For the last few months, Trellis has been developing Chasing Net Zero, a new reporting initiative designed to answer a simple question: How are companies faring on their paths to net zero? 

Starting the week of July 7, we’ll publish deep looks at the records of individual companies. For each case study, we’ll assess whether the organization is on track to hit its goals, drawing on emissions data, climate commitments, net zero strategies (for those that have them) and insights from expert advisors. 

Now is a critical moment to be doing this work

As we reach the halfway point of what’s often called the “decisive decade” for climate, many companies are walking back their emissions goals. By revealing stories of both success and failure, we hope to generate management lessons that will accelerate progress.

Our first three company profiles are almost complete. We’ll be reporting on brands you’ll be familiar with — from food, retail and pharmaceutical — in three weekly installments. In each case, we’ll unearth very different kinds of progress — and a little controversy.

Do you know a colleague who might be interested in the Chasing Net Zero series? Let them know to sign up for Trellis Briefing to receive the series launch and each new profile as soon as we publish it.

[Join more than 5,000 professionals at Trellis Impact 25 — the center of gravity for doers and leaders focused on action and results, Oct. 28-30, San Jose.]

The post Chasing Net Zero: How are companies faring on their 2030 climate goals? appeared first on Trellis.

Gap, Target and Houdini Sportswear have pledged to purchase circular polyester from recycling startup Syre — even before it has a product to sell. The mall giant, the big box tastemaker and the Scandinavian outdoor brand are each betting on a “hyperscale” future for polyester recycled from clothes and scraps otherwise destined for the trash.

The three companies each announced strategic partnerships with Syre on June 24. Gap Inc. seeks to buy 10,000 metric tons of Syre’s polyester annually. That would serve the San Francisco company’s aim to integrate 100 percent “sustainable” materials across its Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta brands by 2030. 

“This partnership enables us to accelerate our progress toward realizing a more circular fashion industry,” Dan Fibiger, vice president of global sustainability at Gap, said in a statement. “Our ambition to utilize 10,000 metric tons per year of Syre’s recycled polyester chip is not only an innovation that we feel will resonate with our customer, but it is an important lever for Gap Inc. in our efforts to bridge the climate gap.”

Minneapolis-base Target plans to integrate Syre polyester into its own branded products, with an eye towards design “for a circular future” in those lines by 2040.

Houdini Sportswear of Stockholm, the first brand Syre connected with, has committed to getting half of its polyester from the startup over three years.

Syre hopes to help drive what CEO Dennis Nobelius calls “the great textile shift,” in which recycled fabrics don’t go to landfill or incinerator. The company says its recycled polyester pellets reduce climate emissions by 85 percent compared with virgin polyester. With more brands on board, Syre can engage fiber spinners, fabric manufacturers and garment producers across recycled-textile supply chains, he noted.

“This is a credit to the drive by the brands right now to go circular, seeing the benefits of sustainable fashion and apparel,” Nobelius said. “Right now, many are trying to lock in capacities, seeing that there are not many textile-to-textile recyclers out there in the world, at least not with the ambitions and the scale that we are going for.”

Joining the crowd

The venture, like other textile recycling startups, faces the challenge of scratch-building not just a company but a circular economy that involves numerous stakeholders, locations and exchanges of materials. Reju, Samsara Eco, Carbios, Ambercycle and Circ do not complete the list of early-stage companies in the increasingly crowded textile-to-textile recycling space. Earlier in June, Samsara Eco inked a 10-year deal to supply a significant amount of recycled polyester to Lululemon. Several weeks earlier, Reju shared plans to open a massive Netherlands plant.

Syre has a leg up thanks to a $600 million promise from H&M Group, also of Stockholm. In March 2024 the brand agreed to spend that much over seven years to purchase polyester from Syre. Representatives from H&M serve on the board of Syre, which has been working for more than a year with the fast fashion brand’s operations team in Hong Kong. 

“But really from the get go, they said that this is not an H&M venture,” Nobelius said. “This needs to be an industry movement. That’s the only way to make a big supply at scale and to make an impact on sustainability targets.”

Syre is speaking with other brands and retailers, too.

