and emissions under Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting. UK SRS S2 can be used as the framework for the Companies Act climate disclosures. The government also opened a wider consultation on modernising corporate reporting in autumn 2026; any decision on extending UK SRS beyond listed companies will follow from that work.

FCA anti-greenwashing rule and SDR

Since 31 May 2024, every FCA-authorised firm has been subject to the anti-greenwashing rule: any reference to the sustainability characteristics of a product or service must be consistent with those characteristics and be fair, clear and not misleading. The rule sits within the FCA’s Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) package, which also introduced sustainable investment labels and naming and marketing rules aimed mainly at asset managers. For financial services firms, this puts marketing approval, product governance and compliance squarely inside the Sustainability Director’s remit, and the role often works closely with the Head of Compliance. Outside financial services, the Competition and Markets Authority applies similar principles to environmental claims made to consumers.

Transition plans

The government consulted in June 2025 on transition plan requirements, including the option of requiring larger companies and financial institutions to develop and publish a plan rather than simply disclose whether they have one. At the time of writing it has not confirmed a mandatory requirement to produce a plan. In practice, the FCA’s disclosure rule for listed companies, investor expectations and customer requests mean many businesses are writing transition plans anyway, and doing so credibly is one of the most common reasons a Sustainability Director is hired.

CSRD and the EU Omnibus for UK businesses with EU exposure

The EU’s Omnibus I directive, in force since March 2026, cut the scope of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive substantially. EU companies are now in scope only above 1,000 employees and €450 million net turnover. A UK-parented group is caught at group level only if it has more than €450 million of EU turnover in each of two consecutive years and an EU subsidiary or branch above €200 million, with first reports for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2028. EU subsidiaries of UK groups that meet the EU thresholds in their own right report earlier, subject to each member state’s transposition. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive was also narrowed to the very largest companies. Many UK mid-market businesses that were preparing for CSRD a year ago are now outside it, which changes the brief: less about an EU reporting project, more about UK SRS, customer requirements and decarbonisation delivery.

First dedicated hire or function refresh: defining the brief

Sustainability Director appointments tend to fall into two distinct patterns: the first-dedicated-hire pattern (where the firm is appointing its first senior sustainability leader and the role’s scope is being defined alongside the appointment) and the established-function-refresh pattern (where the firm has substantive existing sustainability work and is refreshing senior leadership). Strong candidates evaluate which pattern they’re being recruited into; specifications that don’t make this clear lose candidates fast.

We run Sustainability Director searches with the pattern question worked through at the front of the brief. Strong candidates evaluate firms carefully — the board’s substantive engagement with sustainability, the realistic team they would inherit or build, and the firm’s track record on commitments.

First dedicated hire. The business has usually been handling sustainability part-time — in finance, in operations or through consultants — and has reached the point where customer requests, investor questions or a reporting obligation need an owner. The right candidate here is a builder: comfortable without a team, able to set a baseline and a credible plan, and able to win support from operational managers who have not had to think about sustainability before. Candidates will ask about budget, about board sponsorship and about whether the role has real authority. A clear answer on each makes the difference between a strong shortlist and a thin one.

Function refresh. The business already has targets, a team and a reporting cycle, and is replacing or upgrading its sustainability leader. Here the question is usually what needs to change: moving from reporting to delivery, building assurance-ready data, re-basing targets after an acquisition, or turning a well-written plan into measurable reductions. Candidates will want to know the honest state of the data and whether existing commitments are realistic. They will find out within weeks if the answer they were given was optimistic.

A third pattern is becoming more common in private equity-backed businesses: an owner who needs a credible sustainability position ahead of a sale or refinancing. These briefs usually suit an interim or fractional Sustainability Director with a defined scope, and our private equity executive search team works on them alongside portfolio leadership hires.

When to hire a Sustainability Director: permanent, interim, fractional or part-time

Not every business needs a full-time permanent Sustainability Director straight away. The right format depends on how much sustainability work there is, how settled the scope is, and whether a deadline is driving the hire. The comparison below is how we talk it through with clients.

Many businesses start fractional or interim and convert to permanent once the scope is proven. That route also gives the board a clearer view of what the permanent role needs, and our fractional C-suite and interim executive recruitment practices handle both stages.

The candidate pool

Five pools recur. Sitting Sustainability Directors at peer firms. Most direct pool. Step-up candidates from Heads of Sustainability or ESG roles. Natural growth pool. Senior consulting partners from sustainability and ESG practices. Big Four sustainability practices, specialist ESG advisory firms. Senior environmental and policy specialists transitioning to corporate roles. Often from regulatory, government, or NGO backgrounds. Cross-functional candidates with substantive prior sustainability work. Operations, supply chain, or strategy backgrounds with sustainability dimensions integrated.

