Climate tech investment in 2026: bigger checks, fewer bets and the AI wave

Sightline Climate’s fifth annual Climate Tech Investment Trends Report landed last week with a clear message: Climate tech investment is maturing, consolidating and increasingly tethered to AI’s voracious appetite for power. Despite policy whiplash and market uncertainty, 2025 delivered a modest but significant rebound — $40.5 billion in worldwide venture and growth capital, up 8 percent from 2024, marking the first increase since the boom years of 2021-2022.

Overall deal count fell 18 percent while half of the top 10 deals exceeded $1 billion. In other words, investors are writing bigger checks to fewer companies, with growth-stage investment up 78 percent while seed and Series A dropped 20 percent and 7 percent, respectively. The climate tech market isn’t just recovering — it’s recalibrating around proven winners and energy security.

Flight to quality 

One significant shift in 2025 was the distribution of capital. Growth-stage investment (Series D+) spiked, with deal count up 41 percent, while Series C hit an all-time low — down 32 percent with just 45 deals completed. This isn’t just a funding gap; it’s a strategic repositioning. Investors have essentially declared winners in emerging sectors.

Looking forward to 2026, I expect the trend to continue, with the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Act” creating policy certainty, limited partners demanding returns and the AI buildout providing tailwinds for several climate technologies.

The AI tailwind 

The AI boom created an interesting paradox for climate tech in 2025: the sector’s biggest environmental challenge became its most powerful investment driver. Data centers consumed 78 percent of the built environment’s funding in 2025, driving investment in grid hardware, energy management software, batteries, nuclear power and next-generation geothermal. Fission and fusion funding reached all-time highs as utilities scramble to meet gigawatts of new demand projected over the next two years. As a result, clean-energy investment grew 31 percent to $14.4 billion, reaching a three-year high.

The big question for 2026 is whether this massive investment in AI is sustainable. Is it a bubble marked by excessive debt and overblown demand? I suspect the buildout will continue through 2026, although investors will demand clearer paths to monetization and watch for signs of overcapacity. 

Security over sustainability 

In 2025, the language of climate tech shifted — and I believe that’s cause for optimism. “Decarbonization” gave way to “energy security.” “Emissions reduction” became “resilience.” Rather than signaling retreat, this rebranding revealed that the market values climate solutions for cost savings and security, not just environmental impact.

The shift paid off for startups aligned with domestic manufacturing priorities. Defense applications proved particularly lucrative, with the Pentagon paying premiums for advanced batteries and grid technologies. That climate tech entrepreneurs and investors could find market validation simply by reframing their pitch demonstrates the technologies’ innate value — they were solving real-world problems all along, not just boosting environmental goals.

The liquidity crunch continues

The exit environment in 2025 remained challenging, albeit nearly flat from 2024. Exits dropped 5 percent overall, with acquisitions making up 89 percent of all exits — 191 compared to 202 in 2024. It’s still a buyer’s market, with larger companies cherry-picking smaller players for capacity and project access rather than paying premiums for innovation. Notable bankruptcies — Northvolt, Li-Cycle, Sunnova, Mosaic and Powin — served as stark reminders that capital intensity and technology risk remain unforgiving.

The silver lining? Bankruptcies fell 50 percent compared to 2024, suggesting that the weakest players have been cleared out. Investors sought “tidy acquisitions and select IPOs,” according to the Sightline report, as LPs increased pressure for liquidity.

I expect exits to tick upward in 2026 as “vintage funds” (from 2020 to 2021) push portfolio companies toward profitability rather than growth at all costs. The flight-to-quality dynamic means investors are maturing select startups toward exit rather than spreading bets, and corporations will stay acquisitive as long as ROI is significant.

The bottom line

Climate tech’s 2025 rebound reveals selective optimism tempered by reality. Investors bet big on proven technologies solving AI’s power demands, while early-stage innovators struggled. Nuclear power will continue attracting massive funding despite interconnection bottlenecks, and a warming world should drive M&A in climate adaptation technologies that assess risk and build resilience.

Corporate appetite for energy-efficient technologies remains strong despite policy blowback. Whether the AI tailwind is sustainable will help determine whether 2025’s rebound marks the beginning of climate tech’s mature growth phase or merely a temporary lift.

The post Climate tech investment in 2026: bigger checks, fewer bets and the AI wave appeared first on Trellis.

‘Regenerative ranching’ startup reaches 1.9M tons of removed carbon

Exploring a new frontier for soil carbon credits, San Antonio-based startup Grassroots Carbon said today that it has reached 1.9 million tons in carbon removal and storage, and more than 1.5 million in retired credits.

Founded in 2021, Grassroots Carbon works with ranchers to improve soil health via sampling, regenerative practices that include rotating paddocks with mobile fencing, software tools such as PastureMap and what it calls “the largest privately collected soil carbon dataset in the U.S.”