Small steps

For now, the young company’s intentions to operate at what it has billed as “hyperscale” have materialized in a pilot plant, blueprints and a brownfield. Syre’s pilot and R&D plant in North Carolina generates 1,000 metric tons of recycled PET. An hour and a half away, a brownfield site in Cedar Creek is the destination for a larger plant to generate 10 times as much polyester per year. Syre’s eventual Vietnam facility is supposed to create 150,000 to 250,000 metric tons per year.

The company is vying for three “gigascale” factories by 2027, which will crank out 3 million metric tons of circular polyester annually by 2032, preventing 15 million metric tons of emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Syre’s low-pressure, low-heat chemical recycling technique uses polyethylene glycol as a catalyst. (The chemical also features in laxatives, skin moisturizers and industrial lubricants.) Its closed loop recycling process, meant to handle mixed textiles such as popular polyester-cotton blends, breaks down the polyester into monomers, then builds that back up to a polymer.

Syre is working with partners to secure textile waste in America, Europe and Southeast Asia. In North America, the feedstock is likely to come from people’s closets. In Binh Dinh province in the south of Vietnam the feedstock is likely to be post-industrial material.

Syre analyzed the landscape with McKinsey, mapping 400 apparel brands, 100 home interior brands and 27 textile recyclers. They found that by 2030, Syre could provide 3 percent of the eventual market for recycled polyester by 2030, Nobelius said. “There’s plenty of room for more players,” Nobelius said, “and the more that come around the better the textile waste flows will be, and the better business opportunities, including for the sorters and collectors.”

[Join more than 5,000 professionals at Trellis Impact 25 — the center of gravity for doers and leaders focused on action and results, Oct. 28-30, San Jose.]

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A project by the Norfolk Southern railroad to restore 1,500 feet of degraded Virginia shoreline has generated what the company says is the largest release of nutrient credits in the state’s history — and possibly in the entire U.S. 

Sale of the credits is expected to generate a four- to five-fold return on the amount invested in restoring the shoreline, said Josh Raglin, the company’s chief sustainability officer. “It shows that nature-based solutions can pay for themselves,” he added.

The eroded shoreline forms part of the southern edge of the railroad’s Lambert Point marine terminal, which sits close to the mouth of the Elizabeth River on Chesapeake Bay. 

The flow of nutrients and sediments into the river is regulated by the state to limit nitrogen and phosphorus levels. Companies or individuals that make changes to waterfront land, such as building new roads or homes, may need to purchase credits to offset the increased nitrogen and phosphorus that will run into rivers when a natural landscape is replaced with a hard surface.

How the credits were generated

To strengthen the Lambert Point shoreline, Norfolk Southern worked with Eco-Cap, a local ecological restoration consultant, to establish oyster beds just offshore and native plants onshore. The cost was 75 percent lower than strengthening the shoreline by conventional means, said Raglin. 

Oysters naturally filter nutrients from water, and preventing erosion lessens the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus from soil into the river.  The work, which took place over the past two years, has now generated credits for avoiding 10,000 pounds of nitrogen release, 2,000 pounds of phosphorus and 3.5 million pounds of sediment, according to Norfolk Southern. The next stage of the project will see the slope of shoreline reduced and additional native plants added.

“From our perspective it’s a great financial return,” said Raglin. The company expects to monetize the credits over the next six to 10 years and is now looking to see whether other properties it owns would be suitable for credit-funded restoration projects.

Growing interest in nutrient markets

The Virginia nutrient credit market has been running for around 20 years, but this is the biggest issuance of credits to date, said Casey Jensen, founder of Eco-Cap. The shoreline in the heavily developed region is extremely fragmented, he said, noting that it’s unusual to find such a long stretch to restore.

Interest in credit markets for ecological restoration is growing. Other states in the Chesapeake Bay region operate nutrient markets, for example, as do states in the Ohio River watershed. 

“What we think is most important about all of these markets is that they’re giving you price discovery,” said Harry Huntley, agricultural policy lead at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center, a Maryland-based non-profit. “You can actually know how much it costs to restore the environment. And once you are able to get those numbers, you then start seeing this competition, where we’re able to evaluate where investments can be the most effective.”

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Disposable diapers epitomize the excesses of the industrial, linear economy. After one nasty, short life, diapers trap organic matter in layers of plastics and paper pulp for hundreds of years in a landfill.

