Work in health care? These 4 strategies can help you cut costs and carbon content 

When you think of the biggest polluters of greenhouse gas emissions, health care may not be top of mind. But the health care system is responsible for 8.5 percent of GHGs in the U.S. and about 5 percent globally. 

At the same time, health care systems are increasingly affected by the climate change impacts of those outsized emissions. This ranges from facilities being hit with extreme weather and volatile energy prices to patients experiencing heat-related ailments or new illnesses brought on by changing disease vectors from a warming climate. Health systems are also chronically underfunded, and the current administration’s reduction of health care funding will exacerbate the problem. 

Fortunately, there are opportunities for health care players of all sizes and stages to reduce their costs through decarbonization – and also contribute to reducing the negative societal and health impacts of emissions.

Decarbonization creates value for health care systems in many ways. The NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB) conducted a Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI) analysis to understand the financial value drivers of decarbonization strategies in health care. Working with the Commonwealth Fund, Health Care Without Harm and the National Association of Medicine’s Health Care Supply Chain Working Group, we cataloged and prioritized decarbonization strategies that can drive financial improvement for health care delivery systems. These key strategies include energy management, transportation optimization, building design and maintenance, sustainable sourcing, food service optimization, low-emissions clinical care, waste reduction and responsible investments. The examples below illustrate how these strategies can drive value for the health care industry.

Building design and energy management

CSB examined the decarbonization of building facilities for a Midwest hospital system and found that an energy retrofit approach of existing facilities would net $1 per square foot. A net-zero building design for new construction would net the building $2 per square foot—helping defray the cost of investment and providing savings over time. 

Transportation optimization

When CSB explored last-mile delivery optimization for a health care solutions company, it discovered that by maximizing pharmaceutical deliveries for a single route within a region, the company could reduce fuel emissions and save $254,000 annually. Anecdotally, the firm also discovered staffing efficiencies by consolidating incoming deliveries.

In another example, Kaiser Permanente’s Richmond Medical Center implemented a microgrid that connects renewable energy and battery storage to a pre-existing, diesel-fueled backup power system. It has the potential to save as much as $394,000 per year.

Waste reduction through circularity

Medical facilities generate significant waste through reliance on single-use, disposable products. CSB explored the benefits of applying a circular approach in a hospital system, designing a program to incorporate reprocessed medical devices into their procurement process. An initial cost of half a million dollars led to $3.5 million in annual savings. 

The University of Minnesota Medical Center reformulated operating room (OR) kits to reduce disposable products deemed unnecessary as part of individual kits. Across two campuses, reformulation of OR kits diverted 10,553 pounds of waste per year, saving $116,215 annually on purchasing unnecessary products and paying for waste disposal.

Another added benefit to circularity in hospitals is that it can insulate the hospital and their suppliers from tariffs, because they will need fewer imported parts and materials.

Lower-emissions clinical care 

With 80 percent of health care emissions coming from Scope 3, decarbonization in the supply chain is especially important. For the pharmaceutical industry, we found that reformulating a product using a green chemistry approach reduced water, chemicals, energy and waste by approximately 80 percent across the board for one company, with a cost savings of approximately $1.5 million per 100 metric tons of product. 

Category Savings per 100 metric tonne
Avoided carbon emission fees ($5/ton) $240,000
Reduced water use $766,000
Reduced industrial waste disposal $364,000
Reduced electricity cost $177,000
Total savings $1,547,000

In addition, our landscape analysis of direct emissions for health care delivery systems found anesthetics to be a significant contributor to hospital GHG footprints, with estimates of up to 40 percent. Mitigating the use of certain volatile anesthetic gases such as desflurane and nitrous oxide in favor of lower-emitting options resulted in a 78 percent reduction in emissions and $2.4 million in savings annually for one Providence-based provider.

5 steps to take

Hospitals early in their decarbonization journey may wonder where to start. Some decarbonization steps, such as energy-efficiency projects, can be taken with a relatively short payback period and lower initial investment. The savings from these projects can then support funding for other more intensive projects. To begin, companies can: 

  • Benchmark Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions using the Greenhouse Gas Protocol or other standardized tools.
  • Identify the greatest area of GHG reduction, likely strategies to reduce emissions and low-hanging fruit from a financial perspective. Energy efficiency through conservation, management, circularity and waste reduction should be the first step, followed by renewable energy sourcing.
  • Create a roadmap for investment: choose an initial project, perhaps a lower investment and quicker payback one like energy management to complete first.
  • Track financial returns and leverage benefits from the completed project to build buy-in and use savings to finance higher impact, longer term, or more intensive sustainability strategies.
  • Rinse and repeat.

Decarbonization in health care is good for the planet, patients, and the bottom line. By prioritizing decarbonization and other sustainability initiatives, professionals can help the health care system be more resilient in the face of political, economic and climate shocks.

[Connect with more than 3,500 professionals decarbonizing and future-proofing their organizations and supply chains through climate technologies at VERGE, Oct. 28-30, San Jose.]

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How REI reached a key zero-waste milestone before Target and Walmart

Outdoor retailer REI Co-op kept 90 percent of the discarded packaging and other waste generated at its 190-plus stores, distribution centers and warehouses out of landfills or incinerators in 2024 — delivering early on a 2025 goal and edging out other national chains including Walmart and Target that have made similar commitments.

