Schneider Electric has a new chief sustainability officer, just six months after her predecessor was appointed to the position.

Incoming CSO Esther Finidori previously served as a vice president for strategy at Schneider Electric, based in France. She replaces Hong Kong-based Chris Leong, who moved to the water treatment company Ecolab to become chief marketing and innovation officer. 

Schneider Electric did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the timing of Leong’s departure.

Success in sight

Finidori inherits a sustainability operation that has made strong progress on key targets. Schneider Electric’s emissions goals, validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, require the company to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 76 percent by 2030, relative to a 2021 baseline. For Scope 3, which constitutes 99 percent of the baseline total, it’s shooting for a 25 percent reduction over the same time frame. According to the company’s data for 2024, Scope 1 and 2 emissions fell by 51 percent and Scope 3 by 19 percent.

Finidori joined Schneider in 2016 as a director of sustainable supply chain and carbon dioxide strategy, before progressing to become a vice president for environment in 2021. She was previously a manager at Carbon 4, a climate consultancy, and holds masters in technology policy and industrial engineering, respectively, from the University of Cambridge and the CentraleSupélec, near Paris.

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Alice Hartley is joining Nike as its new director of waste and circularity, after a dozen years of similar leadership roles at Gap Inc. and Under Armour. The hire reflects a strategic focus by the sneaker colossus to embed circularity across the organization. Hartley will serve with a relatively new CEO and chief sustainability officer as Nike moves forward from drastic cuts to its sustainability staff by previous leadership in December 2023.

“This clears a space for Hartley to review the situation afresh and build on the extensive work that preceded her arrival,” said Andy Sloop, who last year left Nike after eight years as global director of zero waste and circularity.

When Hartley departed as circularity director at Under Armour in 2024, peers called her “one of the true class acts of the industry” and “a real thought leader and an inspiring champion.”

In between corporate roles, Hartley continued serving as a board member of the nonprofit Accelerating Circularity. She has also used social media to laud policies, including California’s Responsible Textile Recovery Act, which requires apparel companies to manage products after consumers are done using them.

Upcoming challenges

Last year, Hartley shared with Trellis her view of circular economy leadership: “Because of the complexity inherent in circularity work, it helps to create shared, high-level roadmaps so that the overall strategy and pace of goal progress is understood across teams,” she said. “This also helps create continuity as new people join or roles change over time.”

That very much applies to Nike, which has undergone significant shakeups over the past two years. Two months after axing about 30 percent of its sustainability professionals, the company promoted former global footwear vice president Jaycee Pribulsky to chief sustainability officer, replacing Noel Kinder (now at Lululemon). Later, Nike replaced embattled CEO John Donahoe with Elliott Hill. And this spring, Nike promoted Noah Murphy-Reinhertz to senior director of sustainable product design, shortly before Chief Innovation Officer John Hoke retired after 33 years.

But staff turmoil is far from the only challenge Hartley faces. The Beaverton, Oregon, giant is a study in contrasts when it comes to scaling circular economy work.

To begin with, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has validated the company’s 2030 net zero goals, but not its long-term ones. Similarly, Nike shares its circular design guide, but has not integrated circular innovations into its main product lines. The Nike Refurbished takeback and resale program appears to be a successful circular segment, but it’s not central to corporate revenue strategy. Nike also features recycled content in mainstream products while revealing little about traceability of materials or rates of recycling.

And although Nike is known for savvy innovations — glue-free recyclable ISPA Link trainers, Space Hippie running shoes of made from scrap material and recycled-polyester Flyknit sneakers — it has failed to phase out virgin synthetic materials. The Stand.earth Fossil Free Fashion Scorecard recently awarded Nike an overall C grade, and a C-minus for materials and circularity. To its credit, however, the brand, which holds nearly one-quarter of market share in athletic wear and shoes, stood with or above its peers, including Puma (C), Adidas (C-minus), New Balance (D) and On Running (D).