Efforts to change that have barely progressed in four decades, from Procter & Gamble’s groundless compostability claims in the early 1990s through the launch of countless “eco-friendly” personal care startups in recent years.

At least 90 percent of diapers in the developed world are single-use, bringing staggering levels of pollution. Each requires a cup of crude oil to produce. Every minute, 300,000 diapers go to the trash globally. And each American uses thousands of diapers in a lifetime, from the cradle to Depends.

In a market littered with companies pitching earth-friendly versions, Hiro Technologies became the latest in April, offering “mycodigestible” diapers that self-destruct with help from a hungry fungus packet.

“Our goal is to have diapers be circular, whether that is compostable, recycled or a combination thereof — or something new,” said Bart Jansen, lead product developer in sustainability at Ontex Global, a Belgian diaper maker with more than $2 billion in revenue and 5,500 employees. “We need to stop being in this linear model: We make products, you use them, you take them, you dispose of them, and they’re gone. There needs to be an alternative for that.”

Room for improvement

The botched 1991 attempt by the world’s biggest diaper maker, P&G, became a greenwashing case study that informed the Federal Trade Commission’s early “green guides” for marketers. Ten state attorneys general sued over an ad for Pampers and Luvs that showed a hand spilling over with black soil, declaring, “Ninety days ago this was a disposable diaper.”

P&G settled for only $50,000. Just a year earlier, it had announced a $20 million fund to engineer compostable diapers. In 1989, it had explored downcycling diapers into garbage bags and insulation for buildings. 

Momentum to break the poop-and-toss cycle petered out for decades, at least publicly. But since 2017, P&G has backed an industrial diaper recycling plant in a joint venture in Italy that processes roughly 10,000 metric tons of waste each year. The facility separates the materials, recycling plastic to make bottle tops and cellulose for furniture.

Alas, 10,000 metric tons is less than 1 percent of the weight of P&G’s Pampers brand of diapers sold each year.

And Huggies parent Kimberly-Clark, the No. 2 diaper maker, has not done much to scale circular diapers, either, beyond small projects like Nappy Loop composting in Australia.

Meanwhile, the disposable diaper space is set to grow from $79 billion in 2025 to $115 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. And the market for biodegradable diapers, in particular, is expected to double from $4 billion last year to $8 billion in 2033, according to IMARC Group. The definition of “biodegradable” is loose here, however, describing natural fibers such as bamboo and cotton. In theory, such materials degrade in nature. How they behave when composted is another matter — and ripe for greenwashing.

Numerous startups have attempted to fill the innovation gap left by P&G and Kimberly-Clark, which corner three quarters of the baby diaper market. Here’s a tour of some of the most promising:

Fungus forward: Hiro Technologies

Why can’t diapers mimic the pattern in nature, whereby decomposers eat waste and release nutrients? That’s what serial entrepreneur Miki Agrawal is pursuing with diaper startup Hiro Technologies. “We’re the first company to actually take plastic-eating fungi out of a lab and into a product,” she said.

Her team in Austin, Texas, grows fungi to create a shelf-stable, matchbook-size packet that “eats” used diapers. Parents take a spent diaper, pop in the fungus square and toss it all into the trash. In test conditions, the fungus transforms the diaper into compost within a year, according to the company.

Its diapers feature 80 percent unbleached cotton and wood pulp, plus 20 percent polypropylene and polyethylene. The plastic is necessary for performance, according to Agrawal. However, she wants to replace it eventually with a bio-based polymer.

Hiro is angel-funded, including backers of Agrawal’s previous startups, the bidet brand Tushy and the period underpant maker Thinx (bought by Kimberly-Clark in 2023).

Hiro Technologies’ near-term goal is for 10,000 customers to subscribe to diaper deliveries for about $140 per month. It’s pursuing third-party validations for compostability, biodegradability and nontoxic materials.

Agrawal’s son, Hiro, inspired the idea for the company as a toddler. “One day, we’re outside looking at trees, and I was like, Breast milk is liquid gold; you can’t waste a drop,” she said. “And so baby poop must be fertilizer gold. But right now we’re wrapping up this potent fertilizer in plastic and just throwing it away in the trash, billions of pounds … and not harnessing it for good.”

