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For more than 40 years, Paul Hawken has been an author, entrepreneur, activist and provocateur in sustainability.
In this interview for the Two Steps Forward podcast, Hawken talks about his latest book, “Carbon: The Book of Life,” with my co-host, sustainability consultant Solitaire Townsend, and me. The book, published in March, explores the element’s role in all living systems rather than viewing carbon merely as a climate pollutant. In it, he criticizes the climate movement for objectifying carbon and advocates for a shift in narrative from fear to possibility. He highlights the limitations of technological solutions such as direct air capture and bioenergy carbon capture systems and encourages a focus on local, grassroots efforts and individual actions, stressing the need for gratitude and wonder in our relationship with the natural world.
Also in this episode, Soli and I discuss the role of neurodiversity in sustainability.
In his 1993 book, “The Ecology of Commerce,” Hawken was credited with the self-described awakening of the southern industrialist, Ray Anderson, whose carpet company, Interface, became a poster child of sustainable business. “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming,” Hawken’s 2007 bestseller, chronicled what he described as a diverse global movement with no charismatic leader that follows no unifying ideology, and is not recognized by politicians, the public and the media.
A new way to talk about carbon
“We have unfortunately had this language of othering the living world,” Hawken told us. He criticized the climate movement for objectifying carbon, using war-like terms such as “fight,” “combat” and “tackle” to address climate change. He explained that carbon is a flow, not a thing to be manipulated, and the importance of understanding carbon as a part of life and the mysteries of physics and chemistry on Earth is key to addressing the climate crisis.
“You have these silly phrases, like ‘carbon neutrality,’ ‘net zero,’ where carbon is a thing, it’s an object. We have basically isolated and objectified carbon.”
Rather, he said, carbon is life. “Carbon is a flow, and the idea that it’s a thing that we can manipulate is a terrible misunderstanding of carbon — what it is, what it does and where it is. What happens on Earth is so mysterious and wonderful.”
In our wide-ranging conversation, Hawken took on Wall Street, direct air capture, fallacies about renewable energy and the problem of shareholder primacy.
Hope on a grassroots level
He also held out hope, especially for the thousands of grassroots organizations that are addressing the climate and biodiversity crises at the local levels around the world — more effectively, he said, than many national governments or multinational corporations.
“The one thing we know about the living world, about nature, it is not a top-down system. But we’re trying to create top-down systems to address the beauty of the thing that we call life. You don’t read about these organizations, you don’t hear about them, they don’t make the news cycle, but they’re growing and rising.”
https://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cropped-trellis_favicon_180x180.png3232sustainablefuturehttps://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Untitled-design-117-300x94.pngsustainablefuture2025-05-20 10:00:002025-05-20 18:09:43Environmentalist Paul Hawken: ‘We have basically isolated and objectified carbon’
A decade and a half ago, Colorado — a fossil fuel-producing state governed by Republican Bill Owens — would have seemed an unlikely candidate to forge a thriving circular economy. But a combination of progressive political leadership, a core of innovative technology developers with access to funding, regional alliances and consumer enthusiasm has shaped an emerging ecosystem of startups, public entities and nonprofits that offer a circular economy roadmap for other states.
At the center of this movement is Laurie Johnson, founder and CEO of Circular Colorado. The former COO of a hauling company and former executive director of Recycle Colorado, Johnson founded Circular Colorado in 2021 with the mission of “establishing Colorado as a leader in developing circular economy solutions.”
“We’re building a model that can be replicated across states and across regions,” Johnson said during an April 29 workshop at Circularity 25 in Denver. “We’d love to see this happen across the country.”
Source: Sophia Davirro/Circular Colorado
Remote communities in mountainous terrain
Colorado’s circular journey began in 2019 with the passage of a waste diversion law for the Front Range, which includes the Denver metropolitan area. At that time the state’s recycling rate for waste materials was stalled at around 16 percent — well below the national average of 32 percent.
The state’s mountainous terrain, isolated rural communities and low population density outside of a few large cities make recycling challenging
The diversion program, which originally assessed landfill tipping fees for haulers and dumpers that totaled $15 million annually, has been succeeded by a statewide program that generates $20 million a year for recycling and other circular initiatives.
The money is funneled into grants awarded and administered by the Colorado Circular Communities (C3) Enterprise, a public-private entity established in 2024 under the aegis of the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment.
Funding from a dedicated source of revenue means that the C3 program does not have to go through the state legislature to support its grants, said Deputy Director Jeff Stalter of Colorado Circular Communities on the April 29 panel: “We now cover the whole state, and we have money we can spend — it’s not appropriated by the legislature so we don’t have to put out [requests for applications].”
C3 contracted with Circular Colorado to build two additional initiatives:
The Circular Economy Development Center aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect air and water quality by establishing a fully closed recycling, reuse and remanufacturing system in the state.
The center would “move beyond the recycling industry to embrace the industries of manufacturing, transportation and other sectors that all play a role in circular economy creation,” Johnson said at the time.
The Circular Transportation Network is designed to conquer the state’s sheer geographic expanse, mainly by repurposing delivery trucks that previously deadheaded, without loads, back to their point of dispatch. The returning trucks will serve central aggregation points, including one opened in Pueblo in southern Colorado, on April 22.
