Do You Need a ‘Chief Sustainability Officer’?

Chief content officer. Chief innovation officer. Senior maverick.

We've seen plenty of weird job titles crop up on magazine mastheads over the past few years. Here's a new one to put on your radar: "Chief sustainability officer."

That's what New York-based Graphic Systems Group just hired. A chief sustainability officer. (And you thought the green movement was going away? No, no no no no no ...)

Here's their release (emphasis ours):

GSG NAMES FIRST CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER;
DINAH QUAYLE DAVIDSON TO HEAD UP "GREEN" AGENDA
NEW YORK -- May 19, 2008 -- Graphic Systems Group today named Dinah Davidson Chief Sustainability Officer of America's largest production agency. Ms. Davidson brings over 25 years of experience in the image reproduction/graphic arts field most recently as Director of Production Strategies and Resources at GSG. As the agency's first CSO, she will develop and implement internal and client programs which reduce the production agency's carbon footprint and maximize efficient use materials and resources. Prior to joining GSG, Dinah was Director of Customer Services managing a professional staff that provided imaging services to advertising agency and corporate clients including Saatchi and Saatchi, Polo Ralph Lauren, Conde Nast and Nikon. For more information on GSG, go to www.gsgnyc.com.
"The development of this new position culminates months of soul searching on the part of the agency," notes GSG president Ken Madsen. "With a better understanding of sustainability and how it'll impact both internal operations and client services, we believe now is the time to implement a dedicated program. We believe Dinah is the ideal person to head up this campaign. She has the unique ability to transform the complicated into fluid and adaptable processes. And her solutions are grounded in years of experience in CRM, Marketing, and Business Management."
Prior to joining GSG in June of 2006, Dinah served as Administrative Manager for Hudson West Productions -- a not-for-profit film and television production company. There she researched and wrote federal and state arts and humanities grants, administered grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her career started as an industry assistant and by 1990 she had risen to the position of Vice-President and Sales and Marketing overseeing all national and international advertising, public relations and trade show participation.
"I'm quite excited about the challenges I now face as Chief Sustainability Officer at GSG," notes Davidson. "I feel like I'm going back to my rural Midwestern roots. On a farm nothing is wasted and everything is recycled and reused to its utmost efficiency. This cradle to cradle mentality can certainly be applied to the printing and packaging industry. It may take time to implement all my ideas, but it's a worthwhile venture as every step forward is so impacting on our world. I aim to help GSG make a difference and pass on a planet to future generations in a better shape than we found it."
In a recent GreenBiz.com article, sustainability advocate Rick Walker describes a CSO as, "... an advocate and educator, a visionary, a change manager and a cheerleader, and above all else, a results-driven manager. CSOs must serve at least three roles: They must look inward, end-to-end driving business opportunity; they must look outward, walking the talk and communicating with customers and other stakeholders; and they must lead. A CSO must articulate, implement and sustain the organization's vision of sustainability and provide visibility and transparency of that vision both internally and externally."
About GSG
GSG, located in the heart of New York City, is the America's leading production agency and a primary advocate of Production Decoupling. According to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), "Production decoupling is the separation of the business of production from creative development." Since 1979, GSG has been called upon by top Fortune 500 companies such as Citibank, Elizabeth Arden, Maybelline, Revlon, Estée Lauder, NBC, and Colgate Palmolive for their expertise in production. Located in a 40,000 sq. foot facility on Union Square, GSG provides marketers with a range of benefits, most of them measurable in terms of decreased cost and improved efficiencies. Using their landscape of offerings, GSG has prospered in supporting both their clients and their client's agency with superior quality, accelerated turnaround, and project cost savings. GSG can be found online at http://www.gsgnyc.com.