Selling the credits to corporate buyers including Nestlé, Microsoft and Chevron, the company shares the revenue with ranchers, providing supplemental income to landowners who are struggling with overseas competition, high debt loads, reduced appetites for beef in developed countries and low prices driven by corporate mega-ranches that use environmentally destructive, carbon-intensive practices to raise and slaughter cattle.

There’s no upfront cost to participate — Grassroots provides soil testing, education in regenerative practices, access to PastureMap and its proprietary dataset, and credit marketing for free — and the company says it has made $40 million in direct payments to ranchers for carbon sequestered in soil.

“We’re not only storing carbon but helping provide cleaner water and money for locals, turning what might be thought of as a compliance checkbox into a positive story and a net benefit for communities,” said Grassroots Vice President of Carbon Solutions Katie Pearson during a panel discussion at Trellis Impact 25. (Grassroots Carbon paid to exhibit at the event.)

The Great Plains carbon sink

Covering more than 650 million acres, America’s Great Plains are one of the greatest carbon sinks on the planet. Much of this land has been degraded by development, drought and overgrazing; nearly 7,000 acres of native grassland are lost in the U.S. every day, according to the National Beef Grasslands Initiative.

These trends are being accelerated by urbanization and the increasing demand for cheap land for giant, water-thirsty data centers. In Texas alone — where open range is abundant and power is cheap — more than 1,000 acres a day are paved over with concrete, said Chad Ellis, CEO of the Texas Agricultural Land Trust, during the TI25 session: “It’s the ‘Oh, shit’ moment.”

Overgrazing and heavy water consumption by industrial-scale ranching, which generated more than $260 billion in revenue in 2024, contributes to the destruction of grasslands. Grassroots’ model incorporates not only state-of-the-art soil core testing down to one meter in depth and sophisticated mapping tools, but also traditional practices followed by herders for millennia — including rotational grazing, in which cattle are moved from one contained paddock to another so native grasses and shrubs, and the soil in which they grow, can recover.

Containing herds on smaller pastures, as opposed to conventional open-range ranching, actually helps soil health; as cows trample organic matter into soil, it increases carbon capture and storage.

The Grassroots Carbon model is “all about moving carbon from the atmosphere to the soil,” said Lars Dryud, CEO of EarthOptics, during the TI25 session. EarthOptics developed the first remote-sensing method for precisely measuring soil carbon and is working with Grassroots, .

Promise and challenges

The promise of soil carbon sequestration is huge — worldwide, the top meter of soil stores more carbon than the atmosphere and total biomass on Earth combined — but questions and uncertainties remain.

One is about additionality — the requirement that credits must be generated from carbon removed or reduced from newly adopted practices. The carbon removal benefits of returning the soil to health are difficult to measure, and there is no universal standard for verifying soil carbon credits.

Another is scale: Simply put, it takes a lot of land to generate sufficient credits to make carbon credit programs profitable for farmers and ranchers. “A 1,000-acre farm would generate around 200 credits/year on average, and if valued at $40/credit, the farmer would earn only about $6,000/year of additional income for conducting a soil carbon project,” according to an analysis from S&P Global.

Grassroots Carbon addresses these challenges by aggregating credits across multiple ranches, adhering to accepted verification frameworks such as The Regenerative Standard from the Applied Ecological Institute, and paying ranchers market rates. While the company declines to give precise pricing numbers, it says its credits sell above the California Carbon Allowance’s 2025 floor price of $25.87 per ton.

The issued credits are verified by multiple third parties, said CEO Brad Tipper in an email: “EarthOptics executes field sampling, PatternAg performs third-party laboratory analysis, Comite Resources verifies project implementation and results, and the Applied Ecological Institute reviews and certifies each credit before issuance.”

The company has also actively supported the development of the Climate Action Reserve’s Soil Enrichment Protocol version 2.0, as a member of the working group that is finalizing the new version.

“Grassroots Carbon was built to prove that regenerative ranching can be the most profitable and productive form of ranching,” said Tipper. “We focus on unlocking financial opportunity for ranchers in ways that were previously inaccessible through soil carbon outcomes.”

The post ‘Regenerative ranching’ startup reaches 1.9M tons of removed carbon appeared first on Trellis.

Mapping global optimism and pessimism in 2026

We’re less than two weeks into 2026 and already it’s been a turbulent start. Beneath the headlines, recent research reveals a striking divide in optimism versus pessimism about the world’s direction, offering key insights for organizations seeking to engage global audiences on the sustainability agenda.

Trellis data partner GlobeScan found that when looking at net ratings across 33 markets surveyed China and Vietnam ead the world in confidence that things are moving in the right direction. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Nigeria also show high levels of optimism, along with India and Indonesia. These markets represent fertile ground for sustainability initiatives and forward-looking partnerships.