The mountain communities and rural towns often have no way to transport recycled materials, said Johnson at Circularity 25. “These trucks would go out and come back empty. Now they deliver recycling that gets aggregated in Pueblo, baled and on to market.”
The market would comprise a homegrown remanufacturing sector that keeps the material in the state and out of landfills, creating new jobs in the process.
“If you want to build manufacturing in your state, what better way to start than with feedstock that’s already available in your state?” said Alice Havill, a founding partner at Fractal Climate and a board member of Circular Colorado.
Tires into barriers
Together, those four programs — Circular Colorado, the Colorado Circular Communities Enterprise, the Circular Transportation Network and the Circular Economy Development Center — form a supportive architecture that is already achieving tangible results.
Pretred, an Aurora, Colorado, company that turns discarded tires into “crumb rubber” for use in highway barriers, received an $11.2 million grant from the Circular Communities Enterprise in February to expand its operations. Colorado typically burns or buries millions of old tires each year.
“Pretred would not be here without support and assist of these individuals and organizations,“ said founder and CEO Eric Davis.
Pretred’s goal is to produce 30,000 barriers a year, using 4 million waste tires from across the state.
Another beneficiary is TERSUS Solutions, which uses a carbon dioxide-based cleaning process to recover and process materials from apparel, sleeping bags, personal protective gear and the like for brands including Patagonia, The North Face and New Balance.
Last year, said TERSUS CEO Peter Whitcomb, the company saved 5 million gallons of water and kept 1.5 million garments out of landfills.
“What’s the frontier? Killing dry cleaning and water-based cleaning,” Whitcomb said.
Encompass the region
All of this is encouraging, but single-state recycling can only go so far in building a truly circular economy: waste knows no state borders, and millions of tons of products that originate in Colorado get discarded in neighboring states, many if not most are much further behind in their circular journey.
Johnson’s ultimate goal is a truly regional ecosystem that includes all types of materials and all forms of recycling. That requires a “sustainable systemic collection system that people actually use,” plus a core of viable reuse and remanufacturing companies to consume and repurpose the full stream of recycled materials. For now, that remains a distant vision.
During the Circularity 25 workshop, Johnson laid out the structure and roadmap that other states and other organizations can use to begin building the sort of circular ecosystem that is well on the way to operation in Colorado:
Explore the challenge
Identify the gaps
Develop the strategy
Organize the players
Execute the solution
Manage the process to completion
“We assemble the solution,” she said of Circular Colorado. “Site selection, permitting, funding — we’re like the quarterback, the nucleus, the ones who go along and keep everything proprietary and everything moving.”
The tight weave of political support, public-private partnerships and a dynamic leader such as Johnson is unlikely to be exactly replicated elsewhere. But the template has been established.
https://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cropped-trellis_favicon_180x180.png3232sustainablefuturehttps://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Untitled-design-117-300x94.pngsustainablefuture2025-05-20 10:00:002025-05-20 18:10:00How Colorado became a circular economy model
A growing number of consumer products companies are experimenting with packaging that can be reused or refilled, but their tests usually start with niche brands. Personal care company Kiehl’s is breaking that mold, offering refillable options for several of its most popular products, including its best-selling Ultra Facial Cream and Ultra Facial Oil-Free Gel Cream.
A half-dozen items comprise the Kiehl’s Refillery program, which gives customers the option to refill in store or to buy pouches to refill existing containers two to three times, depending on the product. In addition to the two facial creams, they include the Creme de Corps body moisturizer, Grapefruit Bath and Shower Liquid Cleanser, Amino Acid Shampoo and Amino Acid Conditioner.
Sales of the refillable packaging, which is offered alongside traditional options. doubled in 2024, and the refill stock keeping units (SKUs) accounted for 16 percent of transactions for the six products, said Maggie Kervick, vice president of sustainability and corporate responsibility for Kiehl’s. The 174-year-old brand, which started in New York’s East Village, was acquired by L’Oreal in 2000.
“I’m not allowed to share specific sales figures,” Kervick said, “but what I can say is that last year we saw a huge acceleration on refills.”
What makes a refillable packaging candidate
The Kiehl’s refill program launched in April 2021 with hair and body products because consumers often buy them in bigger containers before transferring them to smaller ones that fit in a shower or on a vanity top. The company expanded the program to include its best-selling face cream in part to bring scale to the data it collects.
There are three major considerations for Kiehl’s product teams when they ponder a refillable version:
Whether the ingredients of a particular formula are sensitive to air exposure or have a limited shelf life after they’ve been opened.
When the product might be updated for other reasons.
How frequently a product needs to be replenished.
With those things in mind, “We can start to offer a solution knowing that they’re the products that people really want, that are well established and beloved,” Kervick said.
An associate dispenses product from a Kiehl’s in-store refillery.
In-home strategy: Refillable pouches
Kiehl’s two-pronged approach features refills completed by associates in the Refillery section of company stores and the sale of products in multi-material, light plastic pouches.
The 150-milliliter facial cream pouch refills the original 50-milliliter jar three times and results in a 61 percent reduction in packaging materials, according to Kervick. Similarly, the shampoo pouch refills the original bottle twice and reduces the product’s plastic footprint by 81 percent.