Hiro diapers, however, are not designed to transform into commercial compost. Most likely, they end up in landfills. 

Grounded in composting: Dyper, Terracycle

Most composting facilities refuse dirty diapers, no matter what their material.

But some startups are nonetheless pursuing a back-to-nature strategy by marketing their diapers as compostable or biodegradable. Dyper of Scottsdale, Arizona, for example, ships a monthly $100 box of plant-based diapers directly to consumers. For another $65, customers in select regions can leave a plant-based plastic bag packed with dirty diapers on their doorstep for weekly pickups.

The Trenton, New Jersey, company Terracycle provides industrial composting through its Redyper service to create compost in several months. The composting sites, whose locations remain undisclosed by both companies, would require specific permits to handle human waste, which most composting facilities reject as a biohazard. Compost involving transformed human waste often winds up in landscaping.

gDiapers for the Greater Good Project

The regulatory hurdles of diaper composting in the developed world recently led longtime wife-and-husband diaper entrepreneurs to pivot. For two decades, Australians Kim and Jason Graham-Nye sold gDiapers. These colorful cotton-spandex diaper bloomers held maxipad-like inserts made of nylon, wood pulp and an absorbent polymer, designed for composting. 

Supply chain troubles during the COVID-19 pandemic led gDiapers to fold. Now the couple is bringing a version of gDiapers to Pacific Island nations, where nappies make up 27 percent of household waste, to prove out regional circular economies. They’re bringing the Greater Good Diaper Project to Tuvalu this year after launching in Samoa in 2024 with support from that government.

The system eliminates 1,500 pounds of diaper waste and can produce 400 pounds of compost per week, according to Graham-Nye.

The nonprofit employs local women to deliver and collect diapers several times a week. They bring wet nappies to a “no tech composting facility” of timber boxes and community waste. An inoculant involving local coconuts reduces odor. In six to eight weeks, compost emerges.

“In a global south context, they’re very comfortable applying it to crops,” said Graham-Nye. “In the global north, there’s lots of nervousness. It’s not a scientific thing. It’s an ick factor thing.”

All of the above: Ontex Global

In northern Europe, diaper maker Ontex Global has partnered with other organizations on reuse, composting and recycling pilots. A diaper recycling effort in Flanders led to a spinoff, Woosh, that delivers to and picks up from daycare centers.

In 2021, Ontex Global announced a goal to compost 500 million diapers by 2030 with Parisian nonprofit partner Les Alchimistes. Although that target may be tough to achieve, the project helped to establish a legal framework in France to allow composting diapers under regulations related to the industrial sludge management, according to Jansen of Ontex.

That said, restrictions on waste management in other E.U. nations limit the ability to experiment.

Other difficulties include creating high-performance, bio-based and compostable products. Diapers built to be torn apart and recycled later may be easier to design, according to Jansen. Creating a long-lasting, super-absorbent polymer for the core of the diaper is a steep engineering challenge. So is competing on price with conventional diapers.

“We’re not there yet but technology is advancing,” said Jansen.

Tempering claims

For now, however, the risks of making unproven claims about nature-friendly diapers haven’t changed much since P&G’s infamous 1991 ad.

Only reusable cloth diapers, holding steady at about 5 percent of the overall market, offer meaningful circularity.

And while it’s true that bamboo, corn, cotton, hemp and sugarcane materials have since entered the mix, many marketing labels overpromise, according to Neil Edgar, executive director of the California Compost Collection. In other words, don’t trust or perpetuate “compostable,” “biodegradable,” “eco-conscious,” “eco-friendly,” “pure” and “natural” language.

“They were starting up some of those companies back when I was raising my daughter in the Bay Area,” said Edgar. “My daughter’s 32 now. It’s mostly mythology. Those dreams are unicorns.”

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On the path to creating a circular economy, an important element is often missing: storytelling.

We tend to focus on materials, chemicals and compliance. We speak in certifications and data points — important, yes, but emotionally distant. We often miss the opportunity to tell a good story. This is strange when you stop to think about it, because great brands are really, at their core, great at storytelling. They craft compelling narratives that align with our values and aspirations.

Humans love stories. Stories build emotion and meaning. They shape our reasoning and inspire our actions. For generations, stories have passed down communal wisdom and hard-earned lessons, helping people learn from, and sometimes avoid, the mistakes of the past.