Markets in Latin America are more pessimistic than most other emerging regions, although attitudes vary across countries surveyed. Pessimism is strongest in Colombia and Brazil, and lowest in Peru.

On the flip side, Europe and North America are significantly more pessimistic. It’s highest in France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy, with Germany and Sweden also among the most pessimistic countries.

In North America, the United States shows a blend of hopeful and cautious attitudes, largely corresponding with political affiliation: Republican-leaning voters are far more optimistic about the future than Democrat-leaning voters. Canadians tend to be more skeptical than Americans overall. These markets require communication that acknowledges concerns and demonstrates measurable progress.

What this means

Optimism and pessimism are unevenly distributed globally, presenting distinct opportunities and challenges for engagement. In emerging markets, high confidence offers momentum for sustainability programs, innovation and partnerships, with communications playing a key role in amplifying achievements and inviting participation.

In contrast, skepticism in Europe and North America calls for a more strategic approach: acknowledging concerns, demonstrating measurable impact and fostering trust. Tailoring strategies to these regional mindsets is essential for sustainability professionals aiming to drive their agenda forward in a world where optimism and skepticism coexist.

Based on a survey of more than 31,000 people conducted July — August 2025.

The post Mapping global optimism and pessimism in 2026 appeared first on Trellis.

Why a policy lull is the perfect time to accelerate sustainability

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

Never let a lull go to waste. That’s the simple message for anyone working on environmental issues in textiles and apparel who feels worn down. The buzz around climate, ESG and sustainable fashion has cooled. In Washington, climate rules are stalled or watered down. And around the industry, some companies are treating the shift as permission to ease off the gas and move sustainability back into the nice-to-have column.

In many businesses, sustainability budgets are under review and projects are being pushed. People who once invited long presentations on climate risk now ask for shorter decks focused on margin and inventory. Suppose you have spent years working on cleaner production, better farming practices or traceability. In that case, your work has been downgraded to a side note. The temptation is to wait for a friendlier policy climate and hope the wind changes.

That would be a mistake. A policy lull doesn’t change the fundamental facts facing this industry: stressed water basins, volatile energy prices, fragile raw material supply, growing waste streams and rising expectations from buyers and younger consumers. Mills are still fighting wastewater costs, brands are still drowning in excess inventory and farmers are still dealing with unstable weather. The underlying pressures remain in place. The question is whether we use this quiet period to regroup or complain.

We should view this lull as an opportunity to act and make headway on important issues complicating progress on sustainability. Here are three ways to do that. 

Streamline a confusing array of standards 

One problem we can tackle without any new law is the mess we created with standards. The sector is overcrowded with indexes, scores, badges and certifications. Each one promises clarity; together they deliver confusion. Factory managers face overlapping questionnaires from different brands, each tied to a slightly different framework. The same polyester T-shirt can be rated three ways, depending on whose template you use.

From a distance, it looks like progress. Up close, it seems like bureaucracy. Instead of a short list of core metrics that everyone understands — water use, energy, chemistry, land, waste, overproduction — we’ve assembled a patchwork of tools that rarely match up. Assumptions are buried in methodology notes. Data is locked behind memberships. People on the production floor are left wondering which version of “sustainable” they are supposed to hit this season.

The lull is a chance to clean this up. Rather than inventing yet another scorecard, we can work on aligning what already exists, pushing for shared baselines and open methods. That means fewer vanity projects and more work on comparability and interoperability. It also means being honest about which tools help reduce discharge, cut waste or improve yields — and which mainly help marketing departments fill sustainability pages. Suppose we want to be taken seriously the next time governments or investors look for credible industry standards. In that case, this is the housekeeping we must do now.

Turn environmentalism into an operations strategy

Another gap sits inside the business case. Environmental initiatives have generated plenty of concepts, such as preferred fibers, circularity, regenerative this and that, but too often the pitch stops at values and reputation. That plays well on stage, but it doesn’t always survive a budget meeting. And yet, much of what we call environmental improvement is just better industrial management. Tighter dye recipes mean fewer reruns and less effluent. Smarter pattern-making and cutting reduces fabric waste. More efficient boilers and motors cut both emissions and electricity bills. Better planning reduces rush air freight and the write-offs that follow poor forecasting. These are familiar operational problems that happen to carry environmental benefits, not the other way around.

The lull gives us time to put complex numbers on these links. Instead of leading with carbon alone, start with yield, scrap rates, energy per unit, and payback periods. Show how a wastewater fix reduces chemical spend and downtime. Show how cutting fabric waste improves margin and reduces landfill pressure. When environmental work is presented to stabilize costs and strengthen supply, it stops looking like politics and becomes common sense. That is the argument that will endure, no matter who wins the next election.

Include more voices in conversations 

There’s also room to rethink who is in the room. Too many discussions about sustainability still take place among the same circle of brands, NGOs and consultants. Meanwhile, people who run spinning frames, dye jets, cutting tables, knitting machines or trucks are often brought in at the end, if at all. The best ideas usually appear when those voices are involved from the start.