Each pool brings different strengths and different risks. Sitting Sustainability Directors bring a proven track record but are the most contested candidates, and they will compare your offer carefully with what they already have. Step-up candidates are often highly motivated and well versed in reporting, but need testing on whether they can hold their own with an executive committee. Consulting partners and directors are strong on frameworks and regulation, and have usually seen many businesses, but some have not had to deliver change inside one; we test hard for evidence of implementation. Policy and NGO candidates bring credibility with stakeholders and a deep understanding of the issues, and do best in roles with a strong external component. Cross-functional candidates from operations, procurement or supply chain often deliver the largest emissions reductions, because they know how to change operations, but may need support on disclosure.

The market for experienced sustainability leaders is not large, and the candidates with both reporting depth and operational delivery are few. Most of the people worth approaching are not actively looking, which is why these roles are filled through direct search rather than advertising. Candidates will ask early about board engagement, budget and the reality of existing commitments, and the search moves faster when we can answer those questions with confidence.

How we assess Sustainability Director candidates

Sustainability is a field where it is easy to sound credible and harder to show results. Our assessment focuses on evidence of what candidates have actually changed. We look at five areas:

• Delivery. What emissions or resource reductions did the candidate’s programmes achieve, measured how, and how much of that was their own doing rather than market conditions or an acquisition?
• Reporting and data. Have they built a disclosure from the ground up, worked with auditors or assurance providers, and handled Scope 3 data at supplier level?
• Commercial judgement. Can they make the business case for investment in terms a CFO accepts, and do they understand where sustainability helps win or keep customers?
• Influence. How have they persuaded operational leaders who did not report to them to change how they work?
• Integrity. Do they know where claims become greenwashing, and have they pushed back on overstated marketing or targets? This matters more since the FCA’s anti-greenwashing rule and the closer scrutiny of environmental claims.

We take references that test specific claims, not general character. Where a candidate says they cut emissions or built a reporting process, we ask the people who worked with them what was delivered and how. Our guide to hiring a Chief Sustainability Officer or Chief ESG Officer covers interview questions that work at both director and C-suite level.

What a Sustainability Director typically delivers in the first 90 days

A well-briefed Sustainability Director should have a clear picture of the business and a credible plan within their first three months. What that looks like varies with the brief, but most appointments follow a similar shape.

Days 1–30: listen and baseline. Meetings with the executive team, business unit heads, procurement, operations and finance. A review of existing targets, commitments and public statements, and how they are evidenced. An honest assessment of emissions data — what exists, how reliable it is and where the gaps are, especially in Scope 3. A view of which reporting obligations apply now and which are coming.

Days 31–60: priorities and quick wins. A short list of priorities agreed with the CEO and the sponsoring executive. Early action on the most material issues, such as customer sustainability requirements that affect tenders, or claims in marketing materials that the evidence does not support. A data improvement plan with finance, and a view on whether external assurance is needed and when.

Days 61–90: plan and governance. A sustainability plan with targets, owners and budget, presented to the board or its committee. A reporting timetable for the next cycle — for listed companies, a roadmap to the first UK SRS report. Proposals for team structure and external support. Clear metrics so the board can see progress each quarter.

If the first 90 days produce only a strategy document and no change in how decisions are made, something has gone wrong. We stay in touch through this period, and our executive onboarding guide sets out how to give a new senior hire the access and authority they need to start well.

Compensation and Package Structure

Sustainability Director packages vary widely with company size, sector, ownership and whether the role carries C-suite reporting. We do not publish figures on this page because the range is wide and a single number misleads more than it helps. We give clients current, role-specific market evidence during the briefing instead. Our directors’ salary guide covers senior director-level pay more broadly.

The main components are base salary, an annual bonus, a pension contribution and the usual benefits; listed companies and PE-backed businesses often add a long-term incentive or equity. A growing number of businesses link part of executive bonuses to sustainability targets, and a Sustainability Director will often help design those measures for the wider leadership team. Candidates will look carefully at how their own bonus is measured: targets they cannot influence, or that are set without a reliable baseline, are a common reason for strong candidates to decline. For interim and fractional roles, the structure is a day rate agreed with the client, with no bonus or benefits. Our guide to constructing an executive offer covers how to put a competitive package together.

Engagement and fees

Sustainability Director searches are normally run on a retained basis. That reflects the nature of the market: most suitable candidates are not looking, and approaching them well takes time, research and a clear brief. A retained search gives you a dedicated process, regular reporting and our commitment to the assignment until it is filled. Contingent recruitment, where a fee is payable only on placement, can work for more junior sustainability roles with a larger active candidate pool, but rarely produces the best shortlist at director level. Our guide to retained vs contingent executive search explains the differences.

• Permanent searches: a retained fee, staged across the search and linked to the first-year package, agreed in writing before we start.
• Interim and fractional appointments: charged on a day-rate basis, with the rate and our margin set out transparently in our terms.
• What is included: briefing and role specification, market mapping, direct approach, assessment and referencing, interview design, offer management and post-placement follow-up.

We will give you full terms once we understand the brief. There is no charge for an initial conversation.