REI’s long-term vision is to become a zero-waste operation, although the 24 million-member co-operative hasn’t published a target date for its ambition.  

“Being literally zero waste — i.e. 100 percent diversion from landfill — is an aspiration,” said Andrew Dempsey, director of climate at Seattle-based REI, which logged $3.76 billion in sales for 2024. “We have no timeframe on this, but we hope to improve diversion across our stores by 0.5 percent this year.”

REI recycled or composted 78 percent of its waste in 2020, and the company reached 86 percent in 2023. It’s the first high-profile retailer to report the 90 percent mark, a claim that was audited and independently verified. The disclosure was made in REI’s latest ESG report, published May 8. 

Two larger retail organizations that have made zero waste a top priority are still shy of their goals, as of their latest environmental impact progress reports. 

Target, aiming for zero waste by 2030, was at 85 percent as of July 2024. Walmart’s diversion rate for 2023 was 83.5 percent. The world’s largest retailer by revenue was aiming for 90 percent diversion in the U.S., Mexico and Canada by the end of 2025, but acknowledged in February that it will fall short of the mark.

Reducing waste plays directly into retailers’ Scope 3 emissions reduction commitments, specifically at the end-of-use stage, Dempsey said. It also gives the REI workforce a very tangible way to contribute to the company’s climate goals.

“Our employees are absolute champions of this work across our distribution centers and our retail fleet,” Dempsey said. “They touch and feel [waste] every day. It makes the concept tangible in a way that metric tons of carbon does not.” 

Creative ways to eliminate single-use plastic

Plastic packaging makes up REI’s biggest waste stream, and Dempsey outlined the ways that the retailer drives down plastic use across its operations and gets rid of what winds up in its facilities:

Trex partnership 

REI’s relationship with Virginia-based wood alternative manufacturer has turned 2.5 million pounds of polyethylene plastic film into decking. REI gets paid for sending the baled material to Trex; it won’t say how much.

Packaging policy

REI’s private-label apparel is rolled and bundled with raffia ties that can be composted. It asks brands to eliminate single-use packages and charges a $0.01, per-unit fee for anything that doesn’t comply. One sticking point of this policy is that it requires changes to distribution center processes to protect products from becoming soiled.

“A lot of it comes down to simply cleanliness of conveyor belts that are moving the product around within your distribution center, making sure that your staff understands why it’s not in plastic and really what the intention is there,” Dempsey said. 

The fee goes toward the extra back-end work required to bale different types of plastic so that REI can send it out to be more readily recycled. “What we really want to do is work with these brand partners to design that plastic out of the system,” Dempsey said.

New best practices

Some REI facilities use the Total Resource Use and Efficiency (TRUE) certification program created by the U.S. Green Building Council, which recognizes processes that contribute to zero waste. Three distribution centers are certified, and a fourth is awaiting recognition.

Circular economy boosters

In 2024, REI sold almost 1.4 million items through its Re/Supply program, which markets used gear. The business has doubled since 2019. The most popular items are backpacks, sleeping bags and tents. Camping items represent approximately 20 percent of REI’s overall sales.

The resale business reduces waste at a product’s end-of-use stage. The company estimates that the emissions associated with preparing these items for resale are about half of those associated with the production of a new edition.

“Keeping gear in use longer is the best thing you can do, both from a climate standpoint and then obviously from a waste standpoint,” Dempsey said.

Recent additions to REI’s takeback program include an initiative to collect and recycle electric bicycle batteries. The retailer collects other items that are hard to process, such as bike tires and tubes, and it’s prioritizing refillable fuel canisters. 

REI is also sourcing more recycled materials for its products: approximately 52 percent of the polyester and 45 percent of the nylon it sources, according to the brand’s latest impact report. And it’s making some running apparel from a new material made by LanzaTech, which turns industrial waste gases, including carbon dioxide, into low-carbon yarn.

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Why Target is tagging 35 million pieces of clothing with digital IDs

By 2040, Target wants to reach net zero climate emissions and design 50 branded product collections “for a circular future.” More immediately, the Minneapolis-based retailer intends to craft its Universal Thread clothing for circularity this year. Target’s move in that direction included embedding digital product passports (DPPs) into millions of units of Universal Thread apparel at the end of 2024.

Target’s DPP approach involves a QR code printed on a tag near the garment’s brand label. Several weeks ago the company launched the option of scanning the code with a smartphone to launch “shop the look” suggestions for related products. It also introduced one-click resale, run by the social re-commerce service Poshmark. Users scan the tag, choose a “sell my item” option, and the product information flows into the listing.

“We’ve got 35 million units now that are in distribution that automatically have integrated resale built into the product,” said Jason Breen, Target’s senior director of owned brand circularity and innovation. He spoke on April 29 at the Trellis Group Circularity 25 event in Denver.

A passport to resale and reuse?

One can think of digital passports as an extension of care tags on clothes. When scanned, DPP-enabled tags surface details about where the product’s materials originated, how it was built and instructions for washing, drying and eventually disposing of it.

The sustainability goals for DPP-enabled tags include helping consumers trace their preferred materials and corporate practices.

