# How to Talk to Your CFO About Sustainability

1 Opinion December 15, 2020 Harvard Business Review ![Tensie Whelan](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/Whelan%20Article.jpg?itok=XEKEqv-d) By Tensie Whelan and Elyse Douglas >

By now most companies have committed to improving their environmental, social, and governance performance. Such sustainability efforts have increasingly become table stakes. And yet many CFOs still see them as a cost rather than a source of value. That makes it hard to unlock the internal financing needed to scale them up.

Most recent studies show a correlation between sustainability and financial performance. Our own research finds that for many companies, nonfinancial metrics such as carbon emissions can reveal hundreds of millions of dollars in sustainability-related savings and growth. In large companies it can be billions.

Why don’t more CFOs see the connection?

Read the full [*Harvard Business Review* article](https://hbr.org/2021/01/how-to-talk-to-your-cfo-about-sustainability).
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*Tensie Whelan is a Clinical Professor of Business and Society and Director of the Center for Sustainable Business.* ## More from Tensie Whelan

- [Demystifying the ‘Say-Do’ Gap in Sustainable Product Purchases.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/opinion/demystifying-say-do-gap-sustainable-product-purchases)
- [How LPs Can Better Assess Sustainability-Linked Value Creation.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/opinion/how-lps-can-better-assess-sustainability-linked-value-creation)
- [Lessons From a Decade of Teaching Sustainability at B-School.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/lessons-decade-teaching-sustainability-b-school)
- [ESG Reporting Needs a Refresh. Here’s How to Fix It.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/esg-reporting-needs-refresh-heres-how-fix-it)
- [The B2B Opportunity in Corporate Sustainability.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/b2b-opportunity-corporate-sustainability)