In her 2024 interview with Trellis, Hartley noted that that circularity agendas inevitably involve multiple departments, requiring the need to set goals and check accountability across functions. Sloop notes that this is a steep hill to climb at Nike, which is “large, complex, matrixed, constantly changing and has very distributed and unclear decision rights.”

Fortunately, Hartley comes to her new post with more than a decade of experience in complex organizations.

Previous accomplishments

As the first circularity expert at Under Armour, Hartley oversaw the creation of a tool to help the company and other businesses assess and prevent microfibers from shedding from their garments. She also spearheaded the establishment of circular design principles for half of Under Armour’s products, leading training for 200 workers. And she collaborated on efforts to adopt alternatives to spandex. 

No reason was given for Hartley’s departure one year ago, which came amid broader leadership reshuffling. The company didn’t name a direct successor.

Before her busy year at Under Armour, Hartley spent 11 years at Gap Inc.. She joined the San Francisco retailer in 2012 as a senior analyst in strategic sourcing, just after earning an MBA at MIT, and quickly worked her way up the ladder, spending her last three years there as director of product sustainability and circularity.

While at the clothier, Harley established numerous foundational sustainability efforts, including launching its product sustainability team and partnering to create the Gap for Good strategy for sustainability products. She also forged a product resale trial and an experimental textile-to-textile recycling pilot. Under Hartley’s lead, Gap became the first brand to join the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol and a founding brand member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Jeans Redesign project.

“What I love about fashion is that it’s so relatable,” Hartley told the podcast “Fashion is Your Business” in 2021. “No matter who you are, whether you consider yourself fashionable or not, we all play a role. And I think if we can harness that fact that it’s such a common ground then it can be a real force for change.”

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

Earlier this year, seven people who bought Apple’s carbon-neutral watches sued the company over the price premium they paid for these products. The lawsuit, which accuses Apple of making false and misleading claims about the watch’s green credentials, has serious issues of its own — including a misunderstanding of how carbon markets work, a disregard for established climate protocols and the implication that all offsetting is inherently ineffective.

The lawsuit also underscores a misconception about the best ways to communicate about corporate climate action. Such lawsuits could discourage companies from making their environmental efforts public, effectively punishing those taking steps forward, while letting those doing nothing off the hook.

What’s been lost amid the ongoing lawsuit is the fact that Apple designed and manufactured a carbon-neutral watch. I worry this case — and others like it — will scare companies into greenhushing their products, or not even attempting to make carbon-neutral products at all. The Environmental Defense Fund raised a similar concern in a legal brief backing Apple’s climate strategy, arguing that credible, transparent action should be supported, not punished, or we risk discouraging companies from staying ambitious in their sustainability efforts.

This need not be the case. Companies should follow Apple’s lead and speak boldly about their sustainability strategies, even amid the current political backlash against corporate climate action. 

A brief history of carbon-neutral claims

Apple isn’t the first manufacturer to experience backlash linked to its carbon-neutral claims. After Germany’s Federal Court of Justice ruled Katjes, a sweets manufacturer, had misled consumers with its carbon-neutral claims, the country banned carbon neutral labels on products unless accompanied by a detailed explanation.

In 2023, Delta Air Lines faced a class-action lawsuit alleging that its marketing of the airline as “carbon neutral” was misleading. Similarly, in 2022 Danone faced legal action over green claims on its Evian water bottles. Although a series of class action claims against Danone were originally allowed to proceed, the court reversed its decision in December. 

Taking companies such as Apple, Delta and Danone to court will disincentivize further action. They will likely review their “carbon-neutral” experiments, conclude they didn’t play well publicly and possibly decide against future climate action. This is already happening: Nestlé dropped its carbon-neutral pledges for KitKat and Nespresso, opting instead to focus on direct emissions cuts. In Germany, supermarket chain Rewe and drugstore chain Rossmann removed “climate neutral” labels from their products following regulatory pressure. EnergyAustralia also pulled its “Go Neutral” offset program after a greenwashing lawsuit, pivoting towards deeper internal decarbonization. These retreats send the wrong signal at a time when ambition and transparency are most needed.

