Mihaela Croitoru, Sustainability Lens: “Sustainability must become ‘business as usual,’ not just compliance”

The way companies approach sustainability — as either a burden or an opportunity — ultimately determines their long-term performance, according to Mihaela Croitoru, CEO of Sustainability Lens.

Speaking at the Future Retail & FMCG Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest, she stressed that profitability and sustainability are not opposing goals but deeply interconnected.

“It always depends on how you look at sustainability — as a challenge or as an opportunity. The common element between the two perspectives is money. A business’s mission is to generate profit. Only then can it be responsible toward the community, employees, and the environment,” she said.

“Profit is essential. We can’t talk about business development without integrating sustainability. It should no longer be treated as compliance, but as business as usual. Sustainability is the way a company can create more value and generate more profit for shareholders, employees, and society.”

Key statements

• Recent legislative changes may seem like simplifications, but they stem from a new European directive that introduced complex sustainability reporting requirements for many companies.
• Large, listed companies with over 500 employees were required to report for the first time last year. The process proved difficult, given that the framework included over 1,100 reporting requirements, demanding significant resources.
• According to Croitoru, the changes did not truly simplify matters. Instead, they may create new challenges for smaller companies, which are not directly obligated to report but will still need to provide data.
• Large companies remain subject to reporting obligations and will request information from their entire value and supply chains, meaning smaller suppliers must also collect and deliver sustainability data.
• Many smaller firms lack the necessary systems, structures, and data collection capabilities, which could make compliance difficult.
• Bigger companies, especially those that are part of multinational groups, better understand the business benefits of sustainability, making it easier for them to see it as an opportunity rather than a burden — a trend visible across Europe.
• Awareness and education are essential. Large organizations should help smaller partners understand why data is needed and how it ultimately benefits them as well.
• Croitoru expects 2026 to be a turbulent year for sustainability, with large volumes of data being collected across the market. This could lead either to inefficiency or to a natural selection where better-prepared companies extract real value from the information.
• For Romanian producers, the next few years will likely be a learning and adjustment phase, with investments coming first and benefits materializing over time.

“Sustainability is about investment first. The benefits come later,” Croitoru concluded, emphasizing that companies that embed sustainability into their core strategy today will be better positioned for competitiveness and resilience tomorrow.