This lull is a good time to bring the value chain together around specific problems instead of abstract goals. Farmers, ginners, spinners, weavers, knitters, dyers, finishers, cut-and-sew operators, logistics firms, recyclers and brands all see different parts of the same system. Sit them down with a simple process map and ask where the most significant waste, cost, and risk points really sit. Then test practical changes in real facilities, not just in pilot reports or glossy case studies.

For people working on environmental issues, this means a shift in role. Less time acting as the conscience in the corner, more time serving as a translator between technical, commercial, and policy worlds. Less focus on adding new commitments, more emphasis on helping teams execute a smaller number of changes that matter. When the policy cycle swings back, and governments look for industries with serious, workable plans, those who used the lull well will be ready. Never let a lull go to waste.

The post Why a policy lull is the perfect time to accelerate sustainability appeared first on Trellis.

UnitedHealth chief sustainability officer retires

UnitedHealth Group Chief Sustainability Officer and Executive Vice President Patricia Lewis officially retired in December after almost four years in the role.

Lewis announced her intention to leave this past June in a LinkedIn post, shortly after the unexpected resignation of United Health’s former CEO Andrew Witty. She has started an executive advisory firm.

The world’s largest healthcare company by revenue hasn’t publicly named a new CSO, and it did not respond to requests for comment.

Lewis was UnitedHealth’s chief human resources officer before becoming its first chief sustainability officer in February 2022. Her career as an HR executive started with DuPont in 1989. She was also a top executive focused on employee culture, diversity and inclusion at IBM and Lockheed Martin.

UnitedHealth’s current environmental targets are based on the healthcare provider’s emissions levels during 2023, and include a commitment to cut operational and electricity-related emissions (Scopes 1 and 2) by 60 percent by 2030. It has achieved a 3 percent reduction through 2024 and is aiming for “operational net zero” by 2035.

The healthcare company also has committed to encouraging 77 percent of its suppliers to set science-based emissions reduction targets by 2030. As of the latest update, 65 percent of them had a roadmap in place. 

The post UnitedHealth chief sustainability officer retires appeared first on Trellis.

Dow’s sustainability chief adds responsibility for R&D

Dow has expanded the job description for its chief sustainability officer, Andre Argenton, to include the chemicals and materials science company’s growth and innovation strategy.

His title now includes chief technology officer, filling the position vacated by A.N. Sreeram, who retired effective Jan 1. In his new role, Argenton is responsible for Dow’s global research and development organization and for its environment, health, safety and sustainability strategy. His team also leads Dow’s ESG reporting and governance.

Scientist by training

The expanded role marks a homecoming for Argenton, who was vice president of Dow’s core research and development before being named as Dow’s chief sustainability officer in April 2022. 

He replaced Mary Draver, who joined Dow in 1989 and rose to leadership roles in manufacturing and EH&S before her retirement in 2022.

Dow has built environmental metrics into its innovation agenda over the past decade, and more than 90 percent of its portfolio is aligned with some sort of sustainability outcome, as of Dow’s latest ESG report in June 2025.

A key growth opportunity for Dow is advanced recycling technology for plastics. The company aims to recycle 3 million tons annually by 2030 and is using artificial intelligence in collaboration with Google parent Alphabet to speed things up. 

The company’s top-line climate goal is to cut emissions for operations and electricity consumption (Scope 1 and 2) by 15 percent by 2030, compared with a 2020 baseline, and to be carbon neutral by 2050. Dow hasn’t disclosed its progress against those targets, but plans to do so with its 2025 progress report, due in mid-2026.

Argenton was educated as a physical chemist. He joined Dow Brazil in 1999 and moved to the U.S. in 2007.

His new role was revealed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Dow did not respond to a request for comment.

The post Dow’s sustainability chief adds responsibility for R&D appeared first on Trellis.

How Alaska Air’s sustainability lead became Hawaiian Airlines’ CEO

Diana Birkett Rakow became CEO of Hawaiian Airlines in October 2025 after eight years heading parent company Alaska Air Group’s sustainability, venture investments and public affairs strategy.

It’s a rare career progression among corporate sustainability professionals, but Birkett Rakow argues it should be more common because CSOs and CEOs share a common challenge: creating business value while navigating systems change. 

“Fundamentally, the definition of sustainability is durability,” she said during the latest episode of our Climate Pioneers interview series. “It’s being here and being successful for a long time.”

Hawaiian celebrated its 96th anniversary in 2025, making it one of the oldest U.S. airlines. It was acquired by Alaska Air in September 2024, and Birkett Rakow was closely involved with the integration planning as part of the executive committee led by her boss, Alaska Air CEO Ben Minicucci. She was named to Hawaiian’s board when the integration was completed, ahead of her promotion. Her mission: build on the airlines’ investments in sustainable aviation fuel and efficiency measures, such as local sourcing, to position the combined company for low-carbon business growth.