Any brand offering refill options, though, needs to be flexible with its approach, said Jamie Hall, co-founder and chief customer officer at consulting firm Pentatonic.
“Convenience remains absolutely paramount to either channel,” said Hall, referring to in-store and in-home options. “Both work, and you have to be able to do both, but both will not appeal to all parties.”
Environmental impact: An ‘imperfect’ option
The downside of Kiehl’s current in-home option is that the multi-material makeup of the pouches means they aren’t readily recyclable, rendering them an “imperfect solution,” Hall said. Kiehl’s doesn’t translate plastic reductions into emissions reductions, at least not publicly.
Kiehl’s evaluated and tested many other materials, including a paper-based option, before opting for lightweight plastic. (The main challenge with paper is evaporation for water-intensive products.) In 2026, the company will transition to a monomaterial, plastic film that “will allow them not necessarily to be recycled but to be designed into the system we are all hoping that we will get to,” Kervick said.
Kiehl’s standard format containers contain 38 percent post-consumer recycled content.
The brand is also lightweighting its jars and switching from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic to PP (polypropylene), a move motivated by extended producer responsibility legislation being adopted by states such as California, Oregon and Colorado. “I think we see refills as one of our key levers to help drive things like source reduction,” she said.
That lightweighting process is challenging, because many consumer brands promote hefty packaging as part of their value proposition. “I think the traditional model of weight equals luxury has taken a while to shift,” Hall said, pointing to liquor brands as an example. L’Oreal, for one, is beginning to address packaging intensity across its entire portfolio.
Creating the refill pouches also required Kiehl’s to change how packages are filled; that meant pulling the process into its production rather than having that step handled externally. The company is “working through some of the technical challenges around the filling, making sure it’s a secure process,” Kervick said.
Logistics is one of the biggest obstacles for companies seeking to introduce refill options, said Nicole Smith Ray, senior manager in the climate change and sustainability services practice for EY. “How do you engage the consumer?” she said. “How do you get the right reverse logistics?” Another worry for some brands is losing control of their identity as packaging gets simpler and lighter, she said.
Refills as customer recruitment strategy
Kiehl’s prices its refill pouches so customers wind up with a discount versus what they’d pay for the same amount of product in regular packaging. For example, they pay $70 for the Ultra Facial Cream pouch at retailers such as Sephora, and $117 for jars.
The brand’s team is tracking traditional metrics as it evaluates progress, including sales margin and customer adoption. It’s also closely studying the product mix in different retail settings. Kiehl’s product marketers in South Asia, for example, see refills as a way to engage customers that aren’t active, Kervick said.
https://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cropped-trellis_favicon_180x180.png3232sustainablefuturehttps://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Untitled-design-117-300x94.pngsustainablefuture2025-05-19 21:40:262025-05-20 18:10:07Inside Kiehl’s program to sell its popular facial cream in refillable containers
It’s not news that it’s a particularly challenging moment to be a sustainability professional. Compliance demands and complex regulatory landscapes have stretched resources thin. The shifting political climate in the U.S. has raised questions about some companies’ commitment to sustainability. And several executive orders from the current administration have left some professionals feeling as though their work has been sidelined — or even outlawed. What may surprise you, though, is the large number of people who remain interested in this career path.
As a sustainability job search coach, I’m still seeing people get hired in this field every day. And I’m often asked about what corporate sustainability work is like and what experience is necessary to be a competitive job applicant. While there are multiple factors to consider, there are six top questions that I ask my clients to help them determine if a career in corporate sustainability is right for them, and what types of roles they should pursue.
Answer these questions as honestly as you can and I invite you to let me know of other questions you think should be added to this list.
1. Which sustainability issues do you want to work on?
This is perhaps the most important question I ask my clients, because their answer will affect every other decision they make. Different companies work on different issues depending on what’s material to their business.
While virtually every company in the world has the opportunity to work on reducing their carbon emissions, a clothing retailer such as Patagonia will have more opportunities to reduce waste and advance the circular economy than an accounting firm would. If you’re eager to work on human rights or deforestation, a company that procures problematic materials or sources from areas of concern would be a good choice.
Considering what sustainability issues you’d like to work on will help you determine the impact you’d like to make — and therefore the companies you’d like to work for.
2. How direct of an impact would you like your work to have?
Some corporate sustainability work delivers a sense of direct, tangible impact. It’s rewarding when your waste diversion project launches, your solar panels are installed or your decarbonization goal gets approved. Other work happens behind the scenes: greenhouse gas accounting, ESG data management or reporting and disclosure.
Corporate sustainability teams vary greatly in size and how they divide up responsibility for different work streams. Some roles are more generalist and involve a bit of everything, while others are more specialized.
Consider how tangible the impact of your work needs to be. That assessment will help you determine which team structures and roles would be the best fit for you.
3. How ambitious does the organization you work for need to be?
Consultants Steve Rochlin and Jeff Senne recently published an article that describes how companies define the purpose and role of sustainability for their organizations. The authors explain that companies exist on a continuum somewhere between “box checker” and “impact and purpose focused.”
