The opinions expressed here by Trellis expert contributors are their own, not those of Trellis or its editors.

Lipstick tubes, little packets of dressing next to the salad bar, Halloween candy, to-go wipes: In California, all of these could look very different, or disappear entirely, over the next six years, depending on how a new state law is implemented and enforced.

California is the first state in the U.S. to mandate that brands and retailers actively remove plastic from their packaging. The law, known as a source reduction mandate, is part of the state’s landmark extended producer responsibility (EPR) law. Companies have until August 1 to present first-of-their-kind source reduction plans to state regulators.  

Moving EPR upstream 

Traditional EPR regulations focus on funding the collection, transportation and processing of recycling — and California’s law, called the “Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act,” will do all of that while also requiring producers to use less plastic in the first place.  

It outlines legally binding targets on recycling rates, recyclability or compostability, and plastic reduction: Producers have until 2032 to cut 25 percent of single-use plastic packaging and food serviceware by both weight and component. 

Old concept, higher stakes  

A source reduction mandate in the world’s fifth-largest economy will fundamentally change how companies design, produce and sell packaging. California’s law is ambitious, but the concept of source reduction is not new.  

We’re all familiar with how thin, flexible and crinkly plastic water bottles have become. That shift reflects years of engineering and lightweighting designed to use less plastic in each bottle. Now, for the first time, this kind of innovation is required by law and backed by enforceable penalties. 

Greater than the sum of its parts  

Individual companies are not required to meet the source reduction targets alone. Instead, producers must meet the 25-percent reduction target collectively through the state’s Producer Responsibility Organization, which fulfills EPR obligations on behalf of producers. 

Here’s how that will work: Companies are required to submit an individual source reduction plan to the organization, detailing their steps for reducing plastic material by weight and by the number of plastic components. From there, the Producer Responsibility Organization will summarizes those plans and submits the summary to the state regulatory body overseeing EPR implementation, CalRecycle.   

The regulations went live on May 1, and company plans are due on August 1. Sustainability and packaging teams are racing to produce them. And while there might not be an existing playbook for these novel requirements, there are pathways.  

Five pathways to source reduction 

There’s not a lot of guesswork for companies operating in California. The state requires companies’ reduction efforts to fall into at least one of five pathways: 

Reuse and refill: Producers must move at least 10 percent of all single-use plastic packaging and food serviceware to reusable or refillable models.  

Example: Reusable cups are skyrocketing in popularity across EPR states, driven by regulatory changes and reuse companies like Bold Reuse. Reusable cups and foodware are thriving in closed-loop venues like sports stadiums, concert venues, schools and corporate campuses.  

Elimination: Producers can remove packaging components entirely. 

Example: This pathway is tricky because most brands already don’t want to pay for excessive packaging. Still, we’re seeing some innovative solutions. Costco, for example, has removed labels on individual bottles inside its multipacks of water and is embossing its logo onto the bottles instead.

Right-sizing: Producers can lightweight packaging, use product concentrates or move to bulk formats. 

Example: Laundry detergent is a big and diverse packaging category, ranging from large multi-gallon jugs to compact cardboard boxes containing woven, highly concentrated detergent “tiles” that eliminate water and plastic. Formats like Tide Evo tiles reduce the overall plastic and packaging footprint required for P&G to deliver its detergent. 

Post-consumer recycled content: Producers can incorporate recycled content into packaging. The result must be novel and third-party verified, and the new law includes a cap on how much such packages can count toward source reduction efforts.  

Example: Post-consumer recycling (PCR) mandates exist in a handful of states, so incorporation into rigid plastic containers, especially those used in products like household cleaners, beverage containers and personal care packaging, should be relatively standard for producers. The total amount of such material that can be used to comply with the law is capped at 8 percent collectively, so until the responsibility organization sees producers’ plans, we don’t know exactly how much PCR can be used. 

Alternative materials: Producers can transition packaging to non-plastic materials.  

Example: Right now, we’re seeing the paperization of formats that were long considered to be plastics-only, like pouches, candy bar wrappers, blister packs and berry punnets. Such packages are increasingly available in 100 percent fiber-based alternatives. Brands like Babybel have made the switch, with its fun-to-open red wrapper and wax seal.