The circularity goals include guiding the owner to keep a shirt in wearable shape, and later find responsible resale, repair or recycling options. DPPs are also meant to help logistics companies and recyclers to understand the nature of the product and track it through post-consumer journeys.

At Circularity 25 in Denver, Jason Breen of Target showed how QR codes appear in Universal Threads clothes. Credit: Trellis Group

“I think of DPPs as the past, present and future of everything we purchase,” said Liz Alessi, founder of Liz Alessi Consulting in New York. “We are just scratching the surface of their potential.”

Target does not have stores in Europe, where companies are racing to adopt DPPs. The European Commission’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation require apparel, electronics and other products to include digital passports by 2030.

The Swedish H&M Group’s “sustainable fashion” brand Arket has piloted DPPs. So have Burberry of London and the Dublin-based bra-and-panties brand Bon+Berg. From New York state, Eileen Fisher has experimented with DPPs as well.

Encoding circularity

Target’s circularity requirements include “taking steps to eliminate waste, keep products and materials in use longer, and decrease our dependency on natural resources” for its own branded products.

Several years ago, the company began exploring the potential for DPPs to communicate about circularity, which consumers understand less than recycling, according to Breen. “No one’s asking for a bar code in their jeans,” he said.

Another aim was to assist sorters and recyclers. After taking a risk by front-loading digital tags into one brand, Target is watching consumer engagement before possibly rolling them out to its other brands, Breen noted.

Car seats, denim and the ‘F’ word

The company drew on its earlier large-scale stabs at circularity. Target’s most successful trade-in and recycling program has collected 3 million car seats since 2016. In 2024, it began selling plastic shelving, bins and buckets made from 30 percent plastic downcycled from those car seats, which consumers had exchanged for a coupon. The recycling didn’t perfectly close the loop on waste, according to Breen, but did provide credibility and lessons that can expand beyond car seats.

“What consumers really want is how to manage waste, and how do they get it out of their house,” he said. That became a motivation when Target started prototyping circularity concepts.

That said, the retailer’s attempt at a denim collection program last year was a relative flop, according to Breen. His team was “pumped” during the nine weeks they hustled to assemble a back-to-school program for consumers to bring in old jeans. Working with recycling partner Debrand, they made a plan for an anticipated voluminous amount of fabric but their math was off. The flow of items barely reached projected calculations. Although customers were eager to get rid of car seats, which have few disposal or donation options, the same dynamics don’t apply to clothing.

“Let’s talk about the ‘F’ word: failure,” Breen said. “There are going to be things that you get right and there are going to be things that you are not going to get right.”

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Google uses carbon credit purchase to tackle short-lived super-pollutants 

Google’s latest purchase of carbon credits targets a subset of greenhouse gases that is attracting increasing attention: super-pollutants that make an outsized if short-lived contribution to global warming.

The tech giant announced today that it had contracted for credits generated by projects that will eliminate 25,000 tons of methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 2030. Because the two gases trap heat more effectively than carbon dioxide, the impact of the credits over 100 years will be equivalent to eliminating 1 million tons of CO2, the company noted.

“We’re focusing these two deals on eliminating super-pollutants because at the highest level, it is scientifically the right thing to do,” said Randy Spock, Google’s carbon credits and removals lead.

One tranche of credits will come from work with HVAC systems in Indonesia, where Recoolit, the project developer, will pay technicians to safely destroy HFCs from home ventilation systems. A second project, developed by the non-profit Cool Effect, will help fund the installation of methane destruction equipment at a landfill in Cuiabá, Brazil.

New credit type

The purchases are a first foray by Google into the mitigation of super-pollutants. The company spent $100 million in 2024 on contracts for 790,000 tons of CO2, with a focus on biochar, enhanced rock weathering, direct air capture and reforestation — all projects that capture the gas from the atmosphere.

Super-pollutants pose a particular kind of problem, as they do not fit neatly into existing emissions accounting systems that compare the warming impact of different gases to CO2 over a 100-year period. Using that metric, the warming impact of methane is roughly 30 times greater than CO2. But that’s in part because most emitted methane leaves the atmosphere within a decade or so. Measured over a 20-year time frame, methane’s impact is around 80 times that of CO2. The emphasis on 100-year accounting means the contribution of methane and other super-pollutants to near-term warming is undervalued in mitigation strategies.

That appears to be changing. The Global Heat Reduction Initiative, a spin-off from SCS Global Services, a standards-setter and certifier of environmental projects, is promoting a more holistic form of emissions accounting that considers the near-term warming caused by methane and other gases. The initiative recently delivered its first customer report.

Tailored approach

In Google’s case, the company is considering how to tailor its credit purchases to compensate for both the short- and long-lived emissions it’s responsible for. “We have to acknowledge that we have both kinds of emissions in our footprint, and we need to address both,” said Spock. 

In the company’s 2024 sustainability report, Google disclosed around 700 tons of methane emissions and 28 tons of HFCs in Scopes 1 and 2. The bulk of its emissions, though, were in Scope 3, which it did not break down by gas type.

