Unveiling efficient organizational models for CSR and sustainability: Mobilize Financial Services
Mallika Mathur Lheritier, Group Chief Transformation & Sustainability Officer at Mobilize Financial Services, offers an illuminating glimpse into their effective organizational approach for managing sustainability and ESG concerns.
Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability have become increasingly important considerations for financial institutions in recent years. CSR refers to a company's commitment to operating ethically, responsibly, and contributing positively to society and the environment. Sustainability, on the other hand, involves ensuring that the institution's operations are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable in the long term. In a recent interview, Mallika Mathur Lheritier, Group Chief Transformation & Sustainability Officer at Mobilize Financial Services, offered an illuminating glimpse into their effective organizational approach for managing sustainability and ESG concerns. This dialogue provided valuable perspectives on the successful incorporation of sustainability into the fundamental strategies of financial institutions.
How would you best describe your institution’s organizational structure for addressing Sustainability & ESG & Climate related matters? How many people are dedicated to Sustainability matters in your organization?
At Mobilize Financial Services, we have adopted a “high alignment, high autonomy” approach to address sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters. This approach emphasizes strong alignment on our ambition and targets, while providing the flexibility to move swiftly in driving innovation, execution, and cultural change.
Our organizational structure consists of two complementary and parallel components.
The first component follows a traditional pyramidal-style hierarchy, starting from the Board and Executive Committee, and cascading down throughout the organization. This structure ensures clear accountability and effective governance.
The second component is a voluntary, cross-functional, global Spotify-style agile Sustainability Tribe & Squad. This structure enables us to scale rapidly, maintain end-to-end governance, foster sustainability maturity, enhance our employees’ expertise in ESG topics, facilitate the exchange of best practices, and mobilize a diverse group of change agents.
At our headquarters, we have a core team of 6 individuals dedicated to driving sustainability initiatives. The team has a variety of skills from research, data, project management, sales & marketing, investor relations, and communications. This is to create the necessary multi-disciplinary skillset required by Sustainability teams nowadays. Additionally, we are supported by sustainability officers located in various countries. This distributed network allows us to effectively address local sustainability challenges while aligning with our global objectives.
By leveraging this dual organizational structure and combining high alignment with high autonomy, we aim integrate ESG considerations into our operations and foster positive change within our organization.
Are there any lessons learned that you could share from the journey of formalizing & establishing of your Sustainability organizational structure?
When building sustainability into an organization, it is important to consider the following lessons learned:
1 - Do not underestimate the time on change management and education
Implementing sustainability initiatives requires a comprehensive understanding of the organization’s current practices, culture, and maturity on the topic.
It is crucial to allocate sufficient time and resources for change management activities, including educating employees about sustainability goals, benefits, and the necessary steps for implementation. By investing in change management and education, organizations can foster a shared understanding and commitment to sustainability across all levels.
It’s a great opportunity to get creative as well! We employed various strategies to engage individuals in a manner that resonated with their preferences and interests. We did townhalls, created Sustainability toolkits, built newsletters, gamified sustainability awareness challenges to do learning through play, held Sustainability “roadshows”, learning modules like Fresque de Climat, learning expeditions on Sustainability to be inspired and much more.
2 - Take the “Kaizen” approach of step-by-step improvement and iteration until there is a snowball effect
Rome was not built in a day and neither is sustainability maturity!
Building sustainability into an organization is an ongoing process that requires continuous improvement and adaptation. Rather than attempting to implement all changes at once, organizations should adopt a step-by-step approach.
Start with lean budgets, lean teams, and small, manageable initiatives that align with the organization’s goals and gradually expand efforts over time. For example, we started by doing a cartography and gap analysis of existing initiatives, identified high-impact quick wins that were scalable and focused on those first.
Needless to say, psychological safety, flexibility and empowerment to test & learn, working with agile working methods, and upskilling the team on sustainability and ESG are critical success factors too.
Regularly evaluate progress, learn from successes and failures, and iterate on strategies to ensure continuous improvement.
3 - Engage passionate people in an inclusive way – it’s contagious
Passionate individuals who are committed to sustainability can be powerful catalysts for change within an organization. Identify and engage employees who are enthusiastic about sustainability initiatives and empower them to become advocates for change.
Their passion can inspire others, create momentum, and foster a culture of sustainability throughout the organization.
Early on, I created the voluntary Global Sustainability Tribe model as a way to involve our people who cared about the topic, make sure their voices were heard, and co-create Mobilize Financial Services’ sustainability journey with them. Together with the Global Tribe, we wrote our Sustainability Manifesto, and developed our Sustainability ambitions, KPIs, and materiality matrices.
With our first call for volunteers for the Global Tribe, we had over 60 people representing 20 countries and over 10 functions! By fostering an inclusive environment that values diverse perspectives, organizations can benefit from a wide range of ideas, experiences, and insights. Diverse perspectives enable organizations to approach sustainability challenges from multiple angles, leading to more innovative solutions and better outcomes. For example, our very first sustainable innovation challenge led to a pipeline of 200 ideas!
4 - Set clear rules and governance
Embedding sustainability into an organization’s operations requires clear rules and guidelines. Define sustainability objectives, targets, and metrics that align with the organization’s overall strategy. Establish a clear and simple governance structure from top to bottom. Identify key stakeholders and plan regular “small circle” sessions with them to brainstorm, flag issues, align, and move forward together. Set up executive and operational steering committees to ensure focused and effective meetings. Given the breadth of sustainability topics and the rapidly changing landscape, these committees can help raise awareness, track progress, discuss upcoming topics, and make key decisions.
Given that Sustainability and ESG can be a new topic and new workload, repeatedly communicate these rules throughout the organization to ensure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities in achieving sustainability goals.
In conclusion, by considering these lessons learned, organizations can lay a strong foundation for integrating sustainability into their core operations, driving positive change, and contributing to a more sustainable future.
How do you measure Sustainability performance in your organization? What kind of indicators do you have? Who is measuring the mentioned indicators? How do you align Sustainability performance with your Strategy and targets?
Sustainability performance is assessed through two key approaches. Firstly, an ESG Dashboard is utilized, which is directly linked to the targets outlined in our Sustainability strategy. Our comprehensive Sustainability strategy is built around three core pillars: Climate & Environment, Safety & Care, and Diversity & Inclusion. Each pillar is associated with forward-looking targets that we actively measure and monitor. Secondly, we evaluate performance at the Transformation function level by integrating the design and implementation effectiveness of our Sustainability strategy within the OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) of the function. This ensures that sustainability considerations are embedded throughout the company’s operations. The indicators are closely monitored by relevant departments and by the Comex.
Do you use any specific market solutions for ESG needs? If so, can you give a few examples of using those solutions?
For gamifying Sustainability education and awareness, we have used Ouilive and Fresque du Climat. For carbon footprint assessment, we have used Greenly in the past.
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