North America's Top Chief Sustainability Officers Honored at New York Climate Week Gala

The winners of the Futur/io CSO Awards North America 25 were announced during New York Climate Week at a gala dinner held at the newly opened Vitra design showroom. Erik Hansen, Chief Sustainability Officer at Workday, received the Gold Award, while Jackie Jung from Western Digital earned the Silver Award and Susan Uthayakumar of Prologis received the Bronze Award. The Grand Jury also granted Special Honour Awards to Annika Dubrall from Tiffany & Co. and Ann Tracy from Colgate-Palmolive, with Ara Erickson from Weyerhaeuser receiving the Sustainable Supply Chain Award presented by Simon Jaehnig, Co-Founder & President of IntegrityNext Inc.

Jennifer Motles, Chief Sustainability Officer at Philip Morris International, received the Peer Award chosen by the live audience, presented by jury members Livio Scalvini from Imperial College London and Daniel Erasmus, Founder of ClimateGPT. The event featured speakers including Sandrine Dixson-Declève of the Club of Rome, Magnus Drewelies of CEEZER Software, and Nina Eisenman of NASDAQ. Harald Neidhardt, CEO & Curator of the Futur/io Institute, emphasized that the mission is to highlight the role of Chief Sustainability Officers and inspire ambition toward achieving Sustainable Development Goals and NetZero targets.

During three months of data collection and analysis, Futur/io and its partners observed delays in sustainability reporting compared to 2024, with some companies even retracting earlier sustainability disclosures. The current business climate faces geopolitical headwinds, economic pressures, and potential "greenhushing" phenomena. The annual survey sent to major corporations revealed that some expected sustainability leaders were missing from the 20 nominees due to lack of CSO support.

The winners were selected from the 20 Nominees list by a Grand Jury comprising influential sustainability voices including John Elkington, known as "the Godfather of Sustainability," Sandrine Dixson-Declève of the Club of Rome, and Michael Kobori, former Starbucks CSO and 2024 Gold Award winner. The jury also included Niyanta Spelman of Rainforest Partnership, Nina Eisenman of NASDAQ, and Vandinika Shukla of the Obama Foundation, with Harald Neidhardt serving as Jury Chair.

This marks the second edition of the CSO Awards North America, an initiative by the Futur/io Institute dedicated to nurturing sustainable innovation leadership. The European edition occurred in Davos parallel to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025. The awards represent a collaboration with partner Made in Sustainability and premium partner IntegrityNext, together with scientific partner the Leonardo Centre on Business for Society at Imperial College Business School. Additional knowledge partners include Denominator, Rainforest Partnership, ClimateGPT, and Economist Impact, with Gold Partner CEEZER Software.

The nomination process utilized a four-quadrant model criteria developed with scientific partner the Leonardo Centre on Business for Society at Imperial College Business School, supported by knowledge partners including Denominator for human-centric data and Rainforest Partnership for biodiversity focus. The model evaluates corporate behavior maturity, regulatory performance on ESG and SDG criteria, net zero goals, environmental and human impact, plus self-assessment surveys. The 20 nominees were drawn from the Top100 CSOs of North America 2025 list compiled from an extensive database of major US and Canadian companies.