When tying a portion of executive compensation to sustainability goals, that portion must be meaningful enough to incentivize change, says Jenny Davis-Peccoud, global leader of Bain & Co.’s sustainability and corporate-responsibility practice. And finance chiefs, in particular, need to support ESG-linked compensation plans by creating processes that allow managers to incorporate sustainability into what they do every day, she says.

“If people don’t have the process to bring sustainability into their everyday decisions, the link to sustainability and the [pay] incentive isn’t going to be enough to get the change that you want to see,” says Ms. Davis-Peccoud.