What’s next: Key climate and nature standards in 2026

Welcome to the Trellis timeline of updates and public consultations regarding voluntary net zero, carbon accounting, nature and circular economy standards — both established guidance and emerging frameworks.

This roundup was updated July 2 with information about a new chemical recycling standard from SCS Standards and Assurance Systems; the Global Reporting Initiative Pollution Project; updates about several Greenhouse Gas Protocol workstreams; a new wave of freshwater pilots by the Science Based Targets Network; and the new net-zero methodologies from the Science Based Targets initiative and the International Organization for Standardization.

Jump directly to your category of interest for details. The featured categories:

This list is not comprehensive. It is updated periodically as new drafts are published, new standards take effect or public consultations are opened — so bookmark this page. If you’d like to suggest an addition or update, email [email protected]. 

Emissions accounting (The Greenhouse Gas Protocol)

Actions and Market Instruments
Status: A first public consultation of one potential component — consequential accounting for electricity — ended Jan. 31, and a white paper covers what to expect.
Key dates: The draft standard will be circulated for feedback in Q3. 
What: GHG Protocol is proposing new rules for accounting for the benefits of climate actions that go beyond companies’ direct operations. Investments in supply chains and other areas, sometimes known as insets or value-chain interventions, are not covered by existing reporting frameworks.
Updated 7/2/26

Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard
Status: An overhaul is under review by the organization’s independent standards board.
Key dates: First draft was due for public consultation in Q2; it is still pending.
What: The Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, first published by the GHG Protocol in 2001, one of the first methodologies developed to help companies create comprehensive greenhouse gas inventories; the suite of standards includes amendments for Scope 2 (related to electricity) and Scope 3 (value chain emissions).
Added 7/2/26

Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard
Status: Draft for public consultation is due in the second half of 2026.
Key dates: The working group took up its final topic of discussion — how to manage circularity — in April. 
What: The standard, first released in 2011, measures emissions from 15 categories of upstream and downstream activities outside a company’s direct control, such as purchased goods and services. The revision may change those groupings. It’s expected to offer guidance for how to report on sustainable aviation fuel as well as other contracts that companies use to avoid emissions.
Updated 4/16/26

Land Sector and Removals Standard 
Status: Published Feb. 2 and due to take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
Key dates: Practical details for how to approach the standard were published June 30 in a guidance document.
What: Land Sector and Removals Standard, a new GHG Protocol methodology for reporting on nature-based and engineered carbon removal projects, was five years in the making. It offers comprehensive guidance for calculating emissions generation and removal and accommodates the use of “mass balance,” which lets companies mix low-carbon and conventional crops.
Updated 7/2/26

Scope 2 Guidance
Status: The GHG Protocol closed a consultation on a major and controversial revision of its rules for reporting renewable energy contracts and transactions on Jan. 31.
Key dates: Feedback will be collected on a second draft later in 2026, with a final draft anticipated by 2027.
What: The methodology, first published in 2015, is widely used by companies to report on renewable energy transactions, including power purchase agreements for solar and wind power.
Updated 2/12/26

Net-zero and impact targets

B Lab Standards (a.k.a B Corp Certification) (B Lab Global)
Status: Version 7 of the certification took effect March 11. 
What: B Lab’s certification standards require companies to meet minimum performance thresholds in seven environmental, social and governance topics and commit to continuous improvement. The changes, after four years of public consultation, were made as more large companies seek certification. 
Added 3/17/26

Corporate Net Zero (Science Based Targets initiative)
Status: Public consultations on the first draft closed in December.
Key dates: The updated standard, incorporating feedback, was published June 11. A final version is planned for the fourth quarter.
What: SBTi is shepherding a major revision of the Corporate Net Zero Standard, version 2.0, that anticipates the organization finalizing in 2026 to take effect on Jan. 1, 2028. Approximately 2,220 companies have validated SBTi pledges to become net zero by 2050, while another 2,800 are setting them.  
Updated 7/2/26

ISO Net Zero (International Organization of Standardization)
Status: ISO is reviewing the draft of its first standard for “net-zero aligned organizations.”
Key dates: Consultation draft published June 17; ISO’s member organizations will collect feedback for 12 weeks.
What: The methodology originated as a guidelines document, but ISO decided to turn it into a full-blown standard at the urging of companies and other stakeholders frustrated with the rigidity of other net-zero frameworks.   
Updated 7/2/26

Power Sector Net-Zero Standard (SBTi)
Status: Developed in collaboration with 120 experts, a final version of the rules is due in Q4. 
Key dates: Pilot testing for the guidance launched after Q1.
What: The SBTi’s net-zero guidance for electric utilities, which dovetails with the organization’s Corporate Net Zero Standard, was circulated for industry consultation in late 2025.
Added 3/17/26

Circularity

Certification Standard for Responsible Chemical Recycling (SCS Standards and Assurance Systems)
Status: Published June 16.
What: Billed as the first independent standard for organizations using pyrolysis, depolymerization and other chemical and molecular approaches to recycle plastics. It covers management systems, disclosures, how a facility approaches social and environmental issues, water stewardship, waste management, among other processes.
Added 7/2/26

Global Circularity Protocol for Business (World Business Council for Sustainable Development)
Status: Version 1.0 published in November 2025.
What: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development and One Planet Network consulted more than 150 experts to develop what’s being described at the GHG Protocol for the circular economy. The 236-page playbook offers guidance for how to identify priority materials for reuse or recycling, and how to measure the impact of using recovered materials versus virgin ones.
Added 2/12/26

