Executives Praise CSE Training

June 15, 2021, was the culmination of CSE’s advanced Certified Sustainability (ESG) Practitioner Program, Digital Edition (2021).  Twenty-five C-suite, senior directors and managers attended this, the final three days of the training with live instruction from CSE’s founder and president Nikos Avlonas, CSE’s lead trainers for North America and program coordinator.  The three-day live sessions complement the digital coursework, which includes multiple modules, case studies, videos and opportunities to interact with CSE trainers.

Because of the level of attendees, this session focused on executive-level issues as they pertain to the fundamentals of implementing a corporate sustainability strategy based on the methodology developed by CSE.  This five-part methodology: awareness and training; stakeholder mapping and engagement, assessment, goals and strategy, and reporting is used by Fortune 500 and other leading companies around the world.

Participants from five different countries attended the English-version training.  Attendees represented PR, Education, Chemical, Energy, Food & Beverage, Construction, Finance, Real Estate, Health Care, Engineering and Mining sectors.  Companies included Hitachi, SAP and GT Gold.

Attendees lauded the presenters’ expansive knowledge in corporate sustainability.  As important, if not more, they emphasized the value of learning about each other’s challenges and best practices.  Sustainability requires a systems wide approach, and one never knows who from the training might represent a stakeholder whose perspective is invaluable.  Entrepreneurs learn from Finance who learn from key sectors about their pain points and what is each other’s criteria for due diligence.

With the focus on business, networking is a key feature.  For example, a Food & Beverage attendee connected with a plastics industry attendee, discussing a bio-assimilate film, which could help in reducing waste for the F&B rep and create new business for the plastics rep.  This is one example of the kind of networking which evolves from the numerous group and individual interactions.

CSE’s digital trainings regularly max out, so CSE is gradually re-introducing, as COVID vaccinations increase, specialized in-person trainings.  Check out cse-net.org or contact [email protected] for upcoming training opportunities.