When Sustainability is More Than Just a Department

For years, corporate sustainability existed within organizations merely as a specialized department. It had its own team, dedicated metrics, and a specific budget to drive environmental and social initiatives. Meanwhile, the rest of the business made decisions based on different priorities: growth, efficiency, profitability, and innovation, rarely achieving a comprehensive action plan. However, the origins of this specialized area did pursue a real objective; it simply lacked a connecting node.  

Although not fully integrated, this model allowed many companies to take their first steps. Yet, it also revealed a critical limitation: when sustainability depends solely on a single department, its capacity to transform an organization hits a ceiling.  

Today's industry-leading companies have understood a different approach. Instead of merely asking which environmental projects they can implement, they focus on embedding sustainability directly into their core decision-making processes. This is not a minor shift, but a complete paradigm change. And perhaps the most insightful way to understand this is by listening to those who have lived this corporate transformation from the inside.

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From Purpose to Core Business Strategy

The professional journey of Carla Salamanca, Head of Sustainability at Michelin Mexico and Central America, reflects this evolution perfectly. Before joining the company, she worked in consulting and projects related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and conscious capitalism. Over time, she began to question a reality experienced by many in the sector: sustainability initiatives may generate enthusiasm, but they rarely survive if they remain disconnected from the core business model.  

During our conversation, Carla noted that this key learning transformed her professional approach: corporate sustainability stops being vulnerable the moment it shifts from being a parallel project to an integral part of the business model. This conviction is exactly what she found upon arriving at Michelin.  

Rather than discovering a company with scattered environmental initiatives, she found an organization where sustainability was already established as a strategic decision backed by top management and shared across diverse departments such as manufacturing, logistics, finance, and operations.

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Sustainability Stops Asking "What Project Should We Do?"

One of the most compelling insights from the interview revolves around how internal questions evolve as corporate sustainability matures. Instead of asking what new initiative to launch, the conversation pivots: which strategic decisions generate the highest environmental and social impact?  

At Michelin, this process began with a double materiality assessment carefully adapted to the Mexican context. While the company operates under a global strategy, they understood that environmental, regulatory, and social ESG risks are not identical across all countries. It was crucial to identify the true priorities for Mexico and translate that data into actionable business decisions.  

The evaluation involved over forty cross-functional leaders and more than 400 client interviews to understand their perception of sustainability and pinpoint the issues that genuinely influence the business. The ultimate goal was not just to build a materiality matrix, but to build a stronger, data-driven decision-making capacity.

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True Impact is Not Always the Most Visible

One of Carla’s most provocative reflections challenges a persistent trend in many organizations: confusing public visibility with real environmental impact.  

Communicating recycling campaigns, corporate volunteering days, or internal initiatives is relatively easy. These actions are important for building organizational culture and fostering engagement; however, when the objective is to deeply reduce emissions or transform a company's environmental performance, the most relevant decisions are often the least visible.  

During the interview, Carla shared a clear example: transitioning a manufacturing plant's energy source or improving operational energy efficiency generates significantly higher emission reductions than highly publicized initiatives. The same principle applies to strategic decisions regarding logistics, industrial processes, and sustainable material selection. In other words, mature corporate sustainability transitions from merely measuring activities to strictly measuring results.

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Thinking as an Industry, Not Just a Company

Another highly relevant aspect of Michelin’s strategy is recognizing that many of the environmental challenges facing the tire industry cannot be solved individually.  

Addressing end-of-life tire management, developing renewable materials, researching tire wear particles, and strengthening responsible supply chains for natural rubber require robust collaboration among companies, academia, regulators, and specialized organizations.  

For this reason, Michelin actively participates in initiatives like the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber and the Tire Industry Project—collaborative spaces where even direct competitors work together to drive common industry standards and generate scientific knowledge about the sector's impacts. The company has also set ambitious ESG goals to increase the use of renewable and recycled materials in their tires and advance toward operational carbon neutrality by 2050.  

The logic behind these alliances is powerful: certain problems operate on a scale that exceeds the capacity of any single organization, a learning that must be shared and amplified to be truly effective.  

For a long time, corporate sustainability conversations were dominated by sectors like food and beverage, energy, and fashion. However, Michelin’s experience serves as a reminder that profound transformation is also happening in industries that rarely take center stage in these discussions.  

Sustainability no longer depends on the sector in which a company operates, but on how that company chooses to integrate environmental, social, and climate risks into its core strategy. When this integration occurs, it ceases to be the exclusive responsibility of a single team. It begins to reflect in product design, supply chain management, investment strategies, cross-industry collaboration, and daily decision-making.  

At that exact moment, sustainability transcends being just a department and becomes a fundamental way of running a company

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Carla Salamanca for sharing her professional journey, as well as for her openness and time. We also extend our gratitude to Ana Schravesande for facilitating this space and guiding such an insightful conversation.

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About the author

Sandra is a biologist who remains in constant awe of the living world. Deeply moved to be writing again for Toroto, she is currently leading an ecological restoration project on the outskirts of Lake Texcoco, among birds, sunlight, and wetlands.