Reusable Packaging Systems Design Standard (PR3: The Global Alliance to Advance Reuse and CSA Group)
Status: Design requirements for refillable containers appropriate for the food and beverage industry, published Feb. 25.
What: Standards organizations PR3: The Global Alliance to Advance Reuse, and CSA Group are collaborating to write six standards that dictate how companies use reusable packaging for various applications in the U.S. and Canada. This is the second framework to be released, covering issues such as how many washes a container must be able to withstand and which chemicals are inappropriate.
Added 3/17/26  

Biodiversity and nature

Corporate Guidance for Assessing Water Scopes 1-3 in Value Chains (CEO Water Mandate, SCS Global Services, World Resources Institute, World Wildlife Fund)
Status: Project launched April 30.
Key dates: A draft of the guidance will be circulated for public comment in mid-2027.
What: Four well-known environmental organizations are collaborating to standardize how corporations calculate water risks and impacts not only from their own operations but from electricity contracts and supply chains, too. Their goal is a model akin to the “scope” system for greenhouse gas emissions that GHG Protocol uses to define carbon footprint accounting.
Added 5/12/26

GRI101: Biodiversity (Global Reporting Initiative)
Status: The latest revision is now in effect for reporting after Jan. 1.
What: GRI published a major revision to GRI101: Biodiversity, for disclosing corporate impacts on nature, in January 2024 to align with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. 
Added 2/12/26

International Water Stewardship Standard Version 3.0 (Alliance for Water Stewardship)
Status: Major revision released March 18.
What: Version 3.0, which corporations use to assess their water impacts and make disclosures, was adopted in December 2025 by the Alliance for Water Stewardship after two years of development and more than 3,000 public comments. Changes include clearer minimum requirements, more context about the alignment between water and climate goals, and tighter alignment with the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. 
Added 3/18/26

Science-based Targets for Nature (Science Based Targets Network)
Key dates: A major technical update is due in late 2026, with a focus on land, freshwater and ocean commitments. 
What: The Science Based Target Network was formed to create guidance that covers science-based commitments related to freshwater, land, biodiversity, ocean and climate. The first part of its methodology was published in May 2023; so far, 10 companies have had targets validated including GSK, Holcim and Kering. A new cohort of companies including Adidas, Danone, General Mills and H&M Group is testing SBTN’s freshwater guidance from June to September.
Added 7/2/26

Reporting frameworks

GRI Pollution Project (GRI)
Status: Drafts for public comment published in late March.
Key dates: Final standard scheduled for publication in 2027.
What: GRI is revising existing disclosure frames for ozone-depleting substances, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and other significant air emissions. The organization wants companies to report in more detail about the impact of their emissions on air, soil and water. It also expects more data on how they handle pollution crises.
Added 7/2/26

SASB Standards Exposure Draft (International Sustainability Standards Board) 
Key dates: Feedback sought by July 24.  
What: ISSB is part of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation, which manages frameworks that companies use for disclosures to investors. The SASB Standards — used to report on sustainability-related risks —are all being updated to align better with ISSB’s other frameworks. The draft covers the remaining three methods that need an update: agricultural products; meat, poultry and dairy; and electricity utilities and power generators.  
Added 4/16/26

Environmental management

ISO 14001 (International Organization of Standardization)
Status: The 2026 edition of the standard was published April 15.
What: More than 670,000 organizations use ISO 14001, the world’s most widely adopted environmental management systems standard, to certify their operational practices for resource use, waste and pollution. The update includes adjustments that reflect shifting priorities, including new practices related to nature and biodiversity.
Added 4/16/26

Plus, methodologies to watch

Advanced and Indirect Mitigation (AIM) Platform (The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Center for Green Market Activation and Gold Standard)
Status: Version 1 of the guidance document published on April 14.
What: Guidelines for measuring and reporting the impact associated within “insetting” projects meant to reduce the emissions in corporate supply chains. The standard was piloted by H&M, Netflix, Patagonia and 30 other companies. Patagonia, for example, is monitoring how a transition away from gas-fired boilers can cut the footprint associated with fabric dyeing.
Updated 4/16/26

Book & Claim standard (ISO)
Status: Published Jan. 22.
What: A system from ISO for claiming emissions reduction credits related to corporate procurement of green steel, low-carbon cement, sustainable aviation fuel, clean hydrogen and other emerging technologies that have lower carbon footprints than traditional options.
Added 2/12/26

Carbon Measures 
Status: Reached 26 members, including Bank of America and Toyota. Added 23 advisors, including experts from BASF, Dow, Microsoft and RMI.
Key dates: The group’s first report is due this summer. 
What: The controversial initiative, co-founded by ExxonMobil, seeks to create an emissions accounting system focused on products not broad categories. It’s linked to E-liabilities, which advocates a methodology that measures the carbon footprint of products and then assigns part of the carbon “liability” to customers.   
Added 4/16/26

Climate Contribution Framework (Sweep and Mirova Research Center)
Status: Launched in November 2025, the approach is being piloted by utility EDF, Renault and Schneider Electric.
Key dates: Scores from companies tested the framework are due in June.
What: A system that measures the potential emissions reductions or other climate mitigation potential of a company’s investments in low-carbon technologies. It considers actions including products sold by the company and the financing it puts toward solutions beyond its value chain, such as carbon credits.
Added 5/28/26

Mitigation Action Accounting and Reporting Guidance (Task Force for Corporate Action Transparency, or TCAT)
Status: Feedback from pilots by Etsy, PepsiCo and REI published in early February.
Key dates: Public consultation planned for April to July 2026, with deeper revisions anticipated in the fall.
What: One of two new frameworks developed by TCAT, formed two years ago by former practitioners from Netflix, Amazon and other well-known companies. The rules outline ways to report on emissions reduction initiatives that don’t fit neatly into existing GHG Protocol rules.
Updated 3/17/26