“Knowing climate science is a real asset, increasingly, for chief sustainability officers, but not just knowing that science, knowing how to translate it into business integration and business outcomes and into initiatives that will actually drive impact,” she said. “I think the duality of that experience is also really important.”

Birkett Rakow’s long-time experience in public affairs and community relations was also a key factor in her promotion to CEO one year later. Before her experience at Alaska Air, she worked on public health policy in the U.S. Senate and in corporate roles at Group Health and Kaiser Permanente (which bought Group Health in 2017).

“One of the things that has always been part of my career is working with multiple stakeholders to get to a solution,” she said. “You can’t go off in a corner and come up with a piece of legislation and expect that it’s going to get done, partly because no one person has all the answers.”

Airline CEOs love fuel efficiency

Birkett Rakow remains accountable for Alaska Air’s overall sustainability strategy and for Alaska Star Ventures, created four years ago, and the work to reduce emissions across the airlines’ operations is top of mind in both her roles. One of the combined company’s environmental goals (adopted from Alaska Air’s sustainability playbook) is to be the most fuel-efficient premium U.S. airline, a title it already claims.

Alaska Air cut 6.4 million gallons of jet fuel in 2024; almost half that amount came from a procedure that requires planes to taxi to runways using just one engine before turning both on for takeoff. It saved 900,000 gallons by using Flyways, an AI software application Alaska developed in collaboration with Air Space Intelligence. The system optimizes flight path information for dispatchers and pilots in real time, so adjustments can be made on the fly that decrease fuel consumption.

Alaska Air doesn’t publish how much fuel it burns annually, but it used close to 300 million gallons in the first half of 2024. “Fuel that we don’t burn is emissions that we don’t need to create,” Birkett Rakow said. “It’s a win-win for the business, because it also is fuel that we don’t need to pay for.”

Alaska Air’s partnership with Air Space Intelligence inspired the creation of Alaska Star Ventures. “Seeing how technology could be built and serve us in the future started us thinking about the role we should play in enabling that new technology,” Birkett Rakow said. “Some of the role we should play is using it. Some of it is informing its development with our own expertise.”

SAF ambitions

The venture group invests in startups and technologies that support the airlines’ operational efficiency goals, fleet renewal initiatives and the transition to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). For example, Alaska Air in August 2024 funded JetZero, which is developing a blended wing aircraft design designed to burn 50 percent less fuel than current planes. 

Alaska Air has funded several SAF companies, with the goal of building supplies for its hubs in Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest. For example, Hawaiian and Alaska will receive the first SAF deliveries in the first quarter made from locally grown Camelina crops through its partnership with Par Hawaii and Pono Energy. Alaska is investing in carbontech company Twelve through a venture with Microsoft and others in Washington state, the Cascadia Sustainable Aviation Accelerator. It is also backing a new Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund that aims to scale commercial availability of sustainable aviation fuel. To build awareness with customers, Alaska Air awards elite qualifying miles to flyers who buy SAF credits.

SAF production is building slowly, and it will take a combination of definitive airline purchasing commitments, policy development and customer engagement to accelerate commercial availability. Alaska Air’s corporate customers including Autodesk, Meta, Microsoft, Skanska, Watershed and We are buying into the mission

“It’s really exciting, but it’s going to take time,” Birkett Rakow said. “I think a couple of years ago with SAF, we thought if we just created … demand signals, if we just purchase SAF, the market will grow. I think there was some rationale to that, but it hasn’t worked in part because the regulatory environment hasn’t been consistently supportive in a way that was probably required for that to happen, and the cost of building new technologies and new production and the capital needed to stand that up is very significant.” 

The post How Alaska Air’s sustainability lead became Hawaiian Airlines’ CEO appeared first on Trellis.

How the maker of Grape-Nuts and Weetabix upped its sustainability game

When Trellis assessed food industry leaders and laggards in 2021, Post Holdings featured in the second category. Back then, the maker of food service products (Michael Foods), breakfast cereals (Grape-Nuts, Weetabix) and pet foods (Rachael Ray Nutrish) hadn’t set emission targets and wasn’t fully disclosing emissions. 

A lot has changed since at the St. Louis, Missouri-based company, which employs 13,000 people and reported sales of $8.2 billion in 2025. Trellis checked in with Nick Martin, Post’s vice president of corporate sustainability, to learn more.

Why Post set emission targets

Multiple factors combined around 2021 to motivate the company to publicly commit to reductions. Investors were asking questions, for one. So, too, were big retailers such as Tesco and Walmart, many of which have targets and count a portion of Post’s emissions in their Scope 3 inventory.

“We jumped out as one of the few large food and beverage companies that didn’t have a target,” said Martin. “We didn’t show very well in the ratings and rankings, so we were automatically perceived as not doing anything.”

