Interview Series: Javier López Gómez

This week’s read time: 5 minutes

Welcome to the Green Digest Interview Series, our bi-weekly feature showcasing conversations with the industry’s leading voices—CSOs, sustainability directors, and other senior professionals shaping the sustainability landscape. Each edition dives into their professional journeys, hands-on insights, and outlook on the challenges and opportunities defining corporate sustainability.

These interviews are designed to be quick, insightful reads, offering you actionable takeaways and a personal glimpse into the people leading the way. Stay tuned for stories, strategies, and lessons that matter to you.

The insights presented in the Green Digest Interview Series are brought to you by a partnership between Green Digest and The Sustainability Circle, the invite-only community empowering senior sustainability leaders through peer-to-peer professional development. Check if you qualify for membership here.

PROFILE

This week’s guest:

Javier López Gómez

Global Head of Corporate Sustainability at SGS Group

Javier López Gómez is the Global Head of Corporate Sustainability at SGS Group, the world’s leading testing, inspection, and certification company. SGS operates a network of over 2,500 laboratories and business facilities across 115 countries, supported by a team of more than 99,500 dedicated professionals. Javier is also a Founding Member of The Sustainability Circle, an exclusive global community for sustainability leaders.

With over 15 years of international experience in sustainability and climate change, Javier has a strong background in leading cross-functional teams and managing multicultural projects. He began his career in the European renewable energy sector and went on to lead the ESG consulting portfolio at SGS Spain, specializing in green building consulting and strategic projects to reduce emissions. In his current role, Javier is responsible for driving the execution of SGS Group’s corporate sustainability strategy, with a clear focus on creating positive impact. His leadership has been a key contributing factor in positioning SGS among the top ESG performers globally - including being recognized as the 6th most sustainable company in the world by TIME last year.

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You lead the Corporate Sustainability team and oversee ESG strategy at SGS. What are the unique sustainability challenges that come with being the world’s leading testing, inspection, and certification company, and how do you tackle them?

The first challenge, I would say, is the heterogeneity of this sector. It’s an industry present across all end markets, which means that the range of services we provide—as well as the diversity of laboratories and facilities where we operate—makes our operations vary greatly depending on the business area being covered. Our activities can range from microbiology or food safety testing in highly controlled laboratory environments to production line inspections in heavy industry settings. From an ESG strategy perspective, this diversity makes it challenging to unify all operations under a single, overarching approach. To address this challenge, we built a strategy—Sustainability Ambitions 2030—that covers our entire value chain.

The ultimate goal of our Sustainability Ambitions 2030 is to deliver measurable contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and, ultimately, create value for society.

On another note, SGS embraces a mindset of excellence and continuous improvement, always striving to be best-in-class. Maintaining this position as a trailblazer is a significant challenge—it requires bold and sometimes risky decisions. However, we always aim to act with strong business sense, long-term vision, and a clear focus on value creation.

How do you communicate ESG performance effectively to the C-Suite? What have you learned about what resonates, and what doesn’t, when aiming to secure real commitment to ambitious sustainability goals, especially when aligning with priorities like profitability, risk, and growth?

For me, the key is to empathize with senior executives and understand their priorities, so the conversation can be framed in their own language. There are perhaps two fundamental aspects to this. On one hand, there's risk and uncertainty management, which is closely tied to sustainability and provides a useful framework for discussing less tangible topics, such as those related to the Social or Governance dimensions. On the other hand, environmental strategies tend to be much more tangible, and the key here is to translate that tangibility into a real impact on the company’s P&L.

This can be done through more traditional methods, such as sectoral or geographical benchmarks, but I find ESG ratings far more impactful. They are an excellent tool to showcase, by area, the company’s maturity and performance compared to peers—even across different industries. As such, they’re extremely effective for triggering specific sustainability initiatives.