NEW: Scope 3 Standard (S3S) Program (Verra)
Status: Under development.
Key dates: Version 1 anticipated in the third quarter of 2026.
What: Verra, which manages the world’s most widely used standard for voluntary carbon credits, is preparing to introduce a methodology that will enable companies to report on the impact of projects within their value chain, sometimes known as insetting. The framework will align with other emerging and established frameworks, including the AIM Platform (see above) and Version 2 of the Science Based Targets initiative’s Corporate Net Zero Standard. 
Added 4/16/26

Target Accounting and Reporting Guidance (TCAT)
Status: Feedback from pilots by Etsy, PepsiCo and REI published in early February.
Key dates: Public consultation planned for April to July 2026, with deeper revisions anticipated in the fall.
What: The second of two methodologies being tested by TCAT, the framework is meant to provide a way for companies a standardized way of reporting on progress toward voluntary emissions reduction goals. 
Updated 3/17/26

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What would it take to build a sustainable data center? A roomful of rivals tried to find out

The numbers forecast for data center investment are the kind that stop a conversation before it starts. Capital spending on AI infrastructure is on track to surpass $1 trillion as soon as 2027 — the largest infrastructure buildout in U.S. history as a share of GDP since the Louisiana Purchase — and now exceeds annual investment in upstream oil and gas.

Spending of this magnitude locks in assets for 20, 30, even 50 years. The window to shape these assets is narrow and closing.

That was the premise behind the Sustainable AI Infrastructure Forum, a half-day, invitation-only working session we hosted at Trellis Impact 26. We convened a group of 65 hyperscalers, utilities, developers, financiers, certification bodies, investors and community-engagement specialists — stakeholders that run on very different operating systems and don’t typically come together — to ask a deceptively simple question: What does a sustainable data center look like, and what would it take to get there at scale?

The forum was conducted under the Chatham House Rule, meaning that content could be shared but not attributed to any individual or organization.

Bipartisan backlash

The backdrop is a backlash that has moved faster than almost anyone anticipated. Polling presented at the forum showed opposition to data center construction climbing sharply over the past year, and one speaker described it as among the most bipartisan issues in the country. Another cited roughly $156 billion in projects now stalled by community resistance — a figure that has more than doubled in just six months.

As one developer put it, data centers have become “a very good place to put all that hurt” — the physical manifestation of a broader, often inchoate anxiety about AI and technology.

Energy, water, land — and trust

Panelists at the event made clear that no single actor controls the outcome. For example:

  • A utility representative described an energy grid playing catch-up on infrastructure and procurement. The balancing act, as he framed it, is reliability, affordability and carbon-free energy — with reliability, in his view, outranking the others.
  • A developer walked through the hyperlocal reality of siting: setbacks, berms, landscaping, closed-loop cooling and the slow human work of community forums and landowner relationships.
  • A tech company sustainability leader offered a different lever entirely — a company that builds no data centers but uses contract language, including a clause tied to supplier sustainability terms, to push change through purchasing power.

Four “innovation sparks” widened the aperture:

  • A data center developer reframed land as opportunity, describing plans to restore a degraded former cattle-grazing site on Texas’s historic Blackland Prairie, using a fraction of operating capital for carbon sequestration, water capture and biodiversity.
  • An investor coalition presented an 11-point sustainability standard built around a “net positive” idea — that a data center could restore a watershed or lower a low-income community’s energy burden, rather than being merely neutral.
  • A community-engagement strategist with a background in oil, gas and mining argued that the playbooks for earning social license already exist, in the UN Guiding Principles and IFC Performance Standards.
  • And a climate investor described the Data Center Innovation Initiative, a partnership with Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft to pilot decarbonization technologies together rather than redundantly.

Striking consensus, persistent skepticism

The heart of the session put the room to work: Each table named up to three high-bar goals, three non-negotiables and the three biggest changes needed to propel data center sustainability. What struck us, reading the flipcharts afterward, was how much the eight tables converged without coordinating. Some key takeaways:

Non-negotiable, high-bar goals

  • Community agency and buy-in, early and often, with community benefit agreements
  • Clean energy, water positive
  • Common standards and transparency
  • Self-funded initiatives

What needs to change

  • Modernize the grid
  • Include sustainability in procurement conversations
  • Prove and articulate the benefits of AI
  • Rebuild trust

On goals, nearly every table reached for some version of 100 percent clean or renewable energy, zero-carbon facilities and net-positive impact — for both nature and community. Several pushed beyond aspiration to structure: One group laid out a tiered energy ladder from “bring your own energy” (the minimum) to “bring your own clean energy” (the medium bar) to “add to the community’s energy infrastructure” (the high bar). Another offered a more achievable near-term floor — 75 percent renewable through a mix of renewable energy credits and carbon-free energy — arguing that the non-negotiables should be things genuinely deliverable in the short term.

On non-negotiables, the words and phrases that recurred most were transparency, community buy-in before the build and do no harm. Groups called for community agency through a trusted local representative; measurable environmental commitments on water, carbon, noise and aesthetics; and net-benefit guarantees, with one table pointing to a Community Reinvestment Act–style mandate to reinvest in host communities.

On changes, the shared list included standards with third-party verification and public benchmarking; education for both industry and communities; accountability frameworks spanning regulation, tax and zoning; transition plans for the data center’s full lifecycle; and funding capacity for the local governments and authorities expected to navigate all of this for the first time.