 The starting line  

The August 1 deadline will force packaging and sustainability teams to answer a question that was previously theoretical: Which packaging can companies let go of, which can be redesigned, and which can be transitioned to reusable formats?  

California’s market size means that these answers won’t stay local. They will ripple through packaging portfolios nationwide, raising the bar for the solutions producers are expected to bring to the table.

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There are fewer than 20 facilities worldwide that use chemical approaches to recycling plastics, but dozens more are planned. A new standard advocates environmental and social practices for operating these sites. 

The Certification Standard for Responsible Chemical Recycling (a.k.a. SCS-004) was written by SCS Standards and Assurance Systems, building on work initiated by industry group Circle (formerly the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network). Chemical recyclers, multinational brands, startups and NGOs had a voice in its creation. 

Chemical recycling promises to expand the range of materials that can be recycled, but the practice is controversial, in part, because it uses high amounts of energy and requires close attention to water impacts and waste management. 

SCS-004 covers operational processes that chemical recyclers (sometimes referred to as advanced recyclers) use to convert contaminated or hard-to-recycle materials such as tires, flexible plastics or textiles into a reusable form. Those technologies include pyrolysis, depolymerization, solvolysis, methanolysis and gasification. 

The framework includes human rights considerations and allows for several “chain of custody” models, including mass balance, which recyclers use to track incoming recovered materials and link them to specific outputs. 

“Brands are under real pressure to deliver on recycled-content commitments, and chemical recycling is part of how that gets done,” said Victoria Norman, executive director of SCS Standards and Assurance Systems. “But we need to have confidence that the recycling process is done in a responsible way.”

More scrutiny needed

The term chemical recycling covers a vast array of approaches. “Some are part of the solution and worth scaling,” said Mikhail Davis, director of global market sustainability at Interface. “Others use more energy and can create more waste or byproducts. The challenge is knowing which is which.”

For example, carpet maker Interface uses depolymerization technology from Aquafil to turn nylon waste such as fishing nets into high-performing recycled yarn that has a lower impact than virgin production.

The new SCS standard can help companies seeking to increase the recycled content in their products begin to distinguish revolutionary beneficial approaches from processes that are close to combustion-based technologies, Davis said.

Certifications incoming

SCS-004 is one of several emerging chemical recycling standards. For example, the International Organization for Standardization has introduced a broader standard for companies in the recycling and recovery sector, as well as rules for chain of custody systems including mass balance.

ASTM International, Association of Plastic Recyclers, International Sustainability & Carbon Certification, UL Solutions and the European Committee for Standards have published related guidelines, although none are explicitly focused on chemical recycling.

“Taken together, these standards and guidance documents help companies demonstrate their alignment with best practice,” said Julia Farber, senior sustainability manager for circular economy at Eastman, which operates the world’s largest molecular recycling plant in Kingsport, Tennessee.

Eastman participates in many different certification systems; multiple frameworks are often needed to cover different practices.

“When we are certified, we follow the guidelines of the certification programs we participate in and adhere to the best practices for truthfully communicating these accomplishments provided by the regulatory bodies,” Farber said.

The SCS certification arm, a separate division from its standards organization, has launched a program for chemical recyclers interested in being certified in the new standard.  

To earn the core certification, chemical recyclers must publish site-specific information about their operating and environmental permits, along with emissions information about pollutants such as carbon monoxide and particulate matter, as well as the greenhouse gases produced at the site.

Recyclers can earn higher levels of recognition for meeting optional criteria, such as sharing annual conversion rate data or life-cycle assessments. The certifications are valid for three years, verified by annual audits.

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Risk mitigation trumps cost savings as the top way for sustainability teams to create business value for their organizations, according to an annual survey of chief sustainability officers (CSOs) at publicly traded U.S. companies.

More than 62 percent of the respondents said their ability to identify and offer strategies to address regulatory, supply chain and climate risks resonated with other members of the C-suite.

Exhibit A: Spirits company Suntory in January 2025 appointed its chief sustainability officer, Kim Marotta, to head risk management. “What enterprise risk management has given me is the opportunity to see the big picture,” she told Trellis during a Climate Pioneers interview in February. “Instead of just having environmental risks, they’re business risks.”

Two other ways that CSOs can provide business value are through cost savings related to improved energy, waste management and operational efficiency (52 percent); and initiatives that support customer acquisition and retention (38 percent).