Beyond legal action

We’re emerging from an initial period of experimentation in which many businesses claimed their products to be “carbon neutral” for the first time. And while it’s valuable for media organizations and other watchdogs, activists and even competitors to question the integrity of these claims, in doing so, some have made the term synonymous with greenwashing. Nuance has been lost and misunderstanding has spread.

For example, consumers might not know that, for most sectors, reducing emissions is voluntary. Companies choose to do so because it’s part of their climate strategy or they believe it’s what consumers want. 

We should now be familiar enough with the term “carbon neutral” to know it means a company has cut some emissions and wants to compensate for those it cannot yet prevent. But some critics and commentators seem to think that when a company claims it’s carbon neutral, it’s implying it’s environmentally impactless.

Rather than focusing legal firepower on the relatively few companies making environmental steps, critics might achieve more impact by turning their attention to the 81 percent that haven’t even set climate targets. 

Of course, it makes a better story to shout “hypocrite” than “laggard,” but doing so isn’t productive. We need consumers and media calling on companies to take climate action rather than punishing those that do.

I’m not saying all companies making efforts to reduce their emissions are perfect, nor that they do all in their power. But how much more inspiring would it be if, instead of going on the defensive, sustainability leaders honestly shared lessons learned? 

Corporations, don’t give up

I recognize it’s hard for companies to know what to claim. But to overcome this challenge, the Voluntary Carbon Market Initiative, an independent non-profit launched with support from the U.K. government and leading climate philanthropies, has produced a claims code of practice to help companies accurately convey emissions reduction and compensation. 

It’s also critical that we’re accurate with terminology. Some sustainability experts and climate communications specialists question whether “carbon neutral” is the most useful term. We need a phrase that shows a company’s progress toward cutting emissions such as “carbon responsible” or “climate positive.” 

Next, charging a premium for a more environmentally positive product is a mistake. Companies should make it easier, not harder, for consumers to make green choices, particularly as politicians increasingly disregard sustainability. If more people could buy greener products at reasonable prices, it would signal to companies there’s strong consumer demand, encouraging them to ramp up these initiatives and kickstarting a virtuous circle of greater investment and innovation. 

While it’s tempting in the current political environment to greenhush, companies that share the tangible actions they’re taking, not just future goals, are more likely to shape environmental dialogue and demonstrate leadership. Transparency about real progress can inspire others and build trust.

Companies have a choice: Either retreat into a world of greenhushing and environmental negligence or boldly advance the sustainability agenda through action and transparency. Companies that act decisively and communicate openly might face backlash now, but will ultimately be on the right side of history.

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If you’re a corporate affairs professional who’s been feeling the ESG backlash, you’re not alone.

New research from Trellis data partner GlobeScan and the University of Oxford found that in Europe and North America, corporate affairs professionals say pushback against ESG has become more pronounced, with approximately half of respondents reporting increased resistance against this agenda in the past 12 months. At the same time, corporate affairs professionals in other parts of the world are much less likely to report experiencing more resistance. This divergence underscores a critical point: although ESG is becoming more contested, growing resistance to it is far from universal.

What this means

Nowhere are the effects of rising political and economic pressures more visible than in the expansive domain of ESG. Often misrepresented as a vehicle for ideological agendas, ESG remains a vital lens through which companies interpret their operating environment and shape strategic behavior. For corporate affairs, ESG remains a central, yet increasingly complex arena. Regional disparities are widening, and political forces are reshaping both strategic priorities and narrative framing. In this shifting landscape, companies may need to adopt more nuanced, regionally attuned approaches to ESG in the years ahead.

Based on the Oxford-GlobeScan Global Corporate Affairs Survey of 245 corporate affairs practitioners conducted February-March 2025.

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Tricia Carey, the former chief commercial officer for circular fabric innovator Renewcell, could have played it safe when she found herself out of a job in July 2024. With a professional network spanning companies such as Gap, H&M and Under Armor, she might have easily landed a new gig at a well-established fashion brand.