Who we place Sustainability Directors for

Our Sustainability Director clients are typically UK businesses where sustainability affects revenue, cost or access to capital, and where the board wants a senior owner for it. They include:

• Listed companies preparing their first UK SRS-based reports, or refreshing their sustainability leadership.
• Private equity-backed businesses where the investor wants credible sustainability performance and data ahead of a sale or refinancing.
• Manufacturers and industrial businesses with significant energy use and supply chain emissions; see our manufacturing executive recruitment practice.
• Energy, utilities and renewables businesses, where sustainability and commercial strategy are closely linked.
• Construction and property businesses facing customer and planning requirements on embodied carbon and building performance; see our construction executive recruitment page.
• Consumer, retail and food businesses with complex supply chains and consumer-facing environmental claims.
• Financial services firms, where sustainability sits alongside the FCA’s anti-greenwashing rule and, for asset managers, SDR.
• Family-owned and owner-managed businesses making their first senior sustainability appointment, often in response to customer requirements.

Sustainability Directors often work closely with other senior hires we make, particularly in supply chain and procurement, where most Scope 3 reductions are delivered.

Other ways to hire sustainability leadership

This page covers permanent Sustainability Director, Head of Sustainability and ESG Director searches. If the role you need sits at C-suite level, or is better done on an interim or fractional basis, these pages cover those formats: Chief Sustainability Officer recruitment for the permanent executive committee role, interim CSO appointments for gaps and fixed-term projects, and fractional CSO appointments for businesses that need senior sustainability leadership a day or two a week. All three are linked in the format table above and in the related services panel below. Where you are not sure which you need, we will talk it through with you at briefing.

For candidates

If you are a Sustainability Director, Head of Sustainability or ESG leader looking for your next role, please register with us so we can consider you for relevant searches, and see our current opportunities. We treat every approach in confidence.

Frequently asked questions

What does a Sustainability Director do?

A Sustainability Director turns a business’s sustainability commitments into delivery and credible reporting. The role usually covers strategy and target-setting, emissions reduction across Scopes 1, 2 and 3, supply chain due diligence, ESG reporting and engagement with customers, investors and regulators.

How is Sustainability Director recruitment different from Head of Sustainability recruitment?

In many organisations the two titles describe the same job. Where both exist, the Head of Sustainability usually runs a function or programme and reports to the Sustainability Director or CSO. We recruit for both, and the candidate pool overlaps heavily.

What is the difference between an ESG Director and a Sustainability Director?

ESG Director roles tend to lean towards disclosure, ratings and investor engagement, and often sit closer to finance or investor relations. Sustainability Director roles lean towards operational delivery. In practice the boundary varies by business, which is why we define the scope before the search starts.

Do we need a Sustainability Director or a Chief Sustainability Officer?

If sustainability is central to your business model and the role needs a seat on the executive committee, a CSO is usually the right hire. If the strategy is set and the priority is delivery and reporting, a Sustainability Director is often the better fit. Our Chief Sustainability Officer recruitment page covers the C-suite role.

Are UK companies required to report under the UK Sustainability Reporting Standards?

UK SRS S1 and S2 were published in February 2026 for voluntary use. Under FCA rules confirmed in September 2026, listed companies must report against them on a comply-or-explain basis for accounting periods starting on or after 1 January 2027. Any requirement for private companies would need further legislation.

Does CSRD still apply to UK companies?

Since the EU Omnibus I changes, far fewer UK businesses are affected. UK groups are caught at group level only with more than €450 million of EU turnover and a large EU subsidiary or branch, from financial years starting in 2028. EU subsidiaries that meet the EU thresholds themselves may report sooner. Take advice on your own position.

Can we hire a Sustainability Director on an interim or fractional basis?

Yes. Interim appointments suit gaps and fixed projects such as a first UK SRS report; fractional appointments suit businesses that need senior sustainability judgement a day or two a week. See our renewable energy executive recruitment practice for sector-specific interim and permanent roles, and the interim and fractional CSO pages linked above.

How long does a Sustainability Director search take?

It depends on the brief, the seniority and candidates’ notice periods, which at director level are commonly several months. We agree a timetable with you at briefing and report progress against it throughout.

What should we pay a Sustainability Director?

Pay depends on company size, sector, ownership and scope. Rather than quote a single figure, we give you current market evidence for your specific role at briefing, and set out the package structure candidates expect.

How do we avoid hiring someone who is strong on reports but weak on delivery?

Test for evidence. We ask candidates to show what they changed and how it was measured, use case exercises based on your own issues, and take references that check specific claims. A credible candidate can explain both their successes and where their programmes fell short.

Further reading

For Chief Sustainability Officer recruitment (C-suite level), see our Chief Sustainability Officer recruitment service. For role-specific senior hiring guides, see our Knowledge Centre. Sector context for energy transition roles is covered in our renewable energy executive hiring guide.

For UK ESG reporting and sustainability frameworks, see the FRC, the FCA for listed-firm disclosure requirements, and the Climate Change Committee.