Projects devoted to destroying HFCs are a relatively new idea, and none are yet registered with major carbon market standard setters, noted Ciska Terblanche, director of technologies for research and analytics at Calyx Global, an independent rater of carbon credits. Calyx has, however, issued high ratings for some similar projects focused on destroying ozone-depleting substances. “We believe this project type can generate high quality credits, particularly in developing countries,” Terblanche added. 

Spock said that third-party verification was a requirement of the deal and would be in place before credits were generated by the projects.

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Americans want CEOs to speak up, defend climate action

The current landscape of environmental rollbacks and economic uncertainty hasn’t stopped Americans from expecting their leaders to take a stand on social issues — at least not yet.

In a public opinion poll of more than 1,000 U.S. citizens, Trellis data partner GlobeScan found that despite political backlash against sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), the American public continues to expect principled leadership from business. A clear majority — 71 percent — say CEOs should speak out about the importance of addressing climate change, and 67 percent say CEOs should publicly defend DEI initiatives. What’s notable is that this support is broad-based: 56 percent of Republicans agree that CEOs should speak out on climate, while 50 percent support defending DEI. In terms of demographics, Democrats (83 percent) and Gen Z (78 percent) are the strongest supporters of CEOs speaking out on DEI initiatives, but a majority of Baby Boomers (56 percent) also back CEO leadership on this issue. 

What this means

In today’s volatile environment, the temptation may be to stay silent or respond reactively to political pressure. But this is no time for CEO-hushing. Americans want something different. They want CEOs to speak up on issues that are at the core of their company’s values and are relevant to their mission and stakeholders. Courageous leadership doesn’t mean weighing in on every controversy; it means recognizing when an issue is critical to your brand and business, defining non-negotiables, drawing red lines and stepping forward with clarity and conviction.

Based on an online survey March 25-March 28, 2025.

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How Colgate-Palmolive’s CSO links sustainability to value creation

Ann Tracy has championed strategies that marry efficiency and environmental goals for most of her three-decade career with Colgate-Palmolive — across the toothpaste market leader’s manufacturing, customer service, logistics and supply chain. 

Today, her job is to position Colgate-Palmolive’s net-zero agenda as a catalyst for innovation and commercial growth.

“The new era we’re entering into for sustainability is really doubling down now on the business case, on the value creation aspect,” Tracy said in the latest episode of Climate Pioneers.

When Tracy was named Colgate-Palmolive’s first chief sustainability officer in February 2020 she reported to the supply chain organization. In 2022, however, her team was made part of the growth and strategy team, which manages the commercial side of the business. 

With that shift, the $20 billion company began to consider emissions and plastic reduction commitments as components of its growth plan. A key mantra of its CEO: “We can do anything, but we can’t do everything.” Tracy is part of two dozen senior leaders who make decisions about what matters.

“I think that allows me to make sure that sustainability remains built into the decisions that we’re making,” she said. “Not to say there aren’t tradeoffs and it’s not tough, particularly in this environment. But I think that’s important.”

Stay the course

Colgate-Palmolive’s energy efficiency measures, for example, have had a big impact on expenses — a savings of at least $1 billion in electricity costs since it began measuring this impact almost 20 years ago, according to Tracy. “For us, that’s a significant number,” she said. “It’s a significant number for anyone.” 

She noted three successful tactics:

  • A program that allocates at least 5 percent of manufacturing capital expenditures for energy reduction, water conservation and waste management measures.
  • The Energy Treasure Hunt initiative, which sends 30 to 50 people to sites with the goal of identifying improvement opportunities; 2,500 projects were surfaced through 2023.
  • A team dedicated to creating tools and resources that scale successful reduction measures so they can be used in multiple locations.

Colgate-Palmolive’s commitment, validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, is to be net zero by 2040 — making it one of the few consumer products companies with an approved commitment. Short-term goals coming due in 2025 include a 20 percent emissions reduction for its own operations and for purchased energy (Scope 1 and 2), and a 20 percent cut in the footprint for purchased goods and services (Scope 4). 

The baseline year for both targets is 2020. It’s unclear whether Colgate-Palmolive will deliver — its emissions increased slightly in 2023, compared with 2022. “We are learning that our journey will not likely follow a strictly linear path,” the company said in its 2024 climate transition plan.

The same is true of the company’s plastic reduction targets; Colgate-Palmolive had aimed to make all of its packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by the end of 2025. As of Dec. 31, 2023, it had managed about 90 percent.

Still, Tracy isn’t wavering about where the company will land at the end of 2025 and whether it needs to adjust its 2030 priorities. “We are staying true to our targets,” she said. “We are not announcing any dial-backs.”

Colgate-Palmolive is aiming for a 42 percent emissions reduction by 2030 for both its own operations and purchased goods and services.

Swords versus shields

Colgate-Palmolive divides its climate, nature and waste management commitments into two categories: “shields,” which are compliance-driven, and “swords,” which center on potential for corporate value creation. 

“Shields are the thing we have to get down because of taxes, fees, reputational risk, regulations,” Tracy explained. “Swords are where we want to lead. We’re pretty choiceful about where we want to lead.”

As an example of the latter, Tracy pointed to Colgate-Palmolive’s zero-waste strategy, which commits the company to manufacturing all of its products at sites certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Total Resource Use and Efficiency (TRUE) initiative by the end of 2025.

