How JAKALA integrates sustainability and risk management: Interview with Claudia Volpato

When sustainability and risk management speak the same language, innovation becomes a method. With Claudia Volpato, Senior Manager of Global Sustainability & Corporate Affairs at JAKALA, we explore how integrating ESG and risk management leads to stronger decisions, traceable data, and long-lasting trust, a journey that Green Future Project helps make measurable and comparable.

Who is Claudia Volpato and what is her role at JAKALA?

Can you walk us through the main stages of your career and your current position at JAKALA?

“I began my professional journey in operations, focusing on logistics, customer service, and integrated processes. These experiences allowed me to gain a deep understanding of how organisations function and the importance of effectively connecting people, systems, and results.”

Today, as Senior Manager of Global Sustainability & Corporate Affairs at JAKALA, Claudia helps design and consolidate the group’s ESG function, supports management in defining sustainability strategies, and coordinates risk governance at the international level. “These levers are not merely control tools, they can radically transform the way a company creates value and builds long-term trust.”

In her view, sustainability and risk management are not opposing fields but complementary elements. Claudia emphasises: “My goal is to guide the company along a path that unites growth, responsibility, and innovation, making sustainability an integral part of strategic decisions rather than a parallel project.”

Integrating sustainability and risk management: how do you balance these two dimensions, which at times seem to operate under different logics?

“Risk management ensures solidity and operational continuity, while sustainability broadens the time horizon of decisions, encouraging us to look beyond the short term,” explains Claudia.

“Working on both fronts means transforming the very perception of risk: from something to be contained into a strategic lever for building resilience, improving process efficiency, and strengthening stakeholder trust. This approach allows risks to be read not only defensively but also as useful signals for identifying new opportunities for growth and competitive differentiation.”

“Balance is achieved by creating common metrics that make ESG and risk management data comparable, adopting transparent processes that ensure accountability, and developing a shared language within the organisation,” Claudia adds.

Corporate Sustainability and the partnership with Green Future Project

Which aspects of sustainability have changed JAKALA’s approach to risk management?

“Sustainability has introduced new sensitivities and new analytical parameters. We no longer limit ourselves to assessing financial or operational risks but also consider environmental, social, and reputational dimensions, which now decisively affect business continuity and competitiveness,” says Claudia.

“This shift in perspective has led us to integrate ESG KPIs into control systems, strengthen audits, and invest in data traceability and quality, ensuring transparency and comparability. In this way, risk management becomes more proactive and multidimensional, aligned with the expectations of clients, employees, and financial stakeholders, and strengthens the company’s trust capital.”

How does Green Future Project fit into this framework?

“GFP’s contribution is essential as it provides tools that make a company’s sustainability journey measurable, comparable, and transparent. It translates strategy into objective data through traceability and monitoring systems, thus facilitating reporting activities and enhancing organisational transparency,” Volpato highlights.

“Beyond the technological aspect, Green Future Project promotes the creation of a shared language among the group’s different companies, encouraging the harmonisation of approaches and metrics. This fosters greater internal cohesion and ensures effective, reliable communication with external stakeholders, making it easier to understand the value generated by the company’s commitment.”

The concept of transparency and accountability has emerged, what are the strongest expectations you perceive from stakeholders?

“Stakeholders today primarily demand coherence: setting objectives is important, but even more so is demonstrating real progress and communicating transparently about ongoing challenges. In this sense, transparency doesn’t mean celebrating only successes; it also means acknowledging what is not yet perfect, with the willingness to improve step by step,” explains Claudia.

“Responsibility, therefore, is not measured only by set targets but by the ability to account for decisions, data, and results. From this perspective, ESG reports must evolve: from tools seen as regulatory obligations into open, comparable, and constructive dialogue platforms capable of generating trust and strengthening relationships with all stakeholders.”

Emerging risks and how to tackle them

Looking ahead, what emerging sustainability-related risks do you think companies will face, and how can they prepare?

“In the coming years, companies will face three main emerging sustainability risks:

• The value chain, where ensuring ESG compliance of suppliers and partners becomes crucial;
• Data quality and comparability, without which strategies remain fragile and lack credibility;
• The speed of regulatory evolution, both in Europe and globally, which requires agile governance to avoid costs and loss of competitiveness.

To manage them, the starting point is twofold, and here lies my advice: clear governance and people’s engagement,” Claudia stresses.

“Without clear governance, sustainability risks fragmenting into isolated initiatives that are hard to measure or manage. At the same time, people’s participation is essential: only in this way can ESG principles become everyday practices, embedding sustainability into the business model not as a side project but as a lever consistent with stakeholder expectations and regulatory evolution.”

Claudia Volpato’s experience demonstrates that when integrated into the heart of corporate strategy, sustainability becomes a tangible lever for innovation and trust. At JAKALA, systemic vision and transparency transform risk management into a shared growth journey, one that Green Future Project is proud to be part of.