Now, the company is committed to a 30 percent cut in combined emissions from company operations (Scope 1) and purchased electricity (Scope 2) by 2030, measured against a 2020 baseline. It’s roughly halfway to that target, thanks in large part to a 26 percent drop in Scope 2 emissions. One key factor has been the addition of low-carbon sources to the grid in Missouri, which is home to many of the company’s facilities.

The bulk of Post’s emissions — 90 percent of the 2024 total — come from indirect (Scope 3) sources, principally the ingredients it sources. Like a growing number of companies, Post bases its target for this scope on an intensity measure: emissions scaled by either net sales or mass of product. Although the company aims to cut emission intensity by 30 percent by 2030, it hasn’t decided on which of the two metrics it will use to assess progress. 

What it decides will matter: Sales-based intensity is down 29 percent, but the mass-based alternative is up 7 percent, according to Post’s most recent data.

How structure shapes strategy

The current arrangement allows subsidiaries a relatively high degree of flexibility. Each is committed to working toward the top-level targets and aware of emissions from specific sites, which leaders from the subsidiaries discuss at monthly meetings of the company’s Operations Council. Individual brands, however, are not explicitly required to achieve the same reductions.

Post is unusual among large food brands in that it is structured as a holding company with those multiple subsidiaries. The challenge of figuring out how best to craft sustainability strategy within this structure was what attracted Martin in 2022. “There weren’t a lot of role models to try to mirror,” he said.

That freed him to aim higher. Last year, Weetabix, a UK subsidiary, had its near and long-term emission goals validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). These include a 39 percent cut in land-based emissions by 2033 and reaching net zero across its value chain by 2050. 

One reason why Weetabix is able to commit to larger cuts is an unusually close relationship with its wheat suppliers. Wheat is sourced from a “Growers Group” of 120 farmers that operate within 50 miles of a central England factory. That reduces the barriers to trying out low-carbon farming methods, such as reduced use of nitrogen fertilizer.

“I would argue it’s a leading model for how you build a sustainable approach to engaging your supply chain,” said Martin.

SBTi: not a good fit

Weetabix’s adoption of an SBTi target was designed as a pilot exercise for Post. In the end, though, the experience didn’t prompt Martin to ask other subsidiaries to try it.

One frustration was that Weetabix was forced to restart the validation process a couple of times after making acquisitions. Perhaps more importantly, Martin felt the subsidiary already had a strong sustainability strategy, and achieving SBTi validation distracted the team from implementing it. 

The SBTi listing does help meet requests from retailers for such an approval, Martin offered. Still, he concluded, “at the end of the day, I don’t know that we would say it was a good return on the time and investment.”

A counter-argument — which Martin also acknowledged — is that the SBTi pushed Weetabix to adopt more ambitious goals. Post Holdings’ commitments, while meaningful, would likely not be approved by the SBTi as being in line with limiting global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius. General Mills and Kraft Heinz, rival companies with SBTi-approved targets, have, for example, committed to absolute Scope 3 cuts and to reaching net zero by 2050.

“For companies that are going to reduce their Scope 3 absolute emissions by 50-plus percent — how are you going to do that and grow your company?” asked Martin. “That’s really, really difficult.”

The post How the maker of Grape-Nuts and Weetabix upped its sustainability game appeared first on Trellis.

Vestiaire pushes out co-founder and President Fanny Moizant

Fanny Moizant has been at the forefront of the circular fashion movement, co-launching Vestiaire Collective from her Paris apartment 16 years ago. On Jan. 5, she shared on LinkedIn that the company is forcing her out as president.

Moizant cited “organizational changes” at the business, which sells “pre-loved” authenticated luxury items from the likes of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel.

“This was not a decision I initiated, nor one I expected, but I accept that it marks the end of an extraordinary chapter,” she wrote. “Since co-founding Vestiaire Collective in 2009, I’ve had the immense privilege of building a company with a soul, a purpose, and a powerful mission: changing the fashion industry from the inside — one second-hand item at a time.”

Vestiaire counts 23 million users in 70 nations, with tens of thousands of new listings every day. The private company is a certified B Corporation.

Moizant, who received knighthood from the French government in 2023, has been bullish about the potential for “pre-loved” luxury growth.

High-end and secondhand fashion sales will reach $360 billion by 2030, according to an October report by Vestiaire and Boston Consulting Group. It found resale growing three times faster than sales of equivalent new items. 

Authentication challenges

At the same time, Vestiaire acknowledges the high costs of fending off dupes. It combines digital authentication with in-person, white-glove inspection of streetwear, handbags and watches.

Vestiaire takes on the liability and refunds knockoffs, if they creep into a sale. The centralized approach to circularity contrasts with that of other peer-to-peer merchants such as Vinted, through which sellers and buyers ship directly to one another. 