The TRUE certification requires that sites divert at least 90 percent of waste from landfills or incineration. By the end of 2023, 80 percent of Colgate-Palmolive’s manufacturing facilities had earned the designation.  

“We’re not that great at putting hard numbers against it,” Tracy said, “but the amount of money that saves across all sites that are becoming certified is significant.”

Colgate-Palmolive’s introduction of a recyclable, squeezable toothpaste tube in 2019 — which started as a plastics-reduction goal — is another strategy that both reinforces the brand’s value as an innovator in toothpaste and cuts production-related emissions and water consumption.

The single-material design is now used for more than 90 percent of its toothpaste brands, reducing emissions related to materials production by 26 percent per tube. Raw materials add up to more than half of Colgate-Palmolive’s product design and procurement emissions. “If you think about the fact that we make close to 10 billion tubes every year, that’s a lot of carbon benefit,” Tracy said.

The design is also used by Colgate-Palmolive rivals, because the company opted to share its recipe. The idea is to convince recyclers to boost recycling rates for this packaging — about 20 billion toothpaste tubes made out of multi-layered plastic are thrown out annually. Colgate-Palmolive accounts for almost half of that.

Proceed with ambition — and caution

As Colgate-Palmolive’s team takes stock of its 2025 progress, Tracy said the company’s focus will be on choosing “ambitious but achievable” pathways to reach the 2030 goals. “We’re doubling down on the targets that have to have value drivers or that have to drive value creation,” she said.

Tracy acknowledged the headwinds faced by corporate sustainability professionals amid the changing rules of the Trump administration, but said Colgate-Palmolive’s investors are still interested in seeing progress against its climate goals. 

“Like all companies, we’re being careful about the narrative,” she said. “We’re being careful about what we say — we have to be — but I think, internally, we still are staying the course.” 

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Renewable energy’s scale-up provides a blueprint for carbon removal

In March, Climate Impact Partners, a long-standing carbon project developer, signed a 30-year offtake agreement with Microsoft to deliver 1.5 million carbon removal credits from its Panna project, a community-led forest restoration effort in Madhya Pradesh, India. The project’s finance structure looks a lot like a wind farm, said Climate Impact Partners CEO Sheri Hickok, who previously led General Electric’s international windfarm development.

Hickok thinks borrowing lessons from renewable energy’s rapid growth could accelerate the expansion of carbon removal projects. Both incur the majority of their lifetime costs upfront, during project development, and repay that investment over years. Purchase contracts for both typically span decades and often lock in fixed pricing. 

These long-term offtakes derisk the upfront investment, establishing the price certainty necessary for investors to finance project development with confidence, and simultaneously secure buyers access to the renewable energy or carbon credits necessary to meet future climate commitments. 

“Corporates know how to do [virtual power purchase agreements] in renewable energy,” said Hickok. “We do [carbon purchase agreements] in carbon.” The similarity could give companies confidence in signing long-term carbon offtake agreements because it’s a structure they’ve seen before.   

12 million new trees

The Panna project will restore nearly 50,000 acres of cropland and community lands in central India. The community will plant nearly 12 million native and fruit trees, drawing 3 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere over the project’s lifespan. Microsoft has already claimed half of these carbon credits; Climate Impact Partners will sell the remaining half to other buyers. It’s Microsoft’s largest carbon removal purchase in the Asia Pacific region to date, and first in India.  

Terra Natural Capital, an environmental commodities investment company, is providing the project finance in stages, based on milestones that include planting rates and community engagement. 

The project’s robust pilot, experienced team and demand commitment from Microsoft made it stand out as a strong investment, said Terra Natural Capital Managing Director Erica Vertefeuille. In addition, Kita, a carbon credit insurance company, is insuring the Panna project against under- and non-delivery, reassuring investors.  

Learn from renewable energy’s success

The rapid expansion and declining costs of renewable energy provide a roadmap for other climate technology deployment at scale. Two ingredients have underpinned the renewable energy boom over the past three decades, according to a 2024 report from Terra Natural Capital:

  • Government policies, such as subsidies and tax credits, spurred demand and reduced risk.
  • Corporate demand signals provided long-term price certainty. 

These factors made renewable energy project returns more predictable, opening the door for financial institutions to invest and get projects off the ground. And with the growing field experience, technology costs have steadily declined, making renewable energy a more attractive investment to buyers and creating a positive feedback loop, leading to a steady increase in deployments.  

Source: The Business Council for Sustainable Energy, here

Carbon removal can follow a similar path. “Carbon pricing is serving the same role as government policy did for renewable energy,” said Hickok, with long-term offtakes such as Microsoft’s contract with the Panna project providing the price certainty critical for private capital to dive in.

Although renewable energy is experiencing record growth, its path wasn’t always smooth. Early on, reliability concerns and demand uncertainty made many investors hesitant to commit large sums. Once the market accelerated, early investors gained competitive advantage. 

Carbon removal is now facing many similar uncertainties. But early movers are poised to reap the same benefits as those who acted early on renewable energy purchasing.  

“We are working to demonstrate real returns, infrastructure-type returns, on long-term carbon development,” said Hickok. “We have to get finance flowing into the carbon markets to scale, to build out the capability in the industry.”

