The state of sustainability professionals in Finland

Abstract

The past years have seen the rise of sustainability professionals and even en-tire teams within corporations who are expected to provide sustainability perspective business operations and transform them to withstand complex global challenges. This study adds to the ongoing corporate sustainability discussion by providing it with a more comprehensive insight on those working in the emerging field of sustainability – the sustainability profes-sionals. Utilizing job attitude research as a theoretical framework, a survey is conducted with a specific focus on facets of job satisfaction and dimensions of organizational commitment of sustainability professionals in Finland. The results show that although generally sustainability professionals in Finland report relatively high levels in both job satisfaction and organiza-tional commitment, the professionals also face challenges in their work, such as lack of resources and resistance to change, which can negatively affect their job attitudes and thus their job performance. It is concluded that for compa-nies to endure the global sustainability challenges, sustainability needs to be embedded in all operational activities and commitment to sustainability needs to be reflected in the organizations’ internal resourcing.