Back Market, an e-commerce startup that specializes in secondhand electronics and appliances, is piloting a New York retail location amid double-digit sales growth projections both for its own business and the market category.

The 1,500-square-foot store in lower Manhattan offers products priced 30 percent to 70 percent less than new models — from gaming consoles, notebook computers and mobile phones to household appliances. A digital display refreshes in real time with prices from its e-commerce site, and that data is used to offer in-store dynamic pricing.

The site will be open through December, with the goal of collecting information about consumer preferences and educating them about alternatives to “fast tech” that is literally designed to become obsolete, said Laura Benton, general manager of the U.S. operations for Back Market.

“To really shift behavior, we can’t just be an online site. We need to meet customers where they are,” she said.

Although Back Market hasn’t committed to opening a permanent retail location, it’s using the New York store to gauge consumer trust in refurbished gear, draw more attention to its online site and gather more information about future buying intentions.

“The priority is the opportunity to hold our customers’ hands, and learn as much as we can,” Benton said.

Many factors are driving cost-conscious consumers to buy secondhand appliances and technology, including inflation, unpredictable U.S. import tariffs and higher prices on new products. Back Market tackles some of those dynamics head on, by merchandising “new” versus “old” models and challenging people to identify which is which. 

The store also offers seminars about repair, and repair services in collaboration with long-time partner iFixit, which publishes repair videos and how-to guides.

Source: Trellis Group/Heather Clancy

Fast growth

Paris-based Back Market, founded in 2014, has raised more than $1 billion in venture capital from firms including General Atlantic. In January 2022, it was valued at $5.7 billion.

Back Market projects almost $3.5 billion in sales for 2025: transactions grew more than 30 percent in the second quarter alone, and it has more than 17 million customers. The company has sold more than 30 million devices since 2014, which it estimates helped avoid 2 billion kilograms of carbon emissions along with the chemical concerns of electronic waste. France is its biggest market, followed by the U.S.  

The secondhand tech category was valued at about $94 billion in 2023 and is forecast to grow at a pace of 15 percent annually, reaching $434.4 billion by 2034. High–profile retailers including Amazon, eBay and Walmart all support robust e-commerce sites for technology, appliances and electronics.

“The shift away from fast tech is no longer a niche trend, it’s becoming a cultural norm,” said Thibaud Hug de Larauze, co-founder and CEO of Back Market, when the company announced its latest projections. “Consumers are choosing durability, repair and reuse because it makes sense for their wallets and the planet.”

Back Market estimates that refurbished products account for 36 percent of all tech sales. Big brands such as Hewlett Packard and Lenovo are prioritizing design for repair, reuse and refurbishment, and training their sales teams to represent these products to customers. Lenovo, for example, recycled or reused about 129 million ThinkPad computers between 2020 and 2023.

What differentiates Back Market from its rivals is an obsessive focus on verifying the quality of products accepted for resale. All items sold by Back Market are inspected and refurbished to certain specifications. Products come with a one-year warranty. 

The company created a business-to-business version of its service, which more than 6,000 companies including Kering and Air France use to buy refurbished IT equipment. This is a practice that’s becoming more common among big companies that have big emissions or electronics recycling goals.

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Projects that prevent methane from entering the atmosphere are emerging as one of the fastest growing areas of carbon markets, with a surge in the number of credits being issued and interest from high-profile buyers such as Google and Netflix.

The attention is driven in part by the urgent need to capture methane, a potent greenhouse gas that the IPCC estimates is responsible for roughly a third of the global warming observed over the past century. 

Methane is also an attractive focus for carbon credit funding. It leaks from sources that are relatively easy to tackle provided the funding is there, including landfills, orphaned oil wells and disused mines. And compared with some other credit mechanisms, such as forest protection, project developers face a simpler task when it comes to estimating the climate benefits of their work.

Propelled by these factors and corporate demand, annual issuances of credits from methane projects have tripled to more than 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent since 2019, according to Allied Offsets, a carbon markets data firm. 

Annual issuances of methane credits

Prominent deals include a purchase by Google of credits from a project that capture methane from a landfill in Cuiabá, Brazil, and enterprise software company Workday’s deal with Tradewater, a project developer that caps orphaned oil and gas wells. Netflix retired around 300,000 methane credits annually between 2022 and 2024, roughly 30 percent of the company’s total, according to the streaming giant’s sustainability reports.