Where carbon projects must blaze their own path

To be sure, carbon removal presents unique challenges. For one, nature-based carbon removal operates on nature’s timelines: It can take five to 10 years before a project consistently delivers a stream of carbon removal credits. That’s slightly longer than typical return timelines from a wind or solar farm, making patient capital and long-term offtakes even more critical for the carbon sector.

Although buyers and investors willing to take a long view with carbon offtakes are still in short supply, that commitment also makes carbon projects particularly impactful to local communities, offering “long-term employment and a transformative view of business models for implementation partners,” said Ben Gatley, Climate Impact Partners’ head of commercial project development. As a result, “they can make quite different decisions around how they run their organization.”

Climate Impact Partners estimates that over the investment timeframe farmers involved with the Panna project will double their incomes from fruit tree yields and carbon payments.

Next step: standardizing finance

The next step to scale the carbon removal industry is to standardize finance structures, according to Vertefeuille. “All project finance into large infrastructure projects looks and smells the same. It took a long time to get there,” she said. Getting there took practice to establish repeatable playbooks. 

“The first movers in renewables had their choice of projects prior to the rise in demand that limited options later on,” said Hickok. “This is the same outlook for carbon.”  

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U.S. carbon removal industry in turmoil as federal support remains uncertain

Will President Trump’s administration continue to fund the carbon removal industry, a sector that previously enjoyed bipartisan support?

Recent signs are not encouraging.

Many of the officials who were overseeing removals work at the Department of Energy left earlier this year. A key deadline for a $35 million removals competition passed this week without an update. And one company that’s expecting funds from the DOE has cancelled a project and started laying off employees, Trellis has learned.

The changes concern two initiatives that are pillars of what was considered a bipartisan approach to boosting carbon removal under the previous administration. The larger of the two by far is the Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program. In March of last year, contracts that could eventually exceed $1 billion were awarded to companies working to build hubs in Louisiana and Texas. The three companies behind the Louisiana hub — Battelle, Climeworks and Heirloom — received an initial award of $50 million.

Media reports have questioned whether the remaining monies will be paid. Three sources close to the matter told Reuters in March that the DOE was considering scrapping the hubs program. The department described the comments as “speculation,” but uncertainties around the funding stream appear to have impacted Heirloom, the smallest of the companies involved.

Capture departures

Founded in 2020, Heirloom captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by reacting the gas with calcium hydroxide, commonly known as “lime.” The company completed a $150 million investment round in December and has contracts with a United Airlines venture fund, Microsoft and others. 

One carbon capture facility planned by the company has been cancelled and multiple staff members have left over the past six months, including the manager of the cancelled project, according to an employee who left the company during that period and spoke anonymously because they remain involved in the industry. 

The former employee said that uncertainty around the future of the hubs was the reason for some of the layoffs. A review of LinkedIn profiles confirms that at least 10 technical staff have departed since December. 

Heirloom declined to comment on the cancelled project or the departure of specific staff. “As we scale our operations, Heirloom continues to adapt to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving industry,” said Scott Coriell, the company’s head of PR and content. “That includes making strategic changes to our team — letting go some employees while hiring for new roles essential to executing our priorities.”

Climeworks told Trellis that the uncertainties around the DOE funding have not resulted in any layoffs. Battelle did not return a request for comment.

Purchase prize

The second impacted initiative is a $35 million purchasing prize, announced in 2022, to be awarded to carbon removal companies that supply credits to the government. The 10 winners of the latest round of judging were due to be announced May 7, according to the project timeline. Officials at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which oversees the prize, did not return a request for comment on when, or if, an announcement was forthcoming. 

As with the capture hubs, it’s possible that the competition has been impacted by cuts, including layoffs at the laboratory, rather than a decision by senior staff to discontinue the projects. Many in the carbon removal industry remain confident that tax credits for carbon removal, another key means of government support for the industry, retain the bipartisan backing needed to survive attempts by the Trump administration to cut them.

Yet the nascent carbon removal industry remains heavily reliant on government support and lags behind where it needs to be in order to provide the gigatons of removal that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says will be necessary by 2050. 

The prize is “one of the first instances, if not the first instance, of government procurement of carbon dioxide removal credits” and was designed to provide “much-needed support to early and growing carbon removal companies,” said Grant Faber, a manager of the direct air capture hubs program who left the department in March.

As with many federal projects, the future of the prize and the hubs will be determined in part by lobbying from the industry, as well as the elected officials who represent the state and districts where the projects are located.

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Colorado company powers secondhand sales for Lululemon, The North Face and Patagonia

Key takeaways

  • Tersus enables major fashion brands to scale their resale and repair programs through innovative, low-impact cleaning and logistics services.
  • Its liquid CO2 cleaning technology reduces waste and preserves product quality, keeping apparel in circulation longer.
  • Investing in circular infrastructure helps brands find new revenue streams while meeting consumer demand and satisfying emerging regulations.

Tersus Solutions sorts, cleans and ships clothing and shoes for the branded resale storefronts of about three dozen companies, including The North Face, Patagonia, Dr Martens and Eileen Fisher. Items by Lululemon, its latest partner, are quickly filling up the company’s distribution center at its headquarters in Englewood, Colorado.

