What if the next great ESG consultant isn’t a MS or MBA, but a radio jockey, stand-up comic or a sustainability event coordinator? In the era of AI, conversational agility and prompt engineering may just be the specialization the sustainability services need.
Most of us in the consulting services profession find retaining people a challenge. People come and go and change jobs like the tee shirt of Giant retailer Shien that lasts not more than a season. A friend of my mine running a mid-sized IT company tells me that everyday in the morning there is an induction of a new entrant and at the end of the day there is a farewell. That is the routine in the IT sector. Well, in the sustainability consulting sector, we haven’t reached such a dynamic flux of people as yet, but on an average people do not last for more than 18 months. Those who don’t leave are considered by peers as not very successful.
Last Thursday, my Professor Friend and I sat through interviews for a new ESG Specialist at my company. I got Professors favorite Columbian coffee and placed the sphinx headed ash tray on the table.
“I hope we find someone who understands integrated reporting, GHG inventories, and stakeholder mapping,” I murmured.
Professor browsed through the impressive CVs we received. He leaned back with his typical smirk and said “Dr Modak, so much jargon in these CVs. I am worried if these guys really understand the subjects and will actually deliver. We should look for people who can actually talk with their own intelligence—and not artificial”
Candidate 1 walked in. He was very well dressed, embarrassing us. He graduated from one of the Sustainability MBA programs in India. (By the way here they teach 70% of typical MBA courses and rest 30% a bit on sustainability to prepare a cocktail – doesn’t taste good)
“I’ve synergized ESG verticals across downstream disclosures using SDG convergence platforms in alignment with CSRD and TCFD…” He summarized after walking us through this CV.
The Professor scribbled in his diary: “When someone uses 5 acronyms in one breath, they actually know nothing.”
We asked the Candidate 1 to go.
Candidate 2 came from one of the IVY League universities in the US. He returned because of Mr Trump. He tried to explain ESG using a 9-box grid and a Venn diagram and when asked what he actually does, replied, “I align synergies through recursive disclosures.”
Professor said that that’s what they learn out there – construct sentences that don’t mean anything. A perfect person for the Big4s. I murmured.
We interviewed another three candidates. Some were experienced over 4/5 years and had all the buzz words in the CVs and when they spoke, they had that “I know all” look on their faces. You see this typically in the young staff working at the World Bank group. (Folks at ADB are not yet that smart but are getting there!)
Candidate 6 was different. He had worked at Oracle, and he spoke passionately about Carbon Management. Post Oracle he was hired by a “Carbonex” platform that spewed out the GHG inventories and parsed data to a blockchain engine to monetize carbon credits from emission reduction. To him, sustainability related data was just a collection of numeric or alphanumeric fields.
We had reached almost the end of the interview session. The last candidate was Riya. Riya was recommended by one of our friends and had insisted that we check her out. She did not have any degree in sustainability. No impressive degrees. No jargon in the CV. We saw just the curiosity and courage. This was a young woman with much ease and confidence.
Riya was doing event management and her job required talking to people, getting sponsorship and even acting as an anchor by asking right kind questions to the Panelists. Lately, she had organized several sustainability related events and understood the lingo like – carbon neutral, circular economy, biodiversity hot spots, nature based solutions, Paris alignment, These terms made her curious and so she spent almost an hour every day having conversations with ChatGPT to decipher what these terms meant. I told her that what she was doing was actually learning through “prompt engineering”.
We asked her what she thought of ESG.
She replied after some hesitation, “Sirs, it’s just ethics with spreadsheets.”
But I thought that there is more to it—ESG is the only field where a sentence can have three frameworks, two acronyms, and zero meaning—and still pass as strategy.
Riya left but promised us that she can do amazing work by her sheer skills to do conversations in the real world with passion and now on ChatGPT. “I don’t have MS or MBA in sustainability, but I can do better than them using by conversational skills on ChatGPT and the like” She said so confidently and ended saying that “She will cost us much less while giving high “productivity” that the sustainability market wants. And that’s exactly why prompt engineering is perfect soulmate to several people like Riya.
Imagine talking to a machine—and you just speak or type naturally. And the machine understands, creates, and collaborates. That’s prompt engineering. And it’s only getting started .Prompt engineering is going to be most essential area of specialization for the NextGen.
