The Mentor
The CSR manager spends the majority of time advising, informing and training employees, to empower them to reach the sustainability goals that are part of their tasks and role. The CSR manager becomes a mentor: gathering information and ensuring people are informed about the relevance of sustainability to their role and part of the organization. As most employees are best able to assess how to integrate sustainability into their tasks or function, the mentoring role of the CSR manager is to empower the other, for example through offering support and coaching.
Many sustainability managers consider mentoring crucial for their role. As a mentor, it is crucial for you to know how to translate sustainability to different functions in the organization and what tools are available to you. You can only help people make their job and tasks more sustainable if you have some insight into their role. And when you can adjust your ‘style’ in a number of ways to different situations and people. The chapter in the book about the mentor role addresses various ways to translate sustainability to different departments in the organization, and the role you can take in this as the sustainability manager.