Innovative work by leading companies often inspires newcomers, but often causes them to limit their job search to only the most high-profile, purpose-driven organizations. However, it’s important to understand that there are huge impact opportunities in helping “box checker” companies grow into something more. For example, I have friends who specialize in taking companies “from zero to 15 mph” and gain immense satisfaction from building programs entirely from scratch.
Advancing sustainable business practices delivers social and environmental benefits at companies of all types — regardless of where they are on their sustainability journey or what motivates their efforts. Thinking about how much a company’s level of ambition or motivation matters to you can help you determine which companies you’d like to work for.
4. Are you (very) comfortable with change?
The past six months have been an important reminder that nothing in this profession stays the same for very long. For example, current and proposed changes to cornerstone legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) have put many clean energy, resilience and environmental justice projects on indefinite hold and the way companies communicate about sustainability has changed virtually overnight. The landscape of tools that we use for analysis, data management, goal setting and reporting is famous for its state of constant evolution. And while the profession is maturing and we’re starting to see more consistent career pathways emerge, the skills required for success are always shifting. It’s common for people to need to change companies in order to grow into the next level of responsibility.
People with balanced perspectives on change and a track record of adaptability tend to flourish in corporate sustainability, such as Google’s CSO Kate Brandt. Consider how well you respond to change because it’s a constant in this profession.
5. Are you a (very) patient team player?
Implementing systemic change across a global organization is both a long game and a team sport. Developing key stakeholder relationships, socializing business cases and operationalizing new processes can take months, if not years. Progress often happens in fits and starts.
The most effective corporate sustainability professionals are able to build and maintain partnerships that balance making progress on long-term objectives while addressing short-term priorities. Consider how patient and collaborative you are, as these attributes are critical drivers of success.
6. Do you have the skills you need to be successful?
There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what skills corporate sustainability requires. I’ve had people tell me they’re not qualified to work in sustainability because they don’t have a background in climate science or they don’t have a policy degree. Neither of these things will prevent you from working in this space.
This is multifaceted work with many kinds of roles. While the profession is becoming more specialized and many positions do require experience with specific tools or frameworks, there are still plenty of roles that are accessible to candidates with relevant transferable skills. Most corporate sustainability teams look for applicants with strong communication, problem-solving and cross-functional collaboration skills and value experience in project management, data analytics or reporting.
Assess which roles align best with your current experience and identify whether targeted upskilling is necessary before launching your job search. There are hundreds of providers offering courses on sustainability training that can help you build expertise.
Corporate sustainability is deeply rewarding work for professionals who have clarity of purpose and are adaptable, patient, collaborative and driven. While the current environment is undeniably challenging, we have weathered similar storms before — and both the people and the profession have emerged stronger for it.
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Cotopaxi breaks the backpack status quo, replacing the sober earth tones typical of trail gear with a trippy patchwork of colors stitched together from material that would otherwise go to waste.
The Pucci-like color blocking not only brings attention to the Salt Lake City-based outdoor brand’s totes and satchels, it also reflects a pillar of its sustainability strategy. The multicolored panels often come from deadstock, “pre-consumer” leftovers of garment production — fabric rolls, unsold merchandise and canceled orders.
Deadstock appears in roughly 60 percent of the company’s products, says Cotopaxi Vice President of Sustainability and Impact Annie Agle, specifically, in its nylon-and-polyester Del Día bag and polyester Teca jacket collections. That’s up from 36.6 percent in 2023.
“There’s a lot more of a business case for the commercial upside of circularity” than for decarbonization, Agle said, referencing the challenges presented by Trump’s topsy-turvy tariffs and attacks on environmental, social and governance (ESG) activity. What she sees as the sustainability space’s failed “tactical” approach to chasing net zero targets has come at the expense of more creative solutions.
“Everything was about pushing reductions everywhere possible, which I think is great, but if you look at Cotopaxi, for example, our entire carbon inventory is under 40,000 tons of carbon,” she said. “That is a penny in the bucket.”
So Cotopaxi is homing in on circularity operations, from a two-year-old resale program to big-picture, alternative business models.
“How do we produce fewer things while still creating a sense of abundance? How can we deliver newness through resale? How can we ensure affordability on non-tariff items that are from products that have already cleared customs? There are a lot of clever concepts that will allow us to pivot successfully during these times.”
Dealing in deadstock
Last year, Cotopaxi worked some 101,182 yards of leftover fabric — roughly 1,000 football fields worth —into its collections, according to its 2024 impact report, released April 22. That helped the private company to meet its goal of every item containing either recycled, repurposed or third-party certified “responsible” materials.
“While the textiles themselves might not have huge amounts of other sustainability features, it still decouples us very successfully from fossil fuels, by using what’s available,” Agle said. “In many situations, that fabric would almost certainly end up in landfill or incineration.”
Deadstock could amount to 6.3 million tons out of the 35 million used to produce fashion each year, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, while overproduction could contribute as much as 20 percent of the textile industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.
In the decade ahead, Cotopaxi is striving to phase out “harmful or high-impact materials” as it emphasizes low impacts to nature, transparency and traceability, as well as ethical practices in its supply chain.
Manufacturing and materials contribute the majority of Cotopaxi’s climate emissions. The company says it’s already on track to meet its Science-Based Target initiative (SBTi) net zero goal for 2040. Its carbon intensity score, a measure of carbon dioxide per unit of revenue, is less than 1 percent.