The surge in interest is sparking other initiatives. Last month, for example, Vaulted Deep, a project developer that buries organic waste underground, said it would partner with Google and Isometric, a carbon credit registry, to develop methods for estimating methane emissions from organic waste.

The process is not well understood, in part because the waste can contain many substances. Putting a figure on it could boost the value of Vaulted’s credits, which at present are based on the quantity of carbon the company locks away in underground storage. This ignores the methane that would be released if the waste were spread on land or sent to landfill, as well as other impacts.

“Methane is a precursor to ozone, and ground-level ozone aggravates asthma,” said Bryan Epps, Vaulted’s head of commercialization. “It reduces crop yields, damages ecosystems and has all kinds of really significant negative effects.”

The range of methodologies open to project developers will also increase, with Isometric announcing this week that it will develop a new protocol for destruction of methane from landfills. “We’ve had really strong interest from major carbon removal buyers such as Google in bringing our scientific rigor and tech-enabled crediting into this important area,” said Lukas May, the company’s chief commercial officer. 

Quality concerns

Due diligence on methane projects can feel relatively straightforward, in part because the projects are often clearly “additional” — meaning that the capture of the methane would not take place without the funding from credit sales. But independent experts caution against assuming that all methane projects are high quality. Calyx Global, a carbon credit rating agency, shared data with Trellis showing that methane projects assessed by the company are over-represented in high ratings, but many low-quality projects in that class exist nonetheless.

Quality ratings from Calyx Global

One flag for buyers to watch for is an on-off pattern in credit issuances. Last year, CarbonPlan, a nonprofit that studies climate solutions, looked at 14 landfill projects and questioned whether six were genuinely additional. The researchers found that the six stopped issuing credits for years at a time, but continued to operate methane capture equipment during those periods. 

That the equipment ran continuously was good for the planet, the CarbonPlan team noted. “But offsets must be used to spur new climate action — not just reward existing actions.” 

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As readers of our favorite sustainability newsletter —  Trellis Briefing — know well, staying current in this fast-changing field isn’t enough. The most successful professionals stay ahead. That means tracking each new regulation and all emerging tech, not to mention shifts in consumer demand and a crisis that changes daily.

Trellis Briefing offers a unique blend of management advice, regulatory updates, corporate case studies and more makes it a must read for anyone in the industry.

But we’re the first to acknowledge that there are more than a few other newsletters in our sector that we like — and read.

Whether you skim these “subscribes” as you sip your morning coffee or save them for a leisurely weekend scroll, they will keep you plugged into both what is and what’s next. 

If you want clean energy news that cuts to the chase …

Axios Energy takes the ever-changing world of sustainability, from policy moves to corporate shifts, and breaks it all down into bite-size, inbox friendly reports. From renewables to grid tech, Axios Energy is a must for anyone tracking the business of decarbonization. As you peruse their website, you’ll happily note that each read takes no more than three minutes. That’s shorter than the time it takes to brew a cup of joe.

If you want your sustainability news served with a side of global depth and data …

Few sustainability news outlets combine breadth and rigor like Bloomberg Green. From deep dives into the financial side of climate action to people-first stories of adaptation and innovation, its reporting highlights how environmental action is reshaping the economy, politics and culture worldwide. You might find your next sustainability breakthrough within its (digital) pages. 

If you want to follow the money …

Perfect for investors and founders, Climate Tech VC has proven itself a global voice in the business of sustainability. The weekly newsletter tracks deals, trends and venture movement across the industry, pairing data with insight to create the perfect window into where climate capital is flowing.

If you want to know what’s really happening in Washington …

While policies might not always make for attention-grabbing headlines, we’re never ones to discount the importance of staying informed. We believe policy reporting can and should be enjoyable, which is why Power Switch from Politico is on our list. The newsletter delivers sharp, inside-the-Beltway reporting on the political forces shaping today and tomorrow’s environmental scene. 

If you want your climate journalism to replace your daily doomscroll …

Heatmap does what few sustainability publications do: makes its readers laugh. It has carved a niche in the sector that is both entertaining and informative, covering everything from the cultural impact of sustainability to the politics of electrification. The newsletter delivers punchy climate coverage with bright colors, savvy pop culture references and jokes aplenty.