Authentication requires so much work that Vestiaire launched a controversial carbon credits program to help fund it. On Oct. 3, the company began offering credits on an independent marketplace. Each credit represents emissions savings generated through secondhand purchases on Vestiaire.

Vestiaire carries more than 13,000 luxury and boutique brands but bans mid-range, high-production staple labels, including Gap, H&M and Zara. It’s among the few e-commerce resale players offering menswear.

The company has raised $722.3 million total, with the last, undisclosed round in January 2024, according to Crunchbase. In 2021 Vestiaire reached “unicorn” status, with a valuation above $1 billion, after it raised $208 million from Gucci owner Kering Group and Tiger Global Management. 

Shifting leadership

Chief Marketing Officer and global CMO Samina Virk appears to have left the company as of December, according to her LinkedIn profile — about eight months after being promoted from North American CEO. (Trellis has not confirmed her departure at publication time.)

CEO Bernard Osta, who joined Vestiaire Collective in October, has been emphasizing AI to enhance authentication and user experiences. Promoted from CFO and strategy lead, he’s a former Goldman Sachs and Lazard investment banker. 

Osta replaced CEO Maximilian Bittner, co-founder of the Lozada marketplace, now part of Alibaba.

Moizant’s path to knighthood

The idea for a trusted consignment service emerged as Moizant restocked her closet after having two daughters. Through word of mouth, she met several people with a parallel idea, and they eventually joined forces as co-founders.

The company’s original name, Vestiaire de Copines, translates to “your friends’ wardrobe.” It launched around the same time as Vinted and ThredUp, and ahead of Poshmark and The RealReal.

In addition to founding Vestiaire Collective and evangelizing circular luxury fashion, Moizant is credited with expanding the business into Europe and Asia Pacific.

Among her cofounders: Sophie Hersan remains at Vestiaire as fashion director shaping brand and sustainability; Sébastien Fabre runs luxury resale rival ReSee; Christian Jorge exited in 2017 to co-found Arianee and Omie & Cie; and Alexandre Cognard and Henrique Fernandes left earlier.

In 2023, France awarded Moizant and Hersan the National Order of Merit, with the grade of Chevalier, or knight.

Before Vestiaire, Moizant had worked for designer John Galliano and attended L’Institut Français de la Mode.

Praise for Moizant

“The success of Vestiaire Collective was built first and foremost on its incredible brand, driven by your unique understanding of our customers, the zeitgeist and incredible story telling,” Bittner commented on Moizant’s LinkedIn post. “Above that, even more importantly, you are a great entrepreneur, pioneer and leader, who inspired those around you, including me, every day.”

“Sixteen years of shaping circularity not only left a mark on the industry, it redefined it forever,” wrote Melissa McDermott, founder and CEO of Reclaim of Barcelona.

“Her intuition for brand and product, her deep understanding of the fashion community and her early commitment to circularity have profoundly shaped the company’s identity, DNA and mission.” a Vestiaire Collective spokeswoman told Trellis.

The post Vestiaire pushes out co-founder and President Fanny Moizant appeared first on Trellis.

10 impact investing trends that will define 2026

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

As an impact investor and educator, I’ve learned to distinguish between the noise that dominates headlines and the signals that actually move capital. As we begin 2026, this discernment has never been more essential.

The jarring political landscape is enough to make you think impact investing is retreating. But here’s what the headlines miss: Markets are moving on their own momentum. Capital hasn’t slowed. It’s just getting smarter about where it flows.

I see 10 trends that will shape impact investing this year. What unites them is a central theme: the transition from aspirational ideals to financial materiality. Impact investing in 2026 isn’t about virtue — it’s about value.

1. Financial materiality becomes the organizing principle

The shift I wrote about last year — from moral imperatives to financial materiality — is in full swing. Asset managers approach climate and biodiversity with a focus on measurable impact to cash flows, valuations and cost of capital. This isn’t a retreat from impact; it’s an evolution. Some studies show that companies reporting clearer sustainability data are being rewarded with lower financing costs and higher equity valuations. The market is speaking and it’s saying, “Show me the numbers.”

2. Technology and AI multiply impact

AI isn’t just transforming how we invest; it’s transforming how we measure impact. The KPIs that demonstrate how a business addresses environmental or social challenges can be tracked with unprecedented precision. AI-driven geospatial analytics are making physical risk assessments more robust and comparable across markets. For investors, the ability to see a fuller picture of financially material issues has never been greater. The challenge now isn’t gathering data — it’s converting raw material into reliable, actionable insights.

3. The energy transition is driven by economics, not policy

Consider a statistic that should fundamentally alter the investment narrative: During the first nine months of 2024, renewables captured 90 percent of new U.S. generating capacity, with solar alone representing over 70 percent. Mandates aren’t driving this transformation — mathematics is. The cost curves have crossed.