Productive tensions, missing voices

A few productive tensions surfaced. Decarbonization messaging, several participants warned, “resonates not at all” in most host communities — some view solar as the threat to farmland. And the missing voices were named honestly: front-line communities, regulators and the disparate local authorities who issue the permits.

We left genuinely struck by the alignment on what “good” looks like — and equally skeptical that the industry will choose the right way over the fastest way. The mandate, as we see it, is to bend a trillion-dollar wave in the right direction while the window is still open. That starts, as it did in that room, with the next human-to-human conversation, and the one after that.

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Want to succeed in sustainability? Learn to manage risk

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

It’s no surprise that corporate sustainability today is increasingly viewed as a risk management exercise. Sustainability professionals are expected to wear multiple hats: “sustainability expert,” “compliance director” and “risk manager.” This intersection is being driven by tightening international reporting requirements, supply chain vulnerabilities and the need to strengthen the connection of sustainability to business outcomes. 

In short, to succeed in today’s environment, sustainability managers must thoroughly integrate their job into the core functions of a company’s business model, including enterprise risk management, strategy and finance. 

Why this dual role is an asset

As ESG is increasingly seen through the lens of risks and opportunities, it’s becoming not only integral to business strategy, but also a competitive advantage for companies that take this holistic view. Many regulatory and voluntary reporting systems frame sustainability not only through the lens of risks and opportunities, but also specifically call out the actual or financial impacts that sustainability-related issues represent to a business.   

For instance, supply chain vulnerabilities due to climate hazards, such as drought, extreme heat and storms, force businesses to assess these events through a risk management and resilience lens. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) further cements this connection with double materiality assessments, enterprise risk management evaluations and value chain analysis. The Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the related Task Force on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) are cases in point. These frameworks rapidly became de rigueur for companies disclosing their sustainability performance, and their structure heavily influenced the new reporting framework from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). 

Case studies of this evolution

As part of Sustainserv’s consulting work with a national provider of childcare services, we found significant risks related to heat stress among both older workers and the young children they serve. The number of days where outdoor playtime needed to be curtailed and brought indoors was also significant. As a result, climate-related risks are now seen by the client as a core risk category to consider in its planning efforts. 

In another case, a global manufacturer of consumer electronics recognized that many manufacturing facilities that they depend on were located in areas of elevated exposure to hurricanes and large storms. This became the impetus to diversify and increase the resilience of their manufacturing sites — which became critical when a major site was damaged in an industrial fire. 

Another client, a manufacturer of equipment used in the forestry industry, recognized that climate change is changing the species and sizes of trees that its customers are able to grow. As a result, the company is developing technologies that enable its customers to maximize recovery of fiber from recycled paper, rather than primary timber resources, efficiently utilizing lower-quality fibers and feedstock while helping to develop markets for alternative fiber sources.   

Three ways to thrive

As these examples demonstrate, sustainability leaders need to be an integral part of the team facilitating and overseeing this work. Here are three ways they can succeed in this increasingly integrated environment.

Acknowledge and embrace the interconnectedness. While it’s familiar to sustainability professionals, this shift isn’t always openly discussed. This isn’t about replacing risk managers, but recognizing that understanding and embracing this interconnectedness is an asset for sustainability professionals and the businesses they serve.  

Build awareness and credentials. To best meet the demands of managing risk, sustainability professionals can seek out new ways to build their risk-management awareness and credentials. For instance, sustainability consultants should pay close attention to how risk management frameworks overlap with environmental and social issues that impact businesses’ bottom lines. Simply calling attention to this overlap is the first step in ensuring the best plan is in place for the business. 

Make friends with the risk team. Finally, sustainability professionals should build relationships with their risk management colleagues and familiarize themselves with enterprise risk assessment, including language and tools, such as heat maps, risk registers and scenario analyses. This collaboration can also help identify gaps in existing risk assessments, creating opportunities for sustainability and risk teams to collaborate to address them. 

The increasing overlap between a company’s ESG and financial goals supports the case that sustainability leaders have been making for years: Sustainability practices have an inherent business value.

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Amazon stays ‘stubborn’ on net-zero pledge

Like its rivals Microsoft and Google, Amazon is struggling to tame its greenhouse gas emissions in the face of explosive growth in cloud computing and artificial intelligence services: Its carbon footprint rose 16 percent in 2025.

The cloud computing services and e-commerce giant has logged a cumulative increase of 58 percent since the 2019 baseline year for its net-zero-by-2040 commitment, according to its 2025 sustainability report published on July 1.

Much of that came from data center and other building construction, which contributes to a supply chain footprint that represents 76 percent of the company’s total. That chunk grew 20 percent year-over-year, but Amazon has convinced a growing number of its top suppliers to declare emissions reduction targets through the Climate Pledge initiative it co-founded in 2019. 

Google, which published its 2025 data the previous day, experienced similar emissions growth. Microsoft has yet to disclose its latest climate data. 

AI expansion is making Amazon’s job tougher, but the company remains “confident and optimistic” in its long-term sustainability vision, said Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst, in the report’s introduction. 

“While the speed and scale of AI adoption is unique — and the change is happening faster and more broadly than anything else we’ve encountered in our lifetimes — the need to stay stubborn on our vision and flexible on the details is familiar territory,” Hurst said. 

Data center dynamics

Amazon’s sustainability strategy, unlike those of Microsoft and Google, must contend with a vast e-commerce engine.

The company doesn’t break out emissions data for Amazon Web Services, but its data centers (like Google’s) fueled a 34 percent increase in emissions from purchased electricity in 2025, along with building electrification and electric vehicle charging.