Cotopaxi was purpose-driven from its start in 2014, certifying as a B Corporation a year later. It donates 1 percent of revenues to environmental groups through the nonprofit 1% for the Planet.
Founder and Chairman Davis Smith, raised largely in Latin America, named the company after an Ecuadorian volcano. Early on, he bought a pair of llamas on Craigslist to build buzz on college campuses. Cotopaxi grew to profitability around 2019 and exceeded $140 million in sales in 2023.
The company has made several recent leadership hires, including promoting CFO and COO Lindsay Shumlas to CEO in December, and enlisting former Hoka President Wendy Yang as executive chair.
Patchwork ‘here to stay’
The company’s circularity strategy also includes product repairs and the Más Vida resale program. In 2024, its secondhand sales saved roughly 4 metric tons of materials from being wasted and 43 metric tons of CO2 from being emitted, according to Cotopaxi. That’s equivalent to about 27 round-trip flights from New York City to London. Cotopaxi also partnered with Portland Garment Factory on a capsule collection of upcycled clothing last year.
“Tier 2 for us is definitely where we see the most amount of emissions, the most amount of water use,” Agle said, of the supply chain impacts of circularity. “With deadstock, all of those inputs, all of that energy, all of that water, all of that chemistry has already been used. So using what we have definitely decreases new water usage.”
“The patchwork approach to reusing materials is here to stay,” said Cynthia Power, a fashion circularity consultant in New York state and host of the Untangling Circularity podcast. “Deadstock is a great option to lessen impact for as long as it’s a by-product of the textile industry.”
Power advised companies to experiment with circular business models and materials. “Those programs are going to take time to evolve and actually work, so they may not cut emissions tomorrow,” she said. “But if brands can refine and grow them over time, we can create an actual pathway to producing less new stuff, which is a huge goal that feels impossible to most right now.”
Agle, though, expressed little love for fast fashion’s modest circularity plays. “Do I think for a company like that, it’s enough to only pursue a solution like that? No,” she said.
Instead of such incrementalism, Cotopaxi strives for a “holistic” approach to repurposing waste. “Making the choice to not design for trend is a choice we made, and it’s a really significant choice,” said Agle.
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AstraZeneca has won approval from the U.K. government for a low-carbon version of its Trixeo Aerosphere, a widely used therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
The first-of-its-kind device replaces the conventional propellant found in most inhalers — which emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases — with HFO-1234ze(E), a next-generation alternative with a 99.9 percent lower climate change impact, according to the company.
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency approved the new device for clinical use on May 9.
Clinical trials demonstrated that the updated formulation delivers the same dose and therapeutic effect as the original version, ensuring that safety and effectiveness are not compromised.
“Inhaled medicines delivered by pressurized metered-dose inhalers (pMDIs), like Trixeo Aerosphere, are the most-used medicines in respiratory care; they’re nearly 80 percent of all global inhalers used,” Caterina Brindicci, senior vice president and global head research and development, respiratory and immunology at AstraZeneca, told Trellis in an email. “This global first demonstrates that clinicians and health systems can benefit without compromise — they can select the treatment that best addresses their patients’ needs whilst also supporting environmental goals.”
The new Trixeo will become available in the U.K. in the second half of 2025.
Health care’s large footprint
Inhalers are essential for millions of patients with respiratory issues; they are also a surprisingly large contributor to healthcare emissions. Pressurized inhalers like Trixeo typically use hydrofluorocarbon propellants, which are potent greenhouse gases. Inhaler emissions currently account for 3 percent of the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) carbon footprint and about 0.04 percent of total global emissions.
The wider life sciences sector is similarly carbon-intensive. A 2019 study found that pharmaceutical companies produce, on average, 48 metric tons of CO2-equivalent per $1 million in revenue — about 55 percent more emissions per dollar than the automotive industry. In total, the healthcare sector is responsible for roughly 4.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, much of it tied to pharmaceutical production, procurement and use.
AstraZeneca’s move is part of its Ambition Zero Carbon strategy, which aims to transition its entire pressurized inhaler portfolio to the new propellant by 2030.
“We’re investing over $500m to transition our portfolio of medicines delivered by pMDIs to the next-generation propellant, at no additional cost to patients or the healthcare system,” Brindicci said.
Coming to the U.S.
Regulatory reviews are underway in the European Union and China, Brindicci said, for Breztri Aerosphere — the brand name under which Trixeo is sold in many markets. AstraZeneca is also working to bring the next-generation propellant inhaler to U.S. markets, though it could not confirm a timeline.
“The transition of Trixeo to the propellant with near-zero [climate impacts] means that healthcare professionals can focus on optimising outcomes for their COPD patients based on clinical need, while also supporting climate goals,” said Omar Usmani, professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, in a statement. “Clinicians and their patients shouldn’t feel that they have to choose between the most appropriate treatment and the planet.”
Trixeo is not the first attempt to reduce inhaler emissions. Dry powder inhalers — which don’t require propellants — already offer a lower-carbon alternative and are widely prescribed. However, they aren’t suitable for all patients. Children, older people and patients with difficulty breathing may struggle to use dry powder devices effectively, and some patients feel more secure using a pressurized inhaler during acute episodes.
