Jessica Francisco

Q. WHAT WAS YOUR EDUCATION AND CAREER PATH AND HOW DID YOU END UP IN A CSO ROLE?

A. When I went to school, there weren't sustainability degrees at that time, so I actually have an environmental engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Following undergrad, I spent the first seven years of my career in environmental consulting, helping companies manage and mitigate their environmental risk – so a lot of environmental remediation projects. I then went to business school at Dartmouth and then, during business school and immediately after, I was in management consulting working for Oliver Wyman.

During that time, I did have the opportunity to do a couple of projects in the energy sector, which were fantastic, and then that led me to join Pacific Gas & Electric where I had a variety of leadership roles during my time there in their customer care organisation. I was really focused on customer energy efficiency, demand response, solar and EV charging programmes. It was a fantastic opportunity. California provides significant incentives to their corporate, as well as their residential, customers. I had the opportunity to set up their first EV charging incentive programme while I was there, which was a great experience.

After working at PG&E, I went back into the consulting realm. I had leadership roles at 3Degrees and Arcadis, further building their sustainability consulting practices. At 3Degrees, I was more focused on energy and climate change and then at Arcadis I focused more broadly on sustainability. And then that led me to join Cushman, where I started out leading our sustainability practice for our global occupier business – working with some of the largest companies to achieve their sustainability goals within real estate.

Q. WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE SUSTAINABILITY AGENDA THAT YOU ENJOY?

A. For me, it's really about making an impact. And that's actually what led me back into this role at Cushman as I'd spent a lot of time developing strategies, helping companies come up with sustainability plans.

And now I not only get to help them come up with a plan, but actually implement and see it all come to fruition. Climate change is one of the most important topics of our generation and to be able to come to work every day and feel like I'm making a positive impact towards that topic is really rewarding.

Q. WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOUR NEW ROLE THAT MOST EXCITES YOU?

A. As a CSO, I help companies bring their environmental and social sustainability ambitions to life in their workplace every day. I think we have been mostly focused on the environmental side and you're starting to see, particularly coming out of the pandemic, that focus on the social side.

It's a sector where there's lots of opportunity. Companies are very much motivated to address all of these issues. It's also the ability to influence and embed sustainability into all the services that we deliver – and I have great colleagues from around the world who I get to partner with to bring it all to life. So whether it's a transaction or a project or the day-to-day management of facilities and properties, we're able to integrate sustainability throughout the property life cycle and take advantage of all those touch points. 

Q. WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR YOU AND FOR CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD?

A. We have ambitions to achieve net zero for Cushman & Wakefield, but 99% of our footprint comes from Scope 3, category 11, which is the products and services we deliver, which is managing facilities and properties on behalf of our clients.

So unless we can help our clients reduce their footprint, we can't actually make the biggest and most meaningful impact. And so what that all kind of ties into is, as we're going through this interesting regulatory transition for sustainability around the world, I think our challenge is to not allow all the regulatory requirements around data and reporting to stop us from taking meaningful action.

I worry that we're going to spend a disproportionate amount of time on trying to measure and get the perfect data and that's going to shift resources from the actual doing. So how do we take a balanced approach, satisfy the regulatory obligations, but don't let it paralyse us from actually continuing to reduce our footprint in the buildings that we operate?

Q. DOES BEING CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD’S FIRST CSO MAKE YOU FEEL DAUNTED, EXCITED - OR BOTH?

A. I would say for me, since I've been here for a couple of years, I'm really excited about the role. We have great commitments from our leadership team across the globe. I have great partners across many of our functions – from our Chief Diversity Officer, our General Council, procurement, our real estate teams.

And I've had the opportunity to partner with them. I truly do feel it's a partnership. Everyone wants to be successful and, further, our employees are passionate about the topic. And I'm really excited to just start to tap into that passion a little bit more because we really haven't unleashed the power and the excitement across the organisation. 

Q. HOW WELL PLACED IS THE REAL ESTATE SERVICES INDUSTRY TO EMBED SUSTAINABILITY INTO ITS WORK? AND WHAT CAN YOU DO, PRACTICALLY, TO AFFECT THE BEHAVIOUR OF PEOPLE YOU DEAL WITH?

A. We're fortunate on the client side that they look to us to be their sustainability partner. So for most of our largest clients, we have either dedicated sustainability professionals or we're delivering projects for them. So there's really this mutual collaboration. I was just on the phone two days ago with one of our large financial services clients and it was all about recognising this connection between our organisations and how it all comes together. So, while some of those calls can just be focused on how we all get each other better data, this conversation was really focused on collaboration.

It's really exciting that, particularly in real estate, we've gotten over that hurdle and all recognise that we have to work together. So whether it's your design and architect partner or a building contractor, or your day-to-day facility manager, everyone has to come together in order to achieve your sustainability objectives for the built environment.

Q. WHAT ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY IN TERMS OF THE BUILDING MATERIALS?

A. We talk to a number of clients about the circularity of the materials we use to fit out a space. Not only what we select as we put in the building, but what's the end of life of those materials so that we are thinking about sustainability holistically. It's also the energy that you're procuring on a day-to-day basis, the equipment, what type of energy sources they're going to use.

So how do we make individual pieces of equipment in the workplace, whether lighting or HVAC systems, efficient and integrated into your plans, whether it's fitting out the space or your capital plan for investment moving forward. 

Q. ARE THERE WAYS YOU THINK NET ZERO COULD BE ACCELERATED IN YOUR INDUSTRY?

A. I think the main challenge that we're facing on the path to net zero for many buildings is electrification. And for that, you are relying on the grid getting greener or improved access to renewables in all geographies. How do you decarbonise buildings that are relying on natural gas and other heating sources to operate, particularly in northern Europe, the northeast in the United States and Canada?

So, we need some innovation there that doesn't just require everything to electrify. Regulation is driving things to electrify.

Q. IF WE HAD THIS CONVERSATION IN TWO YEARS’ TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CALL A SUCCESS IN TERMS OF YOUR ROLE?

A. I think there are a couple of things. One, that we have made meaningful contributions to our goals and have been able to accelerate a number of our commitments. We're currently striving for net zero for 2050. I would love to bring that forward, so I would deem that as a key success. I also think really being able to measure that broader impact that we're having so that we can tell that story for our clients as well as for our company, would be really valuable.

And then, that we will have a great way to measure and talk about social value. For me, I think that's kind of that next frontier. You're starting to hear people talk about it a lot. Everyone's grappling with how to measure it and talk about it, but I do think that would be a success is being able to tell that story using data.

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