The purchased electricity category (Scope 2) represents 5 percent of Amazon’s total footprint. The company has spent billions of dollars to match 100 percent of that load with “carbon-free energy.” As of January 2026, it has deals for more than 712 projects in 30 countries, representing 42 gigawatts of capacity. Most of that is solar and wind generation, but Amazon is increasingly prioritizing nuclear sources.

Amazon also reported its power usage effectiveness score, which measures how much electricity is used for computing gear versus what’s lost for overhead such as lighting or cooling. The closer to 1.0, the better. Amazon’s score is 1.14, slightly higher than the latest published data from Microsoft and Google. 

Amazon’s score for water efficiency in data centers, however, is better than Microsoft’s. Google doesn’t disclose this metric.

E-commerce milestones

Amazon’s e-commerce-related sustainability narrative for 2025 contains other bright spots. 

For example, the company is more than halfway toward its goal to put more than 100,000 electric delivery vehicles on the road by 2030. Currently, it has 52,700 EVs running globally, up from 31,400 in 2024, and is the biggest EV fleet operator in the U.S.

Those vehicles delivered 2.4 billion packages in 2025. Amazon cut emissions per shipped unit by 7 percent from 2024; the cumulative decrease since its 2019 baseline is 39 percent.

Amazon also continues to reduce single-use packaging across its delivery network: More than half its North American distribution centers didn’t use it in 2025, and it has been removed entirely in Europe. 

The company figures it avoided 288 million plastic bags in North America alone, up from 134 million, by retrofitting its machinery to produce custom-fit, paper packaging. It also shuns extra boxes and mailers when possible: 11 percent of all packages shipped globally were delivered in manufacturers’ original packaging. 

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Starbucks reassesses climate goals with coffee at the center 

Starbucks is taking a “fresh, comprehensive look” at all corporate priorities as part of the Back to Starbucks financial turnaround plan launched by CEO Brian Niccol when he was hired in September 2024.

As a result of that review, Starbucks has embedded sustainability work into its business units to “promote continued accountability among senior leaders for achieving our goals,” said Kelly Goodejohn, chief sustainability and social impact officer, in a blog post. Investments in regenerative agriculture and work that supports the future of coffee and the farmers who grow it are central to that strategy, as the company reassesses its greenhouse gas emissions goal.

The Arabica green coffee beans that Starbucks brews and sells come from coffee belt countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change, notably Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Nicaragua and Vietnam.

“That’s why our approach, as we get Back to Starbucks, combines operational excellence in our coffeehouses with more focused research development and investment in the regions we source coffee from,” the company said in its 2025 global impact report, published July 1.

Goodejohn, who spent 15 years working on Starbucks coffee sourcing programs before becoming head of social impact, added sustainability in mid-May when Starbucks cut 300 corporate roles and subsumed those responsibilities in the social impact team. The company has been relatively mum about its net-zero emissions reduction plans since Niccol took over. It is reviewing its targets, as required by Science Based Targets initiative guidelines.

Starbucks has nine sustainability pledges, including strict coffee sourcing standards and farmer support initiatives. More than 400,000 farmers follow its strict sourcing guidelines. It recently reached a goal of distributing 100 million climate-resilient coffee trees and aims to pass out 50 million more, to help farmers weather changes in rainfall and temperature. 

Green coffee purchases and dairy milk were Starbucks’ two largest sources of emissions in 2025 as a percentage of the total — 12 percent and 13 percent, respectively. That is unchanged since we analyzed the company’s progress in a recent installment of our Chasing Net Zero series. 

More than 13,000 Starbucks cafés now meet its strict requirements for energy efficiency, water conservation and waste reduction, which contributed to a 17 percent drop in the company’s operational and electricity-related emissions in fiscal 2025. That’s roughly one-third of all locations, and more than the original goal of 10,000. Starbuck continues to encourage the use of reusable cups — in-store participation increased 77 percent in 2025, according to the new report — and is sticking by its goal of using 25 percent recycled content in its packaging by 2030. 

But overall emissions for the world’s largest coffeehouse chain have grown by 7 percent since the 2019 baseline year for its previous pledge to cut emissions, water use and waste in half by 2030. 

Whether Starbucks will keep its current plan to cut emissions in half by 2030 will be dictated by evolving market conditions, Goodejohn said. It is actively reviewing that commitment, specifically.

“With respect to the goal on greenhouse gas reduction, we are actively reassessing it while we evaluate the implications of emerging regulations, ongoing updates to relevant standards and other developments, and will share updates soon,” she said.

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The next frontier: A CSO’s playbook for fossil-free retirement

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

As we explored in part 1 of this series, a growing employee-led movement is demanding an end to the “exposure gap” that quietly funnels billions of retirement dollars into fossil fuels. Yet when a chief sustainability officer approaches corporate benefits teams about greening the retirement menu, the response is often polite but firm: “Our hands are tied by ERISA.”

But regulatory clarity surrounding the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) — the 1974 federal law governing how corporate retirement plans must be managed — has dismantled the traditional compliance excuse for inaction. For decades, plan sponsors operated under the illusion that the act forces them to default to standard, unscreened market-cap indexes. The fear was that integrating climate-conscious funds introduces non-financial motives, violating the fiduciary duty to focus exclusively on performance returns.  

But evaluating long-term climate risk is no longer an ideological luxury; it is basic financial prudence. High-carbon sectors have exhibited extreme volatility, trailing the S&P 500 in seven of the past 10 years and leaving traditional target-date portfolios exposed to systemic economic headwinds. 