The responses come from the 15th annual CSO insights report from recruiter Weinreb Group. They reflect the opinions of 69 CSOs at U.S. public companies, approximately one-third of the 193 executives who held that title as of July 1. That’s a smaller universe than in 2025, when there were 216 individuals with the title at U.S. public companies.

“CSOs are the futurists of the corporate context,” said International Paper CSO Sophie Beckham, a respondent. “My mandate is to see around corners, build resilience into our business model and create value that will help my company not just navigate but thrive when facing emerging risks and opportunities.” 

What’s shaping sustainability

Customer and business partner pressure is the chief driver of sustainability strategy, according to 62 percent of the CSOs that responded to the survey. Other top drivers are regulatory pressure (57 percent) and investor/shareholder pressure (41 percent).

The top challenges CSOs face today: market and economic uncertainty (62 percent), followed by regulatory requirements (57 percent) — a view that respondents said they share with other top executives within their organization.

Approximately 42 percent of the respondents reported that their responsibilities had broadened in the past year.

“We are reaching a tipping point where ‘sustainable business’ is simply ‘smart business,’ ” said one respondent, who chose to remain anonymous.

That shift is evidenced by the increase in sustainability headcount that is happening outside central teams: 42 percent of the respondents reported that more individuals were hired to add that perspective to other units.

Reporting lines for CSOs are also shifting, a finding mirrored in the latest Trellis State of the Sustainability Profession research published in May, a broader survey of more than 500 sustainability professionals. 

One-quarter of the Weinreb respondents said reporting lines in their organization have changed since January 2025: Just 14 percent are directly accountable to their company’s CEO, compared with 33 percent 18 months ago, while a growing number report to the legal department.

“After tracking the CSO role for so many years, what heartens me the most is the resilience of the people who hold this title,” said Weinreb Group CEO Ellen Weinreb. “There’s rarely a playbook for what they do, yet they negotiate every new challenge with grace and determination.”

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The “speed to power” aspirations of Amazon, Google and Microsoft — fueled by their collective investments of roughly $750 billion in data center expansion in 2025 and 2026 alone — are upending their climate goals.

All three reported double-digit emissions increases in their 2025 environmental sustainability updates, largely driven by electricity: Reported emissions for power consumption leapt by more than one-third at Amazon and Google, and by more than 20 percent for Microsoft.

Insatiable power appetites

Google’s electricity consumption surged by 37 percent in 2025 to 43.6 million megawatt-hours — the biggest single-year increase in its history and roughly enough to power the state of Washington for a year. 

“As the rapid evolution of AI is increasing our energy needs, the shift to clean energy is hitting major bottlenecks — like long delays in connecting new energy projects to the grid, fragmented power grids, and a shortage of reliable, around-the-clock clean power,” Google said in its 2025 environmental report, published June 30. 

Since 2019, Google’s power consumption has risen 250 percent. Its location-based electricity emissions, which fall under Scope 2 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s carbon accounting rules, rose 37 percent from 2024 to 2025. 

Location-based emissions are calculated using regional grid market averages; market-based emissions inventories include factors such as green tariffs or renewable energy certificates.

Microsoft reported a 21 percent increase in location-based Scope 2 emissions; its overall electricity consumption rose 24 percent to 37 million megawatt-hours.

Amazon didn’t disclose its overall electricity consumption in its 2025 environmental report, published July 1. The company reported a 34 percent increase for its Scope 2 emissions, but it doesn’t say whether that information is location-based, i.e., based on regional grid market averages; or market-based, which includes factors such as green tariffs or renewable energy certificates.

Amazon also didn’t break out emissions data directly related to Amazon Web Services, although it publishes other metrics such as power usage effectiveness, which measures the power a data center uses for cooling versus running computing equipment. The closer to zero the better.

Amazon’s average usage effectiveness across its data center fleet is 1.14. Google’s ratio is 1.09, and Microsoft’s is 1.17. 

What to watch next

Despite their voracious energy appetites, Amazon, Google and Microsoft stand behind emissions reduction commitments pegged to 2030 and beyond. 

Here’s why: Over the past decade, the three companies have signed contracts to put more than 115 gigawatts of renewable energy, mostly solar and wind power, onto the global electric grid. 

