ESG only works when strategy becomes culture

Jana, can you introduce yourself?

I’m Jana, I’m 33 and I’m originally from Cape Town, South Africa. I moved to the Netherlands initially for love. That love didn’t last, but I did, so I’ve been here ever since. I live near ’s-Hertogenbosch and work from TMC’s Eindhoven office. At TMC, I’m the Compliance & Sustainability Officer. I help the organisation stay compliant, especially around privacy and GDPR, and I help shape and drive our sustainability and ESG approach across the group.

What brought you into this field?

I studied Politics and International Relations for my bachelor’s, and later completed a master’s in International and European Law. After university, I started in an environmental compliance team at an office supply company, and from there I moved into a role focused more specifically on social compliance. It was very detail-driven work, with a lot of requirements to track and translate into practice.

I learned a lot there, but I also realised I wanted to zoom out. I didn’t just want to manage the details, I wanted to help set direction and build structures that work across an entire organisation. That’s why the role at TMC felt like a good next step.

What do you enjoy about your work, and what’s the most challenging part?

I enjoy making change that lasts. I like taking big topics and turning them into something people can actually work with, together with teams across countries. I’m especially drawn to responsibility and transparency. Doing what we say we do, and being able to prove it with the right data and clear choices, matters to me. That’s what makes the work meaningful.

The challenge is balance. Sustainability is important, but TMC is also a business. My job often comes down to finding the middle ground and making sure what we build is ambitious, but still realistic and workable.

If you had to explain your role in simple terms, what would you say?

There are two main parts. I’m the Privacy Officer for the group, which means I help set up the right privacy approach, support privacy leads in different countries, and make sure we manage GDPR responsibilities properly across TMC.

And I work on Sustainability and ESG. That includes carbon footprint calculations, reporting, strategy and targets and supporting colleagues across countries with sustainability-related topics and projects. In the end, it’s about structure. Helping TMC stay compliant, and making sustainability measurable and manageable.

Why does this role matter?

Because good intentions aren’t enough. You need to be able to show what you do, and how you’re improving. TMC already has a lot of sustainability in its DNA. You can see it in the culture, and in the employeneurship model with its long-term focus on development and responsible choices.

At the same time, expectations are increasing fast. Clients, partners, investors and regulators want clarity and proof. That’s why we’re formalising what’s already there, making it visible and measurable, and building a structure that helps us keep improving.

You work with four pillars that guide the ESG strategy. What are they?

Over the past months, we’ve been shaping our new ESG strategy. It’s based on the work we did in our double materiality assessment, together with stakeholder consultations. Out of that, four themes clearly stood out. We call them the Big Four, and they’ll guide what we focus on going forward. They’ll also be the backbone of how we talk about and report on ESG. The Big Four are training and development, secure employment, gender equality and diversity, and climate change mitigation.

A double materiality assessment looks at ESG from two directions. One is inside-out: how TMC impacts the outside world, including people and the planet. The other is outside-in: how the outside world can create risks or opportunities for TMC. Putting those two views together helps you choose what has the biggest impact.

For me, these pillars work like a compass. They give direction and keep us focused. We’re already doing a lot well, but now we’re making it measurable so we can steer and show progress.

What does your work look like in practice? What kind of topics land on your desk?

It’s a mix of strategy, coordination and data. One of the recurring topics is our group carbon footprint calculation. That requires input from many people across the organisation, so it’s very much a team effort.

I also work on reporting requirements, including reporting to investors. That means collecting the right metrics and making sure the numbers are consistent and reliable. Another big part is governance. We’ve appointed ESG coordinators in each country, which makes a real difference. It creates a strong network, shorter communication lines and shared ownership.

On top of that, I run baseline assessments and questionnaires to understand where each entity stands today. That helps us set realistic targets and action plans. And of course, the sustainability report is a major focus too.

When you think about progress in ESG, what does “doing it well” actually look like?

For me, it starts with clear ownership. If responsibilities aren’t clear, sustainability stays abstract, or it ends up with one person. That’s why governance matters so much. Having ESG coordinators in each country creates awareness, and awareness is where culture starts. When people understand what we’re doing and why, they feel involved. And once people feel involved, they start to take ownership. That’s the moment sustainability stops being a document and becomes part of how we work. My goal is that strategy turns into culture.

What does it bring to TMC when this is done well?

Internally, it creates clarity and shared ownership. People know what we’re working on, why it matters, and what their part is. Externally, it builds trust. Clients want to work with responsible companies, and they increasingly want proof, not just statements. It also helps us stay attractive as an employer. People, especially younger generations, want to work for companies that take sustainability seriously. And since people are our business, that really matters. And it helps with future readiness. Expectations and regulations will only grow. Building a solid foundation now means we’re prepared for what’s coming.

How do you create buy-in across teams, so it doesn’t become a checkbox exercise?

By embedding it in the organisation, instead of keeping it with one person. I’m the only one with the official group role of Compliance & Sustainability Officer, but I don’t do this alone. In every country, we have a local ESG coordinator. They’re close to day-to-day reality, they know what’s happening locally, and they help translate the strategy into practical actions. That makes ESG much more relatable and workable.

On top of that, we have an ESG core team. It includes colleagues from HR and the lab, an employeneur, and a controller. They all carry ESG as part of their portfolio next to their regular work. That mix is important, because it anchors ESG across different parts of the organisation, not just within one department.

Then communication ties it together. People need to understand the “why” and see progress. That’s where our sustainability statement and report come in, and tools like footprint surveys help make it personal. When people see their role in the bigger picture, it stops feeling like a checkbox and starts becoming part of how we work.

Looking ahead, what do you hope to strengthen in the coming year(s)?

The main focus is translating the four pillars into clear targets and action plans. A big one there is building a strong carbon reduction plan. Another priority is how we show our progress externally. That includes our annual sustainability report. The first one is being released soon, and from there we’ll keep improving it year after year.

Sustainability assessments like EcoVadis are part of that too, because many clients ask for it. It’s a large ESG questionnaire that results in a score you can track and improve over time. It helps us measure progress, compare ourselves with peers, and have more structured conversations with clients.

If there’s one message you’d like readers to take away from this story, what would it be?

TMC already has a strong sustainability foundation. It’s in our values and in the way employeneurship works. What we’re doing now is putting structure around it, making it measurable and setting clear targets so we can keep improving. We’re still early in the formal ESG journey, but the foundation has been there all along.