Regulatory policy has caught up to this reality. The U.S. Department of Labor explicitly clarified in its 2022 Fact Sheet on the Prudence and Loyalty Final Rule that fiduciaries do not violate their core obligations by assessing the material economic impacts of climate change on an investment’s risk-and-return profile. In fact, ignoring these systemic factors can constitute a failure of prudence. 

The Labor department framework emphasizes that compliance is judged entirely by the rigor of the evaluation process at the time of the decision. When plan sponsors use a structured, well-documented risk analysis to evaluate underlying assets, they are fulfilling their duty. The law is no longer an excuse for inertia — it’s a mechanism for action. 

The solutions roadmap

CSOs and benefits teams do not need to overhaul their financial structure overnight. Instead, they can deploy a three-phase playbook that moves from compliance flexibility to deep, systemic impact — evaluating every solution through the lens of risk management, cost parity and employee equity.

Tier 1: The safety valve (self-directed brokerage windows)

The lowest-barrier entry point is the implementation of a self-directed brokerage window, or self-directed account. Backed by Department of Labor Field Assistance guidance on brokerage windows, a self-directed method allows employees to voluntarily opt out of the standard menu and direct their deferred wages into thousands of dedicated mutual funds and exchange traded funds. This functions as an immediate compliance safety valve: It fulfills worker demands for values-oriented choices without requiring the retirement investment committee to alter the core plan.

Tier 2: Core menu integration (specialized funds)

While self-directed accounts satisfy highly engaged savers, reducing structural harm across the entire workforce requires modifying the core menu of offerings. This means introducing stand-alone, specialized funds that explicitly avoid systemic carbon and deforestation risks. 

One common pitfall is a reliance on generic “ESG-branded” funds, which often quietly maintain high-carbon exposure by relying on superficial corporate checkboxes. In fact, a sweeping analysis by climate think tank InfluenceMap revealed that 71 percent of ESG-themed funds are misaligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement, with many actively holding prominent fossil fuel companies. 

Instead, committees are empowered to evaluate advanced portfolio construction frameworks based on rigorous research methodologies. For instance, institutional options like the Sphere 500 Climate Fund allow plan sponsors to seamlessly replace traditional market-cap index funds with dedicated, fossil-free alternatives. This provides an on-menu choice that stands up to strict fiduciary scrutiny while maintaining complete cost, tracking and diversification parity.

Tier 3: The default revolution (climate-smart target date funds)

The ultimate prize lies in greening the default investment options—specifically the target-date funds where 80 percent of all employee capital automatically sits. Because standard target-date funds track traditional market indexes, they automatically tether retirement savings to fossil fuel expansion. 

True alignment requires a structural shift toward specialized, climate-smart default funds. Institutional innovators like Carbon Collective have designed institutional-grade funds that replace high-carbon investments with clean-energy transition assets. Transitioning to a climate-smart target-date fund allows leadership to match its external environmental commitments to its internal financial architecture, maximizing long-term portfolio resilience for everyday savers.

First steps

An immediate first step is using tools like As You Sow’s Corporate 401(k) Sustainability Scorecard to audit your company’s internal carbon intensity. This internal push aligns perfectly with broader corporate governance shifts. Responding to employee advocacy on the issue is key. Tracking data from Deloitte Insights shows that 80 percent of C-suite leaders say that employee activism has directly impacted their sustainability plans, with 59 percent explicitly increasing their climate efforts in response to worker input. Addressing corporate climate finance presents a critical opportunity for progress in the face of ongoing climate and clean-energy setbacks. 

Armed with baseline data, you can cross the aisle to equip your human resources leaders and retirement committee with a fiduciary-safe business case that protects both employee wealth and the planet’s health.

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How the US is catching up on superpollutant mitigation

U.S. companies have been slow to act on super pollutants. Methane, refrigerants and other gases with high global warming potential are responsible for roughly half of the temperature increase the planet has experienced to date, yet most companies have made carbon dioxide the focus of climate strategies.

That’s a missed opportunity, experts said this week at Trellis Impact 26, because mitigating super pollutants can have greater near-term impacts on global warming than efforts to tackle CO2. 

“There’s an overwhelming opportunity but an underwhelming response,” Tristam Coffin, co-founder of êffecterra, a sustainability and engineering consultancy, said of refrigerants, one class of super pollutants.

Why the U.S. has been slow to act on superpollutants

Lack of awareness is part of the problem, noted Luke Pritchard, director of the Beyond Alliance, which brings companies together to share best practices on climate on climate solutions. Until recently, superpollutants were a niche topic discussed mainly by science nerds and climate blogs.

Technical issues around tracking and accounting for some superpollutants also played a role. Electricity use can be metered and used to calculate associated carbon dioxide emissions, noted Coffin, but refrigerant emissions are much harder to track. That’s partly because the emissions are unintentional: They happen when the gases leak during use and when equipment is disposed of. Assets containing refrigerants are also frequently distributed across multiple facilities. 

Regulation is an additional factor, said Ramé Hemstreet, chief energy officer at Kaiser Permanente: Tougher rules in the European Union have compelled companies in the region to act faster to remove refrigerant gases from greenhouse gas inventories.

How the U.S. is catching up

The previously niche topic has been pushed up the corporate agendas by a small number of first-mover companies and non-profit allies. Earlier this year, for example, the seven founding members of the new Superpollutant Action Initiative — Amazon, Autodesk, Figma, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Salesforce and Workday — committed to investing up to $100 million to cut superpollutant emissions.

The initiative is run by the Beyond Alliance, which also operates several other projects designed to help companies take action on superpollutants. These include a partnership with êffecterra focused on investment opportunities in Scope 3 refrigerant decarbonization and the Superpollutant Academy, a collaboration with carbon-credit rating agency Calyx Global that helps companies build the knowledge needed to support high-quality superpollutant mitigation through the voluntary carbon market.