If you want energy media that connects the dots …

Few outlets capture the pulse of clean energy, renewables and the climate revolution like Canary Media. This nonprofit newsroom provides a clear-eyed look at decarbonization — from solar wind to electrification — while explaining what works, what doesn’t and why. The newsletter is committed to bringing solutions to a sector full of questions, connecting policy to technology and technology to people. 

If you want clarity in a feed full of headlines …

Carbon Brief offers its readers a daily breakdown of the biggest stories in sustainability while maintaining a voice that’s clear and factual. If you’re looking for crisp, data-driven stories that prioritize comprehension over haste, you’re in the right place. With charts that cut through the noise, data that doesn’t distort and analysis that connects policy and science, the newsletter delivers evidence-based journalism that keeps readers thoroughly informed without overwhelming them.

If you want to hear unique individual voices …

Climate activist legend Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, brings decades of environmental insight to his Substack, The Crucial Years. With nearly 100,000 subscribers, it reflects on grassroots campaigns, policy battles and big-picture climate trends. Other notable climate apostles: Michael Thomas, whose newsletter Distilled boasts 16,000 subscribers, and Emily Atkin, whose 145,000-subscriber-strong HEATED was termed “impassioned [and] deeply reported” by New York Magazine.

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When the sustainability team at the outdoor clothing company Patagonia began developing a science-based target, it knew it faced a formidable challenge.

Upwards of 85 percent of Patagonia’s emissions are generated by suppliers. The company’s goal, validated by the Science Based Targets initiative in 2023, commits it to cutting those emissions by 55 percent by 2030. Yet Patagonia’s supply-chain network contains hundreds of companies, and it can exert only limited influence over each. 

Consider a supplier that dyes fabrics. Patagonia might want to help the company replace a fossil fuel boiler with an electric version — a costly project that would take years to complete. But Patagonia’s purchases may account for 1 or 2 percent of the supplier’s business. Why would Patagonia fund the change only to see the large majority of the emissions savings flow to the supplier’s other customers?

The solution was an innovative means of accounting for the benefits of such an intervention. Patagonia began work on the approach internally but soon teamed up with the Advanced and Indirect Mitigation (AIM) Platform, a cross-sector initiative crafting guidelines for what is known as insetting or value-chain intervention. The guidelines — currently being tested by H&M Group, Heidelberg Materials, Netflix and others — entered a second pilot phase last month and are due to be finalized next spring.

Patagonia has in fact signed a contract to replace a boiler used by a supplier in Taiwan. The supplier is currently monitoring its business-as-usual emissions, which will serve as a baseline against which to assess future savings. When the new boiler is in place, Patagonia will receive credits, known as environmental attribute certificates (EACs), that can be netted against emissions from dyeing across its Scope 3 inventory. The company expects to receive credits for 27,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from the project this year.

Countless other projects could be catalyzed if the AIM Platform can develop trusted rules for guiding this and other value-chain investments. Pilot testers are using the rules to oversee funding for projects to purchase renewable energy on behalf of suppliers and customers, enable the switch to sustainable maritime fuels and reduce on-farm emissions.

“We see platforms like AIM as essential for scaling high-quality climate solutions across industries,” said Taylor Gries, sustainability manager at REI, another pilot tester.

One area the guidelines will cover is how credits are allocated. Kim Drenner, Patagonia’s head of environmental impact, said each contract has a defined period, ranging from 5 to 15 years, during which the company funding the work would receive credits covering all the emissions savings. Patagonia gauges the value of potential interventions by estimating the cost per ton of avoided carbon dioxide emissions. “That can range from around $90 a ton, all the way up to $300,” said Drenner.

Negotiating agreements with suppliers can be challenging, in part because relationships with other customers can be affected. Because Patagonia is netting all the savings against its emissions inventory, none of the supplier’s other customers can claim similar emissions savings. To guard against such double counting, the contract prohibits the supplier from sharing emissions data in a way that customers have come to expect.

“We’re coming in and saying, ‘We’re going to buy these EACs from you; you can’t send that data,’” said Drenner. 

This second pilot phase for AIM will focus on guidelines for assessing the quality of an intervention and how companies should measure the emissions savings. It follows an earlier test of rules for determining whether an intervention is part of a company’s value chain, and hence part of its Scope 3 emissions. The platform is a joint initiative of three non-profits: Gold Standard, the Center for Green Market Activation and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

The post Patagonia pilot project shows how to catalyze climate finance across economy appeared first on Trellis.