Instead, less than a year after Renewcell’s bankruptcy, she’s taking a risk with another early-stage startup, Avalo, which uses artificial intelligence to breed climate-resilient crops. She’ll be the evangelist: meeting with farmers, mills, spinners and brands to sell them on the approach.

“I’m a relationship builder,” she said on the latest episode of the Climate Pioneers interview series. “I love innovation, and I actually really like starting with things from scratch. You can build versus remodel, which you often have to do in a large global enterprise.”

The 6-year-old company has raised almost $15 million, including $11 million in March, to cultivate seed strains that use less water and fertilizer than conventional plants. Carey was hired to expand Avalo’s focus beyond sugarcane, rice and other commodities into cotton, fashion’s second most used fabric. It drinks 3 percent of the water used for agricultural purposes and is responsible for 10 percent of worldwide pesticide use.

“The industry is going through an incredible transition right now, and it’s never been a more exciting time to be a part of the textile and apparel industry,” she said. “We’ve got policy coming at us. We have now a lot happening within the tariff world. We’ve got the technology coming in. We have disruption from new entrants into the market, and so it really gives us a chance to rebuild and to do it the right way.”

Cotton was also at the center of Carey’s job at Renewcell, which sought to replace the use of virgin cotton with an alternative called Circulose made out of recycled cotton scraps. As chief commercial officer, Carey signed H&M and the parent companies for Tommy Hilfiger and Zara as clients. But longstanding supply chain practices and high production costs forced Renewcell into bankruptcy. Its intellectual property was acquired by a private equity firm and lives on in a renamed company, Circulose.

A fashionable career

Carey will try to connect Avalo with the network she built over 25 years with Lenzing, the company behind Tencel, a breakthrough wood-based textile designed to reduce the environmental impacts of fashion. There, she helped convince brands including Gap, Levi’s and Under Armour to source the fabric. Carey’s career began in the New York fashion district, inspired by her childhood wardrobe of handmade clothes.

“I learned how to sew because if I didn’t like [a garment], I was going to fix it,” she said. “That got me interested in textiles at an early age.”

Carey gravitated to startups later because they can be more nimble than companies struggling to transition in step with shifting consumer expectations. Although she sometimes misses Lenzing’s resources, she relishes the chance to share her mistakes and shortcuts with less-established companies.

Avalo’s appeal to cotton farmers centers on answering this question: How can they grow the most profitable crop as soil health deteriorates and water supplies become less predictable? Its AI algorithms scour seed databases to study seed traits and predict how to breed the best cotton seeds for the climate conditions of specific growing regions. “We can work on multiple traits at a time, which is not how traditional breeding is done,” Carey said. Often, changing these characteristics takes twice as long.

The company is seeking large cotton buyers to support its current strain being planted on about 2,000 acres by 15 farmers in an arid region of West Texas. If all goes as expected, the plants will use 95 percent less water than do currently available seeds. 

‘Learn, earn and return’

“I’m kind of looking at it in phases of learn, earn and return,” she said. “I felt I was reaching this point where I could take all of my learnings and return them back to the industry so much of what I had experienced and where I saw that it really needed to evolve.” 

She’ll prioritize three best practices at Avalo:

Execution at a much faster pace. Startup teams don’t have the guardrails or processes typically associated with navigating large organizations. That requires them to be laser-focused on mission. Carey says she learned more in her 18-month Renewcell tenure than she did in five years with a larger organization.

Recruitment of flexible individuals. Camaraderie is crucial. Carey seeks people with “the energy and the resilience to look at things differently, and that are also willing to build systems and have the flexibility to know that not everything’s going to be perfect.”

Diversification of customer segments. One of Renewcell’s downfalls was an over-reliance on small capsule collections with fashion brands that failed to scale their orders. “We do so many pilots, we can get into that stagnation of pilots after pilots after pilots,” she said. “In many cases, it’s back to basics, it’s about communication, it’s back to making sure that we’re running projects properly.”

Watch the full interview on the Trellis YouTube channel.

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