What the companies are investing in

At Trellis Impact 26, Hemstreet described how he is collaborating with colleagues to eliminate superpollutants from cooling systems. He advised the audience to “shoot ahead of the duck” by identifying equipment that is due to be replaced for operational reasons and working to identify replacements that don’t use superpollutants. But finding cost-effective options in the U.S. can be challenging, he noted. 

Companies with smaller superpollutant footprints can look to solutions outside their value chains. Around a year ago, Google said it had contracted for credits generated by projects that will destroy 25,000 tons of methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 2030. The high warming potential of the gases mean that the impact of the credits over 100 years will be equivalent to eliminating 1 million tons of CO2. In 2024, Workday became one of the first buyers of credits generated by projects that prevent methane leaks from orphaned oil and gas wells. 

As with any type of carbon project, superpollutant credits vary in quality. But a relatively large number of projects have earned high scores from carbon credit rating agencies. The scores stem from confidence that the gases will not be returned to the atmosphere, the comparatively simple mechanisms used to measure the quantity of gasses captured and the limited alternative incentives available to deal with the gasses. A focus on superpollutants was one reason why Salesforce and Autodesk recently topped a buyers leaderboard created by Calyx. 

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Gap poaches top sustainability exec from Levi Strauss

Two months ago, Levi Strauss Chief Sustainability Officer Jeffrey Hogue shared a LinkedIn job posting for the top sustainability role at Gap. This week, he was named to fill that role.

The move was announced by Hogue’s new boss, Sally Gilligan, chief supply chain and transformation officer at Gap. 

“As we continue our work to bridge gaps and create a better world, Jeff will lead our efforts across climate and equity, helping advance meaningful impact for our business, our communities, and the people we serve,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post. 

Hogue takes over from Daniel Fibiger, a 16-year Gap veteran who left in May after three years as vice president of global sustainability. Fibiger hasn’t revealed his next career plans.

Hogue joined Levi Strauss in July 2020, after six years leading sustainability at clothing retailer C&A, where he pioneered the use of reclaimed materials in the design of jeans and t-shirts and drove its use of organic cotton. While in that role, Hogue co-founded Fashion for Good, a brand-supported collaboration that supports development of next-generation materials and processes meant to address the fashion industry’s environmental footprint.

During his tenure at Levi Strauss, Hogue drove projects including a “plant-based 501” jeans design that uses vegan leather and natural dyes, and a “circular” version that mixes organic cotton with Circulose fiber made from reclaimed textiles. 

Under Hogue’s leadership, Levi Strauss also extended its long-time commitment to reducing the water used in jeans production: The current goal is to cut freshwater consumption across the apparel company’s supply chain by 15 percent by 2030 compared with 2022 levels.

Prior to C&A, Hogue worked in sustainability at fast food franchise McDonald’s, ingredient company Danisco and biotech firm Genencor.

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For climate solutions providers, it’s make or break time 

As sustainability leaders digest the SBTi’s updated Corporate Net-Zero Standard, it’s clear that the new guidelines provide only a thin and distant lifeline to companies in the struggling carbon removal sector. The new standard’s limited and long-delayed requirement to take responsibility for ongoing emissions won’t reverse the recent fortunes of the voluntary carbon market (VCM), which was bigger in 2008 than it was in 2023.

Although innovative startups continue to find funding and advance, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) companies are the canary in the net-zero solutions coal mine. Nori, Running Tide and others have closed up shop, and Climeworks is adjusting its business model because customers won’t pay enough per ton of carbon. The forecast from the most recent State of CDR report of 42 million tons per year by 2030 is far below predictions from just a few years ago. 

Climate tech’s Second Life moment

Here’s a historical precedent: Nearly 20 years ago, IBM made a big bet on the future of Second Life. IBM and other tech companies set up “virtual HQs” so that they could connect with employees and customers in the rapidly expanding digital world.

By 2010, the hype had faded, and Second Life never achieved commercial scale. Lack of demand sent the technology down the chasm that has claimed countless new technologies, from Segways to 3D TVs.

This same risk now looms over climate solutions providers. Venture investment is down more than 30 percent since 2022 —  a reflection of sober expectations about the growth of demand in the sector.

How to drive demand  

Much of the $250 billion invested in climate tech since 2018 was driven by aggressive growth forecasts that now look overzealous. This capital has created a heavily-stacked supply side in the market, from carbon credit brokers to energy and transportation tech to novel forms of carbon capture and GHG accounting platforms. 

At The Change Climate Project we field requests from suppliers regularly to access our community of corporate climate actors. To succeed, these solutions providers must win new customers, prove practical use cases and achieve cost reductions, leveraging customer successes into rising sales volumes. If demand doesn’t materialize for net-zero solutions providers, they won’t meet hyped-up valuations, and will fail. 

Some new markets materialize comparatively easily. Companies enter a space and, through the force of their marketing, convince customers to buy their products.

But climate solutions exist in a highly complex landscape of policy and market forces. Scaling demand requires intentional market-shaping far beyond what’s taking place now. Only an estimated 7-8 percent of total venture funding has gone into the supporting networks and systems such as measurement and verification, audits and standards that will help new markets form. 

Even less has gone into dedicated efforts to drive demand. Climate philanthropy’s two top favorites, policy change and sustainable finance, aren’t increasing market demand for key solutions, even after decades of grantmaking. There’s new hope that AI wealth will multiply philanthropy’s impact, but donors would need to mobilize quickly and embrace new approaches to giving that respond to this make-or-break moment for climate tech.