The companies are planning on investments in nuclear energy as a linchpin. Amazon contracted for almost 2 gigawatts of nuclear power last June and signed deals for two new nuclear projects in 2026. Microsoft is backing several next-generation fusion technologies and Google has committed to capacity in Ohio. None has been as bullish as Meta, which has deals for up to 7.7 gigawatts.

Big battery investments will also play a role. At the end of 2025, Amazon had 15 solar energy projects paired with energy storage, approximately 2.3 gigawatts in capacity. Google has made several bets on long-duration batteries, to extend the value of solar and wind contracts. (This is also a priority for Meta.)  

Expect also a sharper focus on Asia.

Amazon supports roughly 2.2 gigawatts of clean energy in the Asia Pacific region, still largely tied to fossil fuels. (For perspective, its overall portfolio globally is about 40 gigawatts.) Google explicitly lists Asia as a sticking point for “carbon-free” electricity purchases, although it signed deals last year in Malaysia and Japan. Microsoft is funding the Southeast Asia Clean Energy Facility, which has so far put $230 million into early-stage projects.

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For two decades, a quiet assumption has propped up corporate climate strategy: Eventually, extreme weather, wildfires and other disasters will get bad enough that corporate boards, political leaders and the rest of us snap to attention and finally take on the hard work of countering, and adapting to, the climate crisis.

Katharine Hayhoe wants that assumption retired.

The atmospheric scientist, Texas Tech professor and chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy — and author of Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World — recently joined me and my “Two Steps Forward” podcast co-host, Solitaire Townsend, to talk about why hope beats doom as a communication strategy and what that means for companies watching their own climate commitments slip.

Her clearest example of the broken theory of change is Hayhoe’s home country (although she currently lives in Texas) of Canada. It endured its worst wildfire season on record in 2023, with parts of the country burning coast to coast. The conventional prediction: The federal election nine months later would be a climate election. Instead, voters elected Mark Carney, a former UN climate finance envoy, on a platform that included scrapping the consumer carbon tax.

People didn’t get more motivated to act. They felt overwhelmed and detached because a wildfire that size made the problem feel unsolvable at an individual level.

“The behavioral science is very clear that it’s not enough to make people act,” Hayhoe told us. Worry alone, without a sense that action matters, doesn’t move people — or companies.

The efficacy problem

That’s the piece Hayhoe thinks sustainability teams undervalue: efficacy (rather than urgency). She frames effective climate communication as connecting three things — head (what’s happening), heart (why it matters to what you already value) and hands (what you can actually do). Most corporate climate messaging, she argued, starts and stops at the head, piling on data that raises alarm without giving people — or companies — a next move that feels achievable.

That gap shows up at the top of organizations too. Hayhoe pointed to a version of corporate finger-pointing: The sustainability officer says she’d act, but the CEO won’t let her; the CEO says the board won’t allow it; the board says shareholders won’t stand for it. Meanwhile, the executives who deployed real capital and effort toward targets view those targets as failures when the numbers slip. That, Hayhoe said, is corroding the sense among business leaders that climate action is winnable at the exact moment they need to believe it is.

No more frameworks!

Her prescription isn’t another framework from the top. Asked what one underrated lever she’d hand a Fortune 500 CEO, Hayhoe skipped over tools like renewable power-purchase agreements and science-based targets. Instead, she advocated for internal education that connects climate to what employees already do, paired with an explicit invitation for ideas from people who’ve been doing the job for years — then elevating those ideas as the company’s own thought leadership. In other words, bottom-up input paired with top-down amplification.

Hayhoe was equally candid about her own field’s failures. She’s argued, in a 2018 Science essay (and video) titled “When Facts Are Not Enough,” that scientific literacy doesn’t reliably predict climate acceptance. Identity does. And in a 2024 paper, co-authored with Christel van Eck and Lydia Messling, she pushed back on the idea that scientists should present themselves as neutral, arguing that transparency about one’s own values builds more trust than false objectivity.

She’s putting that perspective into practice through her newsletter, Talking Climate, which is aimed at training more people to be trusted messengers in their own communities. As she put it, this conversation was never going to be finished in just one podcast episode.

Two Steps Forward is available wherever you get podcasts, including on Trellis.net. Find past episodes and show notes at twostepsforwardpodcast.com.

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