Biotech giant GSK is also working on low-carbon versions of pressurized inhalers. The company aims to begin regulatory submissions this year for a next-generation version of its Ventolin (salbutamol) inhaler using a low-GWP propellant. Ventolin, used by 35 million patients worldwide, accounts for 49 percent of GSK’s total carbon footprint.
The next-generation devices must remain chemically stable, deliver the correct dose and have a long enough shelf life to be viable in the real world — all while meaningfully releasing their impact on the planet.
With the U.K. green light of AstraZeneca’s Trixeo, the regulatory path is clearer. The door is now open for others to follow and for the healthcare sector to continue to reduce its climate footprint.
While the current political environment may be changing when it comes to environmental efforts (pass the plastic straw, please), a recent poll shows demand for sustainable products in the U.S. is strong—and growing.
When Trellis data partner GlobeScan asked hundreds of U.S. consumers about their purchasing habits in March, nearly half of Americans (49 percent) reported purchasing an environmentally-friendly product in the last month, up from 43 percent in August. Over one-third of respondents wanted to buy a sustainable product but were hindered by factors including price, limited awareness and lack of availability, highlighting a substantial unmet demand. Only a small minority—15 percent—expressed no interest in sustainable products. (Previous GlobeScan research shows U.S. consumers identify sustainable products by recycled/recyclable packaging, certifications or labels and the materials and ingredients in the product.)
What this means
Despite a shifting and sometimes hostile political climate, Americans’ interest in sustainability remains resilient. There is a clear and growing opportunity for brands to meet consumer demand by making sustainable products more available and accessible. This demand-driven momentum strengthens the business case for sustainability as consumers increasingly see the marketplace as a way to express their environmental and social values. Brands that empower consumers with credible and meaningful sustainable choices will be best positioned to earn consumer trust, build loyalty and capture market share.
Based on a survey of more than 1,000 Americans conducted March 25—March 28, 2025.
https://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cropped-trellis_favicon_180x180.png3232sustainablefuturehttps://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Untitled-design-117-300x94.pngsustainablefuture2025-05-16 10:00:002025-05-16 18:08:25Survey: Nearly half of U.S. consumers say they buy sustainable products
Efforts by the dairy industry to address the warming caused by methane are gaining momentum, with more companies disclosing data, releasing action plans and reporting progress in reducing emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.
Agriculture creates close to 40 percent of human-caused methane emissions and livestock is responsible for most of that. With plant-based alternatives making only limited inroads into the market, companies with science-based targets are in need of methods for cutting the methane released from cattle burps and manure.
The good news is that the company with perhaps the industry’s most ambitious methane commitment appears to be on track. Danone announced this week that it had reduced methane emissions from its fresh milk supply by 25 percent since 2020, keeping it on course to hit the targeted 30 percent reduction by 2030.
Methane alliance
Danone’s announcement was one of a flurry from members of the Dairy Methane Action Alliance, an industry collaboration convened by the Environmental Defense Fund and Ceres, two climate non-profits. Alliance members commit to disclose methane emissions as a step toward creating an action plan for reducing them. The group, which includes Starbucks and Nestlé, meets every other month.
Other alliance developments include:
Three more companies — Agropur, Idaho Milk Products and Savencia Fromage & Dairy — joined the group.
Lactalis USA and Danone published two of the industry’s first-ever dairy methane action plans.
Bel Group, Clover Sonoma, General Mills and Starbucks also disclosed their dairy methane emissions.
Danone is tackling its methane challenge on multiple fronts, said Chris Adamo, the company’s head of global sustainability impact and B corp. Notable progress has come in lower-income countries, where there is more scope to cut emissions by making dairy farms more productive. This includes working with farmers to source more nutritious feed and introducing breeds of cattle that produce more milk. Danone is also partnering with Sistema, a company that has developed a modular biodigestor that smaller farms can use to process manure into fertilizer and biogas.
Danone generated $31 billion in sales in 2024, but smaller dairy companies are deploying similar tactics. Clover Sonoma sources 100,000 gallons of milk daily from 27 farms close to its headquarters in Petaluma, California. The company is on track to hit its target of cutting methane intensity by 10 percent by 2026, thanks in part to helping its suppliers access government funding for technology that processes manure and reduces emissions.
Feed additives
Neither Danone nor Clover Sonoma, though, is yet deploying another much-discussed methane-reduction approach: feed additives, which studies suggest can cut methane emissions by as much as 90 percent.
“When we jumped into the project, we had some hope that feed additives might be one of the effective levers to drive some change,” said Michael Benedetti, Clover Sonoma’s vice president of sustainability, quality and regulatory. And, in fact, a trial of a seaweed-based additive resulted in a more than 50 percent reduction. But regulatory and sourcing challenges have prevented the company from further pursuing the solution.
Costs are an issue for Danone, noted Adamo; additives are a “pure cost to the farm or to us,” he said. Other mechanisms the company is working on have their own benefits, such as reduced labor due to better manure processing.