The role for corporate sustainability

With demand lagging, corporate sustainability teams need to recognize their critical role as buyers of climate tech solutions. Microsoft recently paused its carbon removal program, sending shockwaves through the market. Microsoft can’t be the only buyer in the market. Sustainability teams thinking about their own longer-term objectives can help accelerate market-shaping and demand growth by recognizing that they are key to building the climate solutions we all need.

Here’s what companies should focus on now:

Lead from the top. CEOs of companies that have made long-term carbon reduction a public priority must step up their public commitment to sustainability initiatives. This is the time for executive leadership to recognize the bigger picture and engage with key suppliers of lower-carbon services. This will give those suppliers a signal about future market conditions, and the confidence to keep building.

Focus on the consumer. Survey data consistently shows that climate change remains top of mind for consumers. Companies are under pressure to show profitability despite weak consumer sentiment, high energy costs and fluctuating tariffs. Reframing sustainability in this context will lead to clearer articulations of value and better prioritization with an emphasis on things that matter to customers.

Advertise and market. The single greatest superpower of corporations is their ability to shape consumer trends. The market didn’t ask for the iPhone; through the immense power of its marketing, Apple convinced people they needed one. People need climate solutions now, and companies need to find a path beyond climate-hushing so that they can return to shaping market preferences for lower-carbon options. That means finding renewed comfort with talking about the widespread benefits of decarbonization. Authentic marketing can resonate with end customers while boosting demand for net-zero solutions across the value chain.

Influence behavior. Companies often convince people to spend money through loyalty programs, discount schemes and creative financial products. These techniques could help sustainability teams in conjunction with their marketing peers to create incentives that shift what people actually buy and shape the market for lower-carbon products. 

Build coalitions. Buyer-focused initiatives such as Kinetic Coalition, Beyond Alliance, Frontier, Center for Green Market Activation, Rewiring America and EnergySage make information available to net-zero solutions purchasers. But a party needs guests, not just hosts. Companies and individuals need to join these coalitions and others like them, and commit to buying and installing climate solutions.

It’s one thing to build a headquarters in Second Life; it’s a whole other thing to get people to show up for work there. After its collapse, some elements of Second Life went on to shape other, more lasting technologies, such as virtual reality. Some climate tech companies will adapt to market realities. Others will disappear. But concerted effort by sustainability and marketing teams can go a long way toward creating market demand that will sustain future growth and enable the best climate solutions to avoid the chasm.   

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Meet the 2026 Trellis Climate Tech Startup of the Year

Smart Plastic Technologies, which makes additives to bio-assimilate plastic and reduce waste, was named the Trellis Climate Tech Startup of 2026 during a pitch competition at Trellis Impact 26 in San Francisco yesterday. 

“Plastic was not designed with its end in mind – we changed that,” said Smart Plastic’s chief sustainability officer Sumathi Pakki, in her winning 2.5-minute remarks. 

Smart Plastic, which is based in Wheeling, Illinois, got the most votes from an audience of six dozen people, for its additive technology that is meant to address the 91% of plastic that never gets recycled. 

The additive time activates microorganisms to consume the plastic it is applied to, leaving behind only carbon dioxide and water biomass, Pakki said, and requires no new equipment – just a drop. 

Nare Janvelyan, a climate tech investor at Voyager, based in San Francisco, said Smart Plastic stood out because “the plastic problem is something everyone’s feeling” and the technology doesn’t “require any change in human behavior – that lands really well.” 

Two other start-ups competed: Airloom Energy, which deploys modular wind energy systems for data centers, utilities and defense; and Helix Earth, which removes humidity for air conditioners to cut energy use and improve air quality. 

What’s hot in climate tech 

The three startups represent three exciting categories in climate tech: material innovations, data center solutions and climate adaptation technologies. 

A remote audience had voted to select each one during a series of three virtual pitch competitions (one for each category) in May and June. Five different startups faced off at each. 

All 15 of the competing companies appeared in April on our 15 Climate Tech Startups to Watch 2026 list of firms with seed or Series A funding and customers already signed up.  

The featured categories are where Trellis sees the most customer demand, funding and urgency, as climate tech entrepreneurs build for scale on tighter capital than their predecessors.

Material Innovations

Geopolitical tension is reshaping supply chains. Critical minerals, the building blocks of batteries, turbines, and the grid, have become leverage points in trade wars. 

The startups in this category are developing next-generation materials and systems, including: battery materials, industrial waste-to-chemicals, high-performance biodegradable plastics, critical minerals recovery and “smart” thermal coatings.

See smart Plastic Technologies best four other material innovation startups in the semi-finals.

Data Center Solutions

The explosive growth of AI infrastructure is reshaping energy demand at a pace the grid wasn’t built for. According to multiple research firms, this year Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle will spend more than $600 billion on AI infrastructure — roughly equivalent to what the entire global oil and gas industry spends annually to find, produce and deliver. 

These startups are building the technologies that keep that infrastructure running across clean energy generation, predictive monitoring, AI optimization, offshore infrastructure and atmospheric water generation.

Watch Airloom Energy advance to the finals ahead of four other data center solutions. 

Climate Adaptation

Extreme weather isn’t a future risk, it’s a present operational reality for companies across every sector. 

The startups in this category are building technologies that help organizations understand their exposure, protect their assets and stay resilient as conditions grow more volatile, with solutions across: extreme heat HVAC, cell-cultured cacao, biosurveillance of aquatic ecosystems, AI-powered climate risk and soil intelligence for agricultural resilience.

See Helix Earth win earlier versus four climate adaptation technologies.

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