Like many observers, Malley probably wishes the Copenhagen Conference had resulted in a more substantial climate-change agreement. "But it's our view that business can't necessarily wait for governments to come to final conclusions," he says. "Governments have a great capacity to bring business into some focus, but in the end, the execution is up to busines. It's about resource management. I don't know why any business in the world has to wait for government policy."

 

Malley spoke to CFO Innovation’s Cesar Bacani about measuring carbon footprints, carbon emissions trading and how these will affect the job of the CFO in the near future.

 

The CFO is faced with three big issues. The first is to influence the board to start considering sustainability as a culture, not a marketing instrument. One should not underestimate the challenge in that role. The CFO has to influence change in the organisation, starting with the board, and that influence has to be about long-term profitable gains from this behaviour [from cost reduction and possible selling of carbon credits] and also a better retention of staff, because the evidence is that if staff believes in the business and its behaviour, they’re more likely to stay.

 

Number two is then to create an operating culture around the principles of what it means to be a sustainable organisation. The other word for that is continuous improvement. As an example, when we [at CPA Australia] produced last year’s annual report, we wrote to the members and said we’re going to produce a report online. They needed to write to us if they wanted it in paper, so we actually made it harder for them to get the paper. We had an unprecedented amount of paper savings. We then told our members, we saved this much oil, this much paper … so we actually quantified it.

 

Once you create the culture, you then get to step three, which is education. Through that process, we expect a carbon footprint and then we expect a whole new dimension of how we do business. The thing about sustainability is that people will pick you up on it. If you say you’re sustainable and then you hold a conference where everything’s in paper, they’ll come and tell you. This is a tough game, because when you do it, you believe it, you don’t realise how much of your behaviour is actually unsustainable.

 

I think it’s fair to say that CFOs see their jobs doubling overnight. But they have a very serious responsibility to manage resources strategically. They can’t avoid this because that’s their training, that’s their skill and that’s their leadership opportunity. So if I can speak on their behalf, I think they’re horrified by the increased amount of work. But I think it’s their responsibility. It’s part of their portfolio.