Feed additives could still play a role, however, especially as more companies begin to disclose methane emissions and, if they choose to follow Danone’s lead, set reduction targets. There are still plenty of gains to be made using other methods, particularly by improving productivity in low and middle income countries, said Katie Anderson, senior director for business, food and forests at the Environmental Defense Fund. Elsewhere, additional mechanisms are going to be needed, she added: “We have a lot of tools today and we need to use them fully, but we’ll also need more to reach a 30 percent across-the-globe target.”
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Send news about sustainability leadership roles, promotions and departures to [email protected].
HMTX Industries, a privately held maker of vinyl flooring for healthcare and residential construction, in March moved responsibilities for environmental sustainability and social impact programs, managed for the past nine years by Chief Sustainability Officer Rochelle Routman, to the sales and marketing executive it hired in December.
Routman signaled her departure from HMTX with a recent title update on LinkedIn. There was no formal external announcement by her or the company. However, HMTX’s sustainability and impact team now sits under Trevor Stromquist, senior vice president of sustainability, sales and marketing excellence, a corporate spokesperson confirmed.
During a nine-year tenure, Routman managed a organization-wide effort to improve disclosures about the environmental impact and health considerations associated with the material used in the company’s products.
HMTX was one of the first vinyl flooring companies to create health and environmental product declarations and complete a number of high-profile certifications, including the Just and Declare labels from the International Living Future Institute, which examine criteria such as chemicals content and employee working conditions.
“These efforts helped boost the entire sector as the other flooring companies got on board,” Routman said.
Before joining HMTX, Routman spent four years with another flooring company, Mohawk Industries, where she developed its sustainability program. Her move to the flooring industry followed more than a decade of work as an environmental specialist for utilities including Georgia Power and Southern Company, where she prepared one of the company’s first sustainability reports and presented it to the board.
Routman’s first involvement in the sustainability field was at Lockheed from 1990 to 1999, where she succeeded in making colleagues be less reactionary about environmental issues. “That was my main goal: to get people to think ‘beyond compliance’,” Routman said. “At the time, the term was ‘pollution prevention,’ which today would be somewhat equivalent to ‘circularity’ or ‘energy or waste reduction’. The metrics were the same, but the words were different.”
Routman was recognized for her pioneering work in 2014 as part of the inaugural cohort of the Women in Sustainability Leadership Awards. Five years later, she co-founded the alumnae association that took over the awards program in the 2020 timeframe. That group focuses on creating mentorship opportunities for up-and-coming sustainability professionals who identify as women.
What’s next? Routman is exploring board opportunities with both nonprofits and corporations.
For now, she has some words of advice for future leaders. “Avoid playing it safe in your career,” Routman said. “Your skills and talents are most needed in the industries that have the greatest environmental or social impact. Don’t be shy about seeking out these opportunities.”
https://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/cropped-trellis_favicon_180x180.png3232sustainablefuturehttps://sustainable-future.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Untitled-design-117-300x94.pngsustainablefuture2025-05-15 01:23:152025-05-15 18:08:32Flooring company HMTX eliminates CSO position
GE’s Ecomagination initiative, launched May 9, 2005, certainly turned heads. Here was the world’s ninth-largest company, a 113-year-old conglomerate founded by Thomas Edison, inventor of the first commercial light bulb, putting sustainability front and center in its new corporate strategy.
It seems, 20 years later, paradoxically overhyped and underappreciated.
At first glance it appeared to be a slick marketing campaign, complete with fun TV commercials (such as this one, aired during the 2011 Super Bowl, featuring an electric cow). But Ecomagination turned out to be much more than that.
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Ecomagination’s debut, I’ve been reflecting on GE’s bold initiative and its implications for today’s companies. What did Ecomagination teach us about heavily marketed sustainability strategies? What impact did it have on GE’s business and reputation? How would an Ecomagination-like initiative fare in today’s complex business and political environment?
And what are the lessons learned from the entire effort?
What was Ecomagination?
When GE’s then-CEO Jeff Immelt took the stage at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., to announce Ecomagination, the company was seen as a laggard in sustainability, if not an outright eco-villain.
The company — which at the time manufactured everything from lightbulbs to aircraft engines to large healthcare devices such as those used for MRI and CAT scans — had a long and unenviable environmental reputation. Over a 30-year period starting in the mid-1940s, GE released more than a million pounds of toxic PCBs into the upper Hudson River, a byproduct of its nearby manufacturing of electrical capacitors. Over time, PCBs contaminated nearly 200 miles of the Hudson, making it the nation’s largest Superfund site. (In 2015, GE announced that it had removed the majority of the toxins, at a cost of more than $1 billion.)
At the same time, GE’s business customers were seeking to reduce their energy spend along with their greenhouse gas emissions. Immelt and his team saw a significant business opportunity that might also dig the company out of its reputational hole.
So GE committed to:
Double its annual revenue from “clean technology” products, from $10 billion in 2005 to at least $20 billion by 2010, “with more aggressive targets thereafter”
More than double its research investment in cleaner technologies, from $700 million in 2004 to $1.5 billion in 2010
Reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 1 percent by 2012 and the intensity of its greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2008, both compared to 2004. (Based on the company’s projected growth, GE said its emissions would have otherwise risen 40 percent by 2012.)
