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Social sustainability as strategy – HR’s role in ESG and CSRD
How does social sustainability become part of business strategy? Malin Lindfors Speace, founder of Ethos, on ESG, CSRD and why HR holds the key to sustainability data.
Malin Lindfors SpeaceFounder and CEO of Ethos
A sustainability pioneer
Malin Lindfors Speace has worked with social sustainability since 1994 and founded the management consultancy Ethos in 2007, working “from the factory floor to the boardroom”. In 2024 she was named Female Gazelle of the Year by Dagens industri.
What sustainability covers
Sustainability spans four areas – human rights, labour rights, environment and climate, and anti-corruption – plus their governance. ESG and sustainability are essentially the same thing. It has moved from add-on and charity to a core business issue: people with good working conditions who thrive together perform better. Frameworks such as GRI, ESRS and ISSB all rest on the same UN and ILO foundations.
Social sustainability enables creativity
“You can’t have creativity if you don’t have that foundation.” What gets measured gets done: pay gap analysis, performance reviews, routines for incidents and harassment, a working whistleblower system and clear escalation paths create safety.
HR holds the key
HR owns the data, information and processes that sustainability depends on. HR strategy and social sustainability strategy should be one. For CSRD, start with a sanity check rather than a spreadsheet: what matters to our workforce and to the people we want to recruit? HR should lead the joint effort with finance and sustainability.
Where wellbeing fits
Wellbeing and engagement appear in work-life balance, ill health, leave and care, culture and workplace ethics. The next step is putting monetary value on social data.
Key takeaways
- Sustainability covers human rights, labour rights, environment and anti-corruption – and their governance.
- All frameworks share the same foundation; focus on measuring and communicating transparently.
- Robust processes for harassment, whistleblowing and pay equity build psychological safety.
- HR owns the data – HR strategy and social sustainability strategy should be one.
- Putting monetary value on social data strengthens the link between wellbeing and business.