Prompt engineering is the art and science of crafting inputs (prompts) to get desired outputs from AI models like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. Think of it as asking questions so precisely that the AI becomes your designer, analyst, coder, writer—or even business partner. Of course, you need to work further on the “drafts” you generate by verification and by adding your own experience to give the “personal or rather human touch”!
But prompt engineering is no longer just for techies. As AI interfaces become more accessible, knowing how to talk to AI effectively is becoming a critical 21st-century skill.
Next day, we received an email from Riya thanking us for our time. She had attached a word file (that she generated using ChatGPT!) saying that is how she will deliver outputs in various categories of consulting assignments in a zip!
Riyas’s ESG Prompt Engineering Library
| Category | Use Case in Sustainability Consulting | Prompt |
| ESG Strategy and Roadmapping | Developing an ESG Strategy | You are an ESG strategy consultant. Design a 1-year ESG roadmap for a mid-sized manufacturing firm in Southeast Asia. Focus on decarbonization, labor ethics, and ESG disclosures. |
| ESG Reporting and Disclosure | Drafting ESG Reports | Write the Environmental section of a sustainability report for a logistics company. Highlight Scope 1 and 2 emissions reduction, EV fleet expansion, and warehouse energy efficiency. |
| KPIs and Metrics | Generate ESG KPIs | List 10 ESG KPIs for a wind energy company. Include baseline, target for 2030, and short rationale for each metric. |
| KPIs and Metrics | Scope 3 Emissions Estimation | Estimate Scope 3 emissions categories for a large apparel brand, based on typical supply chain emissions. Suggest proxy data where specific values are missing. |
| Policy and Compliance | Supplier Code of Conduct | Draft a supplier code of conduct aligned with IFC Performance Standards and EcoVadis. Include clauses on working conditions, emissions management, and compliance. |
| Sustainability Storytelling and Communication | SDG Mapping | Map the following 10 CSR projects to the most relevant UN SDGs. Justify each mapping briefly. |
| Tools, Automation, and Data Analysis | ESG Benchmarking | Compare the ESG performance of Infosys, TCS, and Wipro using publicly available data. Focus on energy use, DEI, and transparency. Present as a table. |
Professor raised his coffee and toasted:
“In a world of data dumps, the conversationalist is queen. And I hope you will be selecting Riya for the job. ”
I said “Well Professor, I may as I see in her smartness a passion, curiosity and commitment about sustainability. It is the passion that counts and not always the degrees”
Most consulting companies may not now hire fresh or less experienced MS and MBAs in sustainability to optimize the operation/delivery costs. AI is already poisoning the NextGen community, disabling them from their own creativity and depriving them from the joy of ownership. People in the older generation may survive but only till their wisdom or practice intelligence is not captured in the infinity of the world wide web. Not surprising therefore that Professor has stopped writing, publishing and recording his videos. So selfish isn’t it?
Cover image sourced from https://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/11/15/3-reasons-to-expect-the-unexpected/
Harsh reality but we all have to live with it. AI can never be a substitute for wisdom and years of experience but unfortunately a section of the population has already started thinking on those lines.
True. Originality will be in the museum of fossils in the next generation
Great article. We see increasing number of Riyas in this field. Passion and communication skills coupled with AI prompt skills. I just hope they do not become AI-addict.
Very nice Dr Modak. When the clients and consulting companies both are mired in jargons, they will attract jargonistic talent only but when the clients want to make a real difference they hunt for those who truly understand or are at are willing to learn.
Very true Sir
Insightful and witty, as always.
As aptly conveyed, ESG or Sustainability is one of those few fields that require a right attitude and a long term vision. Without the right attitude / intent, you are talking a lot, but on ground progess wouldn’t be satisfying.
Be the ‘Riya’ in the room, understand their real challenges First
Rehafand use your own intellect to suggest them a solution.
Excellent article, sir.
Understanding and witnessing the evolving landscape of the ESG/AI domain through the lens of two of the senior experts is both a witty treat and an eye-opener. The AI may empower few to prepare to face experts like you but it’s the power of experience of experts who will overpower AI and call spade a spade.
Thanks for sharing.