PepsiCo, like many other companies with environmental commitments set or reset in the 2020 timeframe, downgraded some goals within its 2025 sustainability reporting cycle — extending the deadline for its long-term net-zero commitment from 2040 to 2050.

Its decision to proactively communicate those changes, however, is rare in a year when other high-profile companies are downplaying or delaying communications about their ESG progress. At least half of the companies that published reports during the first half of 2024, for example, delayed their latest versions in 2025. 

PepsiCo, in contrast, offers deep detail about its revisions and the thinking that drove them in its comprehensive online reporting hub, updated in August. 

“We wanted to be as transparent as possible, because transparency plus accountability equals trust,” said PepsiCo Chief Sustainability Officer Jim Andrew, during the latest episode of Climate Pioneers, our series featuring innovators and leaders shaping the corporate climate movement. 

“If you wanted to wade through the footnotes and understand the logic, we tried to make that as clear as possible,” he said. “And then we also had a very simple summary, so if you wanted to hit the high points, you could also do that.” 

It takes a system

PepsiCo reviews all sustainability goals comprehensively every four to five years, not just as a reporting exercise but to understand what should be changed. Each commitment was evaluated separately to better understand what was driving or prohibiting progress. The goal: learn and adjust.

“If we haven’t learned anything in four or five years, then shame on us because certainly a lot of things look different,” said Andrew, who reports to PepsiCo’s CEO and meets with his counterparts in the C-suite at least monthly.

The prevailing rationale for many downgrades PepsiCo describes in its disclosures — including the extension of its net-zero commitment by 10 years and its retreat from a 2030 pledge to cut virgin plastic consumption by 20 percent — is the lack of systemic support for those ambitions, according to Andrew. 

“Overall, there’s things that individual companies can do, and there’s a range of aspirations and commitments to doing those things by different types of companies, but there is also a tremendous amount that’s dependent on the systems that we’re all a part of,” he said. 

Because the majority of national emissions reduction commitments are pegged to 2050 or later, it’s difficult for any one multinational corporation to accomplish the same thing more quickly.

“You can’t move a system as big as ours around the world faster than the whole world is moving,” Andrew said. “It’s just unrealistic. So we said 2050 is much better aligned with what the world is doing.” The new targets are also aligned with the goal of keeping global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius, whereas the previous ones were set for a 2 degrees change.

Point of influence: regenerative agriculture

Not all of PepsiCo’s revisions reflect a belief that progress will be slower. The $92 billion company — which gets roughly 60 percent of its revenue from food brands including Lay’s and Quaker Oats — made its targets for sourcing ingredients tougher to achieve by increasing a commitment to buying from farms using regenerative agriculture to 10 million acres by 2030, up from 7 million. As of its latest progress update in August, it had achieved 3.5 million acres.  

The new goal represents well over half of the land required to grow around 50 major crops — notably oats, potatoes and corn — needed for PepsiCo’s products. 

The economic crisis in farming is one reason for this heightened focus, Andrew acknowledged, because regenerative agriculture provides an opportunity for farmers to reframe their value proposition. It also gives PepsiCo a role in that transition.

Just as important for PepsiCo’s confidence in making the shift was the supportive network of corporate partners that it collaborates with to develop initiatives and incentives for the roughly 300,000 farmers in the conglomerate’s agricultural chain, which spans 60 countries.

For example, PepsiCo in September said it is teaming up with another consumer products giant, Unilever, to provide funding and technical support to local farmers in Canada and the U.S.

It’s important to provide farmers financial incentives, technical advice and cultural support to bridge the transition to regenerative agriculture practices, which usually takes three to four years. In many tight-knit U.S. farming communities, regenerative agriculture is still seen as an unorthodox choice that neighbors might question. PepsiCo builds provisions for this support into contracts with farmers that are willing to make the commitment. 

“I think that many farmers know that moving to regenerative practices is better for their farms, better for the soil,” Andrew said.

Methods such as planting cover crops to protect soil erosion and decreasing fertilizer usage lower costs for the same yield and improve resilience. “You end up better off, but you’ve got to get from here to there,” he said. 

Watch the whole Jim Andrew interview. Look for more coverage of this conversation and other Climate Pioneers features by signing up for Trellis Briefing.

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