Finally, I believe it’s crucial to continue emphasizing that a sustainable company is a more resilient company, less exposed to market volatility. This ultimately translates into greater long-term value for investors. If the previous points are well established, this final message tends to come through quite naturally.

You help clients lower their carbon footprints and build circular systems, among other services. Internally at SGS, what’s one or more successful initiatives you’re most proud of that ensures you’re holding yourselves to the same standards you advise others to meet?

While SGS is not inherently a highly polluting company due to its relatively low emission levels, one of the programs I would like to highlight is the Energy Efficiency in Buildings initiative. It was one of the first sustainability-related programs we launched within the company, and it aimed to tackle emissions where we have direct control—our buildings. Over ten years ago, we introduced this program with the goal of achieving sustainability excellence across our entire portfolio of offices and laboratories.

It’s a particularly challenging initiative due to its scale—we operate a network of over 2,500 laboratories and business facilities—and the heterogeneity of our building portfolio. SGS operates across virtually all end markets, so our facilities range from high-tech microbiology laboratories to more industrial environments where large samples, such as minerals, are analyzed. This program is especially meaningful to me because I personally led it for several years, and I’ve witnessed its growth and maturity over time.

Another initiative I’d like to highlight relates to employee engagement in sustainability. As I mentioned earlier, SGS is a service company that has close to 100,000 employees. Therefore, it’s quite clear that we are a people company, where our workforce is central to our success. With this in mind, we wanted our sustainability journey to be shared and embraced by our people, and we’ve worked toward this through various awareness campaigns and training courses over the years. We even have a sustainability mascot - one that has become beloved by employees across the organization!

Could you share a concrete example where SGS’s sustainability services, whether in circularity, emissions reduction, or certification, helped a company overcome a major challenge or unlock new value?

The range of sustainability services is very broad. To give a couple of concrete examples, we can mention Suzlon Energy, one of India’s leading renewable energy companies. They partner with SGS to ensure their sustainability reporting met the highest standards. Through our reasonable assurance of their Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR), we assessed their data across global frameworks. Our meticulous approach not only provided Suzlon with independent assurance but also identified areas for improvement.

Another example, focused on product certification, is the certification service provided to Samsung for their OLED displays. In the competitive B2B display module market, demonstrating product excellence without objective evaluation can risk greenwashing and lead to consumer confusion. To address this, we tested and awarded Samsung’s OLED laptop display panels with Hazardous Substances Assessed (HSA) certification under the SGS Environmental Claim Certification Scheme (commonly known as SGS green marks). We evaluated over 300 substances, including heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), ensuring transparency and accountability. Our comprehensive evaluation alongside rigorous testing, conducted according to the Environmental Claim Certification Scheme (ECCS) requirements, enabled Samsung to highlight its commitment to environmental responsibility.

Finally, we ask all our guests this: Leading sustainability at a global company comes with a lot of pressure and complexity. What personal practices, routines, or philosophies help you stay resilient and focused?

I love this question because not long ago, in an interview, I mentioned that resilience is a key factor for success in the sustainability field.

First of all, I should say that this year has been a bit different for me, as I’m currently completing an Executive development program at IESE, which has completely disrupted my usual routines and schedule. At the same time, it has provided me with a valuable opportunity for substantial learning - which is a core part of my life philosophy.

When it comes to what keeps me grounded and motivated, the first thing I’d say is maintaining a healthy balance between work and personal life. I’m deeply devoted to my family, and I love carving out a bit of time each day to spend with my two children. I’m also passionate about sports, especially trail running. I try to go out at least three to four times a week to clear my mind, which helps me return with much greater clarity. On top of that, this sport is particularly useful for building mental resilience.

Ultimately, the three ingredients in my life recipe are: enjoying every minute with my family, never stopping learning, and doing sports whenever I get the chance.

Javier has shown us what real sustainability leadership looks like - doing the work within your own walls while helping others raise the bar. We hope you enjoyed reading this as much as we did.

We’ll be back in two weeks with more insights from those building a better future. 🟢

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