Markets have noticed. Businesses monetizing mature, commercially viable clean technologies have delivered stronger performance than peers betting on nascent innovations. New-energy equities more than doubled the gains of broader indices through the latter half of 2025. Washington’s priorities will rotate, but for solutions that have achieved genuine unit-economic advantage, each production cycle compounds its competitive position independent of whoever occupies the White House.

The key analytical task ahead: separating enterprises that can thrive on pure economics from those whose fortunes remain hostage to legislative tailwinds.

4. Physical climate risk repricing across asset classes

Owners of operating companies and tangible assets can no longer relegate physical climate exposure to the appendix. Surface-level projections can mislead: Aggregate extreme weather damages may increase just 2 percent through mid-century under a 3 degrees Celsius pathway. Yet averages mask the distribution that matters. Morgan Stanley’s analysis suggests the proportion of holdings facing ruinous impairment — losses beyond 20 percent of value — could multiply fivefold.

Underwriters are already adjusting. Natural catastrophe protection premiums are projected to rise around 50 percent through decade’s end. Allocators thinking beyond the current cycle may find that positioning for durability in 2026 represents not merely prudent defense, but a pathway to outperformance.

5. Regional, small and mid-cap companies gain competitive advantage

The globalization trend of the past 25 years is reversing. Smaller, more nimble private companies that maintain emphasis on domestic supply chains are gaining relative advantage over those at the mega end of the market.

Their ability to move quickly, navigate local environments and maintain regional supply chains is becoming a distinct edge against global market shocks, presenting a “picks and shovels” approach for investing in infrastructure. 

6. A graying America sells privately held companies to employees

The long-anticipated “silver tsunami” — the wave of Baby Boomer business owners reaching retirement age — is cresting, with an estimated 2.9 million privately held businesses expected to change hands over the next decade. 

For investors, the question of who acquires these companies carries profound implications for wealth distribution. While private equity and strategic acquirers remain the default exit paths, Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are emerging as a vehicle for converting retiring owners’ equity into broad-based employee wealth. The mechanics are elegant: Sellers receive favorable tax treatment, employees acquire ownership stakes at no out-of-pocket cost, and communities retain locally rooted businesses that might otherwise be consolidated, stripped or relocated.

Research from the National Center for Employee Ownership shows that ESOP participants accumulate retirement assets three to five times greater than comparable workers at non-ESOP firms — a differential that compounds dramatically for lower-wage and historically marginalized employees who rarely access ownership economics through conventional channels. 

 7. Impact investment infrastructure grows up

Impact investing is moving from a cottage industry to institutional scale. Governments, including Brazil and Turkey, are expanding impact capital and using it as a key driver of sustainable growth.

Perhaps more significantly, impact wholesalers — vehicles that invest in intermediaries — are increasing the pool of domestic capital. The Japan Network for Public Interest Activities, for example, channels dormant bank assets into social enterprises. Germany is exploring similar legislation. 

8. Outcome-based financing moves from pilot to policy

Outcome-based financing mechanisms, such as social impact bonds and outcomes funds, have crossed the threshold from experimentation to institutionalization. In Canada, for example, outcome-based transactions have mobilized over $14.5 million since 2023, reaching more than 10,000 beneficiaries.

Pay-for-results is becoming an embedded government procurement strategy. For impact investors, this shift fundamentally changes the risk profile: governments now serve as creditworthy outcome payers while private capital assumes the risk that social programs fail to produce outcomes that trigger payment — a structure that offers both downside protection and scalable deal flow.

9. Sustainability disclosure standards consolidate

Here’s the irony of the current moment: As some policymakers ease back on reporting requirements, investors are using market mechanisms to protect their access to information. 

Despite the retreat in the U.S., the number of companies disclosing decarbonization targets continues to grow. Brazil’s Securities Commission announced that by 2026 all listed companies must publish reports aligned with ISSB standards. The EU’s Omnibus package proposes simplifications to CSRD requirements. The direction is clear: Focus on a narrower set of reported metrics that are financially material. For markets, value lies in the decision-useful, not the exhaustive.

10. Geopolitical realignment redefines ‘responsible’

Military escalation and energy security concerns have prompted many asset managers to rescind broad exclusions in defense and energy sectors. At the same time, governments are taking more direct roles in strategically important industries — from critical minerals to AI — sometimes taking equity stakes to secure supply chains and national capabilities.

This industrial policy shift matters for portfolio construction. One analysis shows that state-owned enterprises have underperformed over the past decade and the greater the government’s stake, the worse the underperformance. Yet for bondholders, the calculus flips: Government backing narrows spreads and reduces default risk.

The implication for impact investors is clear: As governments reassert their role in capital formation, knowing where public involvement supports stability and where it erodes profitability will be key to positioning portfolios for the next phase of industrial policy.

The post 10 impact investing trends that will define 2026 appeared first on Trellis.