The secret ingredient in its high-pressure washing machines is carbon dioxide, which it recaptures and recirculates for future cleaning cycles. This low-impact, nearly waterless way of spiffing up used merchandise has enabled Tersus to become a linchpin in the emerging circular economy for outdoor brands and contemporary fashion.

“This is how a brand can disrupt itself,” said CEO Peter Whitcomb. “You already made a product, now get more use out of it. It’s an annuity.”

Online resale grew by 23 percent last year and could reach $40 billion in the U.S. by 2029, according to the ThredUp 2025 Resale Report released in March. In 2019 only a handful of brands ran resale storefronts. Now it’s more than 160.

Luke Fowler, director of repairs and upcycling, shows how Tersus Solutions has labeled a yellow Dinali jacket from The North Face to track its way through cleaning and distribution.
Luke Fowler, director of repairs and upcycling, shows how Tersus Solutions has labeled a Dinali jacket from The North Face to track it through cleaning and distribution.
Source: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Trellis Group / Elsa Wenzel

Tersus is poised to ride that growth wave, especially if the White House’s erratic tariff actions drive more shoppers to secondhand. The company also expects the 25,000 repairs it handles annually to climb quickly. One nudge is California’s extended producer responsibility legislation, which in July 2026 begins requiring apparel companies to take action on products after their end of use. Trending right-to-repair legislation may provide another boost.

“There are all these different ways in which they are becoming the hub for the future of circularity,” said Nancy Rhodes, co-founder and CEO of New York startup Alternew. Her company announced on April 23 a partnership with Tersus to test how the two can use tailors across the U.S.

E-commerce resale programs — such as The North Face Renewed and Dr Martens Rewair — make up a small fraction of brands’ overall sales. And brands like them because rather than cannibalizing sales of new items secondhand listings attract budget-hampered consumers to brands they otherwise couldn’t afford.

Tersus’s three businesses include secondhand cleaning, repairs and shipping for brands; decontaminating chemical-laden firefighting gear for fire departments; and recycling down, which it sells to brands or wholesalers. The company turns over more than 90 percent of what it processes in a given month.

Bagged up garments enter a liquid CO2 washing machine at Tersus Solutions.
Bagged up garments enter a liquid CO2 washing machine at Tersus Solutions.
Source: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Trellis Group / Elsa Wenzel

“Zero things we touch go to landfill,” said Whitcomb, noting that items that it can’t rescue or remake wind up donated or recycled. Tersus recently expanded its space for sorting, cleaning and shipping to roughly 100,000 square feet.

The back story

As the head of circular commerce at REI before the COVID pandemic, Whitcomb needed to clean 100,000 sleeping bags for the brand’s rental program. He contacted Steve Madsen, who had developed a novel method of dry cleaning that he spun into Tersus Solutions in 2009. Masden had built relationships with outdoor brands including the Worn Wear resale program that launched in 2012 for Patagonia, Tersus’s biggest outside investor.

After a stint leading partnerships with San Francisco-based reverse logistics company Trove, Whitcomb joined Tersus as president in 2021.

Tersus Solutions only photographs garments that are either missing a photo or have unique features or damage that differ from what's in the database.
Tersus Solutions photographs garments that are either missing a brand photo or have unique features or damage.
Source: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Trellis Group / Elsa Wenzel

Tersus handles apparel and footwear mostly from consumer returns. That includes new-condition items rejected for size or color. “Someone wore these, but they still have the tag,” Whitcomb said, holding up sneakers, connected at an unwalkable distance by a tag. “This is a common use case.”

Other incoming merchandise includes older clothes and shoes that people returned to a brand’s take-back program in exchange for store credit. Tersus also repairs goods damaged while under warranty.

Over the past six months, more companies have been asking about repair options. That’s a massive shift, according to Tersus.

Tersus Solutions has a specialized business serving three fire departments. It cleans firefighters' uniforms of toxic chemicals, which are taken away in 55 gallon drums for hazardous waste disposal.
Tersus Solutions has a specialized business serving fire departments. It rids uniforms of toxic chemicals, which are taken away for hazardous waste disposal.
Source: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Trellis Group / Elsa Wenzel

The material flow

Delivered via truck, row after row of boxes packed with returns from from multiple brands occupy Tersus’ plant floor.

“We see all sorts of weird stuff,” Whitcomb said, like trucked shipments contaminated by mold or garlic. Tersus lays out rancid-smelling items in the sunshine before bringing them indoors, piece by piece.

Each product’s path through Tersus starts when a staff member inspects, identifies and grades its condition, logging details into computers running Archive or Trove software. They add a bar code tag to the inside of the garment for tracking purposes.

Sewers at Tersus Solutions in Englewood, Colorado.
Sewers at Tersus Solutions in Englewood, Colorado.
Source: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Trellis Group / Elsa Wenzel

Digital product passports that assign unique identifiers to new products might eventually eliminate this manual labor, but Whitcomb doesn’t expect that to happen soon. That’s because Tersus sometimes processes items that are a decade or two old. Some may cycle through more than once, he noted.

Goods eventually land next door in the fulfillment center for shipping. Tersus ships out tens of thousands of products each month.

The technology

Tersus tosses nearly all apparel and shoes, bag by bag, into its liquid CO2 cleaning machines, about 100 pounds at a time. It neither uses traditional dry cleaning chemicals, such as the recently banned perchloroethylene, nor the solvents used by “green” dry cleaning shops.