They’re also financially valuable. Apple’s brand is worth billions because it drives consumer preference. The departments that steward the brand get listening time with senior management and bigger budgets.  

Which is why, about 10 months ago, Trove founder Andy Ruben and I set out to find a way to reframe the circularity lifecycle as an emotional journey — and how it could be mapped onto the classic three-act structure of storytelling. (We presented a version of our framework at Circularity 25).  

The power of three

The three-act structure is a time-tested narrative form, dating back to the ancient Greeks. Here’s how it works:

Act 1: Set the scene — introduce characters, context, motivation and the environment.

Act 2: Raise the stakes — pose a challenge or obstacle to overcome.

Act 3: Bring resolution — culminate in transformation and meaning.

Much of the work focused on developing and selling circular products is detached from the brand. But by attaching the brand to meaning, and meaning to the brand, the lifecycle of a product is faster than the lifecycle of a brand. It also helps brands elevate products and the story at the same time. This perspective provides a powerful lens to examine how circularity initiatives impact not just materials but brand equity — and how stories can help bridge that gap.

Act 1: Beginning

Act 1 is where the product story begins, filled with excitement and potential. A car drives through wide open landscapes. A jacket is worn by brave people on windswept mountain peaks. A runner charges forward, bold and empowered, in perfect trainers. 

Brands often excel at Act 1 because they know how to tap into aspiration, potential and identity. For example, with Patagonia, Act 1 historically started as a product-oriented ambition — to make climbing tools stronger, lighter, simpler and more functional. In recent years, the company vision matured to a wider, more universal goal of “We’re in business to save our home planet.”

That goal now gets represented through storytelling. On their website is the invitation to take action about climate change. Next to the purchase of a product is the mending of another. They tell the story of consequences in Act 1. They tell that story as a consumer and producer partnership through gritty and honest realism. 

Lesson: Does your first act inspire a longer, more authentic relationship? Does your Act 1 talk in a shameful way about nature damage? Or do you talk about action, engagement and partnership to solve a crisis? 

Act 2: Usage

In product terms, customers might experience Act 2 like this in everyday terms: the car is stuck in traffic. The high-performance jacket is worn to the office. The running shoes sit in a gym bag, used for a 2K jog on a treadmill. Too often, this part of the story is abandoned by the brand. The consumer is left alone with the product and their dashed hopes. 

But this act holds enormous emotional potential — if we choose to engage. Patagonia engaged with Worn Wear by celebrating real people and real usage stories. They created space for a community to emerge — one that loves, repairs and shares stories about their products. Patagonia didn’t show up just to sell another thing. They provided the space to celebrate the people that use their products and then stepped back to watch people revel in their own experiences. 

Lesson: Is your presence in usage just to make another sale? Or does it provide a meaningful space to bond relationships, either with the brand or people that build the brand? If your brand is not in Act 2, it can’t get to Act 3, where the circle closes. 

Act 3: The end

“This product is made from recycled plastic.” That’s how we often end product experiences — in a cold, emotionless, sometimes patronizing tone. And yet, the end is a place of enormous emotion and meaning. What begins in Act 1 as a rich, emotional brand story often fades into data, guilt and legislative expectations — “our company recycles thousands of shoes” and “failure to compile with state law can result in fines.”

The end of a story is where threads of meaning come together in a crescendo of philosophical truth. But in circularity and sustainability, we often confuse this emotional truth with scientific fact. We talk to consumers about carbon, high-density polyethylene, manufacturing standards or local regulation — failing to recognize that the story we tell at the end must resonate with the same human depth as the one we told at the beginning.

Lesson: Consider the language you use in Act 3. Is it similar to Act 1 and 2? Does the tone feel the same? Is it aspirational at the beginning and shaming at the end? If not, think about how you can improve the tone and align with what the brand. Bridge the aspirational emotion at the start and the practical feelings at the end.

To complete a compelling circularity narrative we need to create an experience for the consumer that feels the same beginning to end. The story of your product needs to be one of emotional experience. 

Circularity isn’t just a system shift — it’s a story shift. The three-act structure reminds us that every product journey is also a human one. When we match circular design with emotional storytelling, we create deeper engagement — and a stronger path to lasting change.

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