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Your first 90 days as a sustainability lead

If you have just been handed sustainability, perhaps on top of your day job, it is hard to know where to begin. You do not need to understand everything on day one. You need a sponsor, the data and one early win.

By Richard Harvie · Updated November 2026 · 7 minute read

Your first week

You do not need to understand the scopes yet. In your first week, do five things.

1. Ask the person most likely to sponsor the work for half an hour, and agree what they want from you.
2. Send a data request to the people who hold the bills, fuel cards and spending records.
3. Look through recent board or committee papers for any carbon promise your organisation has already made.
4. Start four simple records: achievements, decisions, meters and briefing notes.
5. Join one source of free help, such as a local network or your sector's group.

By Friday you will have started the work, and nothing on that list costs a penny.

Find a sponsor

The single most useful thing you can have is a senior sponsor: a member of the leadership team who will speak up for the work in meetings you are not in, help unblock problems and open doors to data and people. The chief executive is the ideal sponsor but often the busiest. A director of finance, resources or operations can be just as effective, because they usually control the budgets, buildings and vehicles that matter most.

Ask for 30 minutes a month and book the whole year's meetings at once, before their diary fills. A day or two before each one, send a few lines on what has moved and where you need help.

Agree what the role is for

With a sponsor in place, agree one page of terms of reference: why the role exists, what it covers, who you report to, how much time you have, what you can decide yourself and what you will deliver in the first year, such as a carbon baseline, a climate risk assessment, an action plan and a first annual report. Write the first draft yourself and ask your sponsor to change it. Busy directors will happily mark up a page but rarely find time to write one.

Find out who holds the data

The numbers you need are usually spread across several teams, and nobody has looked at them together. Ask for the same twelve months of everything, ideally your last financial year:

• gas and electricity bills or meter readings, from finance or estates;
• fuel card reports, from the fleet team or finance;
• mileage claims for staff using their own cars, from HR, payroll or finance;
• rail and air journeys, from finance or the travel booking provider;
• waste tonnages, from facilities or the waste contractor;
• water use, from estates or finance;
• spending by supplier, from procurement or finance.

Ask for the simplest format they have; a spreadsheet export often already exists. Then thank people and show them what you did with it. Colleagues who see their data put to good use are far more likely to help again next year.

Plan the 90 days in three blocks

• Days 1 to 30, listen and set up: meet your sponsor and agree terms of reference, send the data request, find out what is already happening and start your records.
• Days 31 to 60, gather and learn: collect and check the data, walk the sites early and late, and pick one quick win.
• Days 61 to 90, deliver and report: complete the quick win and measure it, build a rough footprint from gas, electricity and fuel, draft the next six months and report to the leadership team.

Pick one early win

A new role needs to show results before it can ask for much. When I taught people to drive, nobody had their first lesson on the motorway. We started on quiet roads and built up from there, and learners who were rushed lost confidence that took longer to win back than the rush had saved. A new sustainability role works the same way, except that the confidence at stake is your leaders' confidence in you.

A good early win is quick, cheap or free, visible, measurable and shared. Matching heating and lighting times to when buildings are actually used is a classic. So is clearing the facilities helpdesk's oldest open jobs, such as heating stuck on or dripping taps. Read the meters before you change anything, so you can prove the saving, and give the credit to the team that did the work.

Report at day 90 on one page

1. What was agreed: the terms of reference and who sponsors the work.
2. What we found: a rough footprint, the largest sources and where the data lives.
3. What we have done: the quick win and what it saves.
4. What is already happening: work under way that the plan will build on.
5. Risks and gaps: missing data, time, and anything that needs a decision.
6. The next six months: the full baseline, the climate risk assessment and the date targets will come to the leadership team.
7. What we need from you: the decisions or support you are asking for today.

Get free help

You do not have to work this out on your own. In England, the government-funded Net Zero Hubs support public sector organisations, and the UK Business Climate Hub offers free tools for small and medium-sized businesses. Carbon Literacy training is a one-day accredited course with versions for many sectors. Most sectors also have a network of people doing the same job; one conversation with someone a year or two ahead of you can save weeks.