A colorful The North Face Remade jacket shows off the fact that it was refashioned from parts of secondhand jackets.
A jacket from The North Face Remade flaunts that it was refashioned from parts of secondhand jackets.
Source: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Trellis Group / Elsa Wenzel

Madsen, Tersus founder and chief technology officer, invented a low-waste cleaning system. The CO2 machines look like regular laundry equipment on steroids, with their innards exposed on the sides. As internal pressure builds to up to 950 pounds per square inch, the CO2 gas liquifies. The machines run at close to room temperature. The original prototype, from 2011, still runs daily.

The washing drum jostles the garments gently. This preserves garment colors and water repellent coatings, and sheds minimal microfibers, according to Madsen, who added that stains and oils come off easily come off. At the end of the cleaning, pressure comes down, returning the CO2 to gas form. Items come out cool and dry.

The company reuses 96 percent of the CO2 and captures microfibers and chemicals such as per- and polyfluoroalkyls (PFAS).

After cleaning, the photography lab occasionally documents clothes with unique features or flaws.

The distribution center at Tersus Solutions was formerly a kitty litter factory. Tersus bought a Zamboni machine to remove the fine dust from the floor.
The distribution center at Tersus Solutions was formerly a kitty litter factory. Tersus bought a Zamboni to remove the fine dust from the floor.
Source: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Burgundy Visuals / Louis Bryant IIISource: Trellis Group / Elsa WenzelSource: Trellis Group / Elsa Wenzel

The North Face, 20 minutes away in Denver, occupies a special corner of the Tersus plant. Here, the outdoor brand’s Remade creations, such as jackets with mismatched sleeves and bodice, emerge from melding imperfect garments. “Five years ago, those would have gone to an incinerator,” Whitcomb said. 

This differs from mundane repairs that restore apparel to like-new condition. A refurbished shirt, for example, might feature Tersus’s own sewing thread, or an industry-standard YKK zipper instead of one with a branded pull.

Average repair time is 13 minutes. Tersus sends repair data, which can reveal failure patterns in garment production, to customers.

Once an item is ready to ship, a staffer wraps a branded paper “belly band” around it and slips it into a plastic mailer. The return address is Tersus Solutions.

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Tylenol maker Kenvue integrates sustainability into product design process

Key takeaways

  • Replacement for Pamela Gill-Alabaster, the storied departing head of global sustainability, signals key strategy shift.
  • Kenvue plans to prioritize the embedding of sustainability metrics during R&D.
  • Gill-Alabaster’s advice for sustainability leaders: “Stay grounded in data and leverage it as a strategic advantage.” 

Send news about sustainability leadership roles, promotions and departures to [email protected].

Kenvue’s global head of ESG and sustainability, Pamela Gill-Alabaster — who established the Tylenol maker’s sustainability strategy after it split with Johnson & Johnson — is stepping down in June to “enjoy a bit of life” and consider her next role. 

Upon her departure, Kenvue will fold responsibility for sustainability strategy into the R&D and operations division.

Jennifer Duran, previously vice president of product resilience and sustainability for Kenvue, will become group head of sustainability. She spent 16 years at British consumer products company Reckitt, where she designed its product sustainability strategy and chaired the ingredients steering committee.

“Kenvue is taking the next step to more deeply integrate sustainability at the heart of where we design and produce our products,” the company said through a spokeswoman.

Gill-Alabaster joined Kenvue in December 2022 after two years as senior vice president and global head of sustainability and social impact for toymaker Mattel.  

Busy tenure

Kenvue, which reported revenue of $15.5 billion in 2024, was previously the consumer healthcare division of Johnson & Johnson, selling brands including Tylenol, Listerine, Band-Aid and Neutrogena. It was spun off as an independent company in August 2023.

Gill-Alabaster oversaw the validation of Kenvue’s science-based targets for emissions reductions and the publication of its first sustainability report. The company doesn’t have a net-zero target, but its short-term commitments include reducing absolute emissions for Scope 1 and 2 by 42 percent by 2030 and convincing suppliers representing about two-thirds of this Scope 3 emission to set reduction goals. 

Gill-Alabaster also set policies for sustainable sourcing and introduced  the company’s first refillable packaging formats.    

Over 40 years in the corporate sector, Gill-Alabaster worked in corporate social responsibility programs at Revlon, the Estée Lauder Companies and L’Oréal. She teaches an ESG strategy course in Columbia University’s Master of Sustainability Management program. Gill-Alabaster was recognized with a Women in Sustainability Leadership award in 2022 but intends to take on another position after some time off.

“Having begun my career as a marketer, I want to continue working at the intersection of brand, purpose and impact, creating values-based campaigns, programs and platforms that move people and markets toward positive change,” Gill-Alabaster said.

Gill-Alabaster believes there is much reason to be hopeful about the future of the profession. “My advice is to stay relentlessly focused on materiality and the issues that matter most to your business and stakeholders with emphasis on managing risk, building resilience and unlocking growth,” she said. “Make sure you stay grounded in data and leverage it as a strategic advantage. This is a moment for clarity, focus and perseverance.” 

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