Given the company’s environmental history, GE’s announcement was met with skepticism. Critics called it “greenwashing,” among other epithets, noting that the company continued to operate in polluting sectors such as coal and oil. Moreover, Ecomagination included technologies that would make oil sands production and natural gas fracking marginally cleaner, which sustainability experts and activists saw as fundamentally misaligned with true climate leadership.
GE was, though, also ramping up production of wind turbines, solar inverters, electrified locomotives and a dozen or so other truly cleaner technologies.
What went right?
The company made clear that Ecomagination was unabashedly about growing revenue. Its goal was to drive business growth through clean technology, energy efficiency and environmental stewardship, while also improving GE’s own operational footprint.
In that regard, the company exceeded its goals. By 2010, five years after launch, GE claimed $85 billion in cumulative Ecomagination revenue. (The company used a third party to assess and certify whether products and associated revenue met the Ecomagination standard.) It also could boast impressive gains in reduced emissions, water use and other metrics.
Ecomagination’s 5-year status report
From GE’s 2010 progress report on Ecomagination, showing results of the first five years of the initiative.
One key success factor was that Ecomagination goals were owned by the entire company leadership. “This was GE board-level approval; the biggest champion was the chairman and the CEO,” Deb Frodl, the company’s chief marketing officer at the time and later head of Ecomagination, told me recently.
Money talked. The fact that GE could show impressive revenue growth from its greener products from the get-go gave the program solid momentum, internally as well as externally.
Moreover, it won over some critics, including Mindy Lubber, CEO of Ceres who, in a previous role, led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the Northeast region, including overseeing litigation related to the Hudson River cleanup. Lubber was one of GE’s eight-member Ecomagination Advisory Board.
“For the CEO of one of the largest multinational companies to sit through four- and six-hour meetings and followups to make sure input was heard and goals were clear, I think that stayed pretty consistent,” Lubber told me.
What could have gone better?
Policy support, for starters. “We thought federal policy and smart regulation would follow, and that didn’t happen,” said Frodl. “Cap-and-trade didn’t happen. The Clean Power Plan didn’t happen. There was just nothing to give us the tailwinds.”
There was also a messaging muddle. The initiative’s broad scope — encompassing both breakthrough technologies and incremental efficiency improvements — blurred the line between what was truly game-changing and what was business-as-usual. And the company’s unwillingness to divest from its “dirty tech” businesses or prioritize emissions reductions beyond legal requirements fueled skepticism about the depth of its commitment.
What was the outcome?
By the time Ecomagination was shuttered in 2017, it had achieved significant results in business growth, R&D investment, emissions reductions and other key metrics. According to Frodl, writing in 2017, during Ecomagination’s 12-year life, GE:
Invested $20 billion in Ecomagination solutions
Generated $270 billion in revenue
Reduced greenhouse gas emissions and freshwater that saved the company more than $480 million
Saved customers more than $3 billion in energy and water costs while helping them reduce more than 5 gigatons of greenhouse gases
But even those stats belie the greater changes in GE, said Frodl. “I honestly believe that it changed the company for the good. It culturally changed the mindset to be ‘We’re innovating some of the world’s most efficient technologies.’”
Could Ecomagination exist today?
It would be difficult, particularly in the United States, where political forces are keeping corporate sustainability initiatives low-key, and in Europe, where aggressive greenwashing rules would likely tamp down some of the bold commitments GE made in 2005.
That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen, said Lubber. “It should happen in most large businesses. Informed, stakeholder input that’s done in the right way, that’s not about throwing bombs on street corners but about hearing each other, is a helpful thing.”
What were the learnings from Ecomagination?
Business first, sustainability second: Ecomagination was explicitly a growth strategy, not an environmental mission. GE’s leadership was upfront about saying that the initiative’s goal was to capitalize on the emerging demand for cleaner technologies.
Rebranding vs. reinvention: Much of the early success came from rebranding existing products (such as wind turbines and efficient turbines) as Ecomagination products rather than fundamentally transforming the business or divesting from polluting sectors. The approach, though, did raise questions about the depth of the company’s commitment to sustainability.
Scale and impact discrepancy: While Ecomagination generated billions in revenue and notable environmental progress, the achievements were modest relative to GE’s overall scale. For example, its Ecomagination Challenge, an open-innovation process that solicited ideas from individuals and start-ups to identify potential energy ventures for GE to invest in, led to $140 million of investments, a mere blip considering GE’s $37 billion energy business.
Skepticism and legacy issues: Despite public commitments and transparent reporting, GE continued to face scrutiny from environmental groups — especially around legacy pollution issues, such as the Hudson River cleanup. The company’s marketing prowess sometimes outpaced its substantive change.
Innovation and collaboration, within limits: Ecomagination’s open innovation efforts fostered collaboration and generated thousands of ideas. But the scale and timeline for these innovations to materially affect GE’s core business highlighted the challenge of integrating breakthrough sustainability into large, established firms.
In the end, the cautionary tale of Ecomagination is that even well-publicized, well-funded and board-backed corporate sustainability initiatives can fall short of transformative change if they prioritize business growth over systemic environmental impact, rely heavily on rebranding and fail to fully address legacy issues.
Still, Ecomagination demonstrated the potential of aligning profit with purpose in business, while reminding today’s leaders of the need to balance ambition, transparency and genuine transformation.
