SBTi wants more small companies to set net-zero goals. Here’s how it’s wooing them

Key takeaways

  • Science Based Targets initiative’s net-zero revision introduces a new corporate classification for companies with less than $450 million in sales.
  • Some requirements, such as third-party assurance of carbon accounting, are optional.
  • It holds special appeal for businesses in lower- and middle-income countries.  

Most companies with validated net-zero goals are big multinational organizations, but the Science Based Targets initiative’s proposed revisions include changes intended to boost adoption by small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) — especially those in emerging economies.

The 132-page proposal circulated for feedback through June 1 suggests a revised categorization model based on company size and geography. Category A refers to large multinationals. The new Category B includes small and micro enterprises with less than $50 million in annual revenue and fewer than 250 employees; and medium businesses from low- and middle-income countries with up to $450 million in sales and 250 to 1,000 workers. 

Category B companies will get more time to have net-zero targets validated after they commit: two years instead of the one-year deadline set for larger companies. In addition, some requirements — such as the need to get carbon accounting verified by a third party or to trace supply chain emissions within a specific period — are optional.

The proposed revisions are more welcoming to small companies, allowing them to stay focused on directly making “good quality reductions” to emissions from their facilities and electricity purchases that are more within their control, said Cooper Wechkin, founder and CEO at consulting firm RyeStrategy.  

“It was hard to blame a company for balking,” he said. “This can be tricky and expensive.”

Large-company mindset 

The new model replaces criteria SBTi previously set for smaller companies and are more “realistic” for SMEs and enterprises in developing nations than the previous framework, said Chris Hocknell, director of consulting firm Eight Versa. 

“This is a shift from the previously nearly uniform approach, which could offer some businesses more attainable paths toward net zero,” he said.

Many small companies that Eight Versa has advised have been frustrated with the rigidity of SBTi’s requirements, and some have chosen not to act because of that. “It’s this all-or-nothing mentality,” Hocknell said. “That is part of the problem. There’s not a perceived alternate route of even second best that is considered credible enough.”

While SBTi’s new net-zero standard is more flexible, it still requires absolute reductions for Scope 1 and 2, which can be a particular challenge for fast-growing startups — including those developing climate technologies that can help reduce emissions.

“It betrays a naivete about business that hasn’t been addressed,” Hocknell said. 

chart showing net zero commitments, and the amount of emissions they cover.
The number of companies setting new targets surged from 2020 to 2023, but only cover 1.1 billion metric tons of carbon emissions.
Source: PwC

Ripple effect across supply chains

One-third of the roughly 1,500 companies that already have validated net-zero strategies are small and midsize businesses — the U.S. classifies SMEs as those with fewer than 500 employees and $1 billion in annual revenue. Small companies represent a growing percentage of those booked for validation in the second quarter, according to SBTi.

That aligns with PwC’s recent analysis of disclosures to CDP. Between 2020 and 2023, the number of companies setting greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals surged but their median annual revenue shrank to $1.3 billion in 2024 compared with $3.6 billion in 2020. 

Many smaller companies are moving to set targets because they’ve been encouraged to do so by large multinationals. “We call this a ripple effect,” said PwC Partner David Linich. “Over time, they will turn to their own suppliers and ask them to do the same thing.”

Primary motivators for SMEs

Small companies considering whether to set emissions reduction goals often weigh three questions, said Mahesh Ramanujam, CEO of Global Network for Zero, which helps companies with net-zero certification. They are:

  • Can I cut my costs?
  • Can I get more business by doing this?
  • Will I lose a customer if I don’t take this action?

“This shouldn’t be one size fits all,” he said, talking about the difficulty most companies have in calculating emissions inventories and reporting progress. “At the same time, it should not require a consultant. It should be a simple plug-in.” 

Approximately 60 percent of SMEs are setting targets in response to client expectations, up from 40 percent in 2024, according to a recent survey by We Mean Business Coalition.

“Our investors want to see real, measurable progress, while our guests choose us for our commitment to sustainability,” said Ananda Putra, sustainability manager for OXO, an Indonesian property developer. “Since publicly disclosing our emissions, we’ve noticed stronger investor confidence, increased guest loyalty and reduced unnecessary energy and water, directly cutting costs.”

[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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Tricia Carey joins “low-carbon” crop startup Avalo

Key takeaways

  • The fashion veteran brings decades of apparel and fiber expertise to Avalo’s AI-driven mission to breed better cotton.
  • Industry peers have credited her with efforts to advance circulose, textile-to-textile recycled material from doomed startup Renewcell.
  • Carey spent 24 years at fiber giant Lenzing Group, where she led denim strategy and expanded the use of Tencel.

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

Tricia Carey, a veteran of sustainability innovation in apparel, is joining a six-year-old startup that seeks to accelerate the evolution of climate-friendly cotton. As the new chief commercial officer for AI-focused Avalo, she will help develop irrigation-free cotton plants that use 30 percent less fertilizer than with conventional methods.

Based in New York City, Carey will help the Durham, North Carolina, company expand a two-year effort in Texas to discover “low-input” cotton strains that require fewer chemical applications than when conventionally grown. 

Carey brings deep experience in fiber and textile development, honed over more than two decades at Lenzing Group. In the late 1990s, she helped usher the company’s new semisynthetic fiber, Tencel, into supply chains for brands including Gap, Levi’s and Under Armour. She worked her way up to become director of business development for denim and the Americas.

More recently, Carey attracted a mix of sympathy and criticism in her nearly two years as the chief commercial officer of Renewcell, which she left last July. The promising Stockholm circularity startup recycled old cotton jeans and T-shirts into material to be blended and spun into new clothes. H&M, Zara and Levi’s featured the product in capsule collections. Due to a mix of bad timing, failure of purchasers to honor agreements and the pressures of a newly public company, Renewcell filed for bankruptcy. However, its product, circulose, lives on with the name Circulose and in mainstream clothes by Reformation and others.

Carey has held numerous leadership roles at fashion sustainability groups, including Textile Exchange and the Fashion Impact Fund. She sits on the boards of Accelerating Circularity and the Transformers Foundation, of which she is also a founding member.

“What excites me most about Avalo is its ability to reimagine agriculture at the intersection of science, AI, and sustainability,” she told Trellis. “My vision for this role is to help scale Avalo’s cotton from pilot to full commercialization — connecting the dots from farm to retail. On a weekly basis, that means working closely with farmers, industry partners, spinners, and mills to optimize fiber performance, as well as collaborating with brands and retailers to align on sustainability goals and product development.”

Avalo’s vision of “low-input,” low-carbon cotton

“We’re so excited to have Tricia on board who has brought industry changing innovation to the textile world,”  Avalo CEO Brendan Collins said in a press statement. “That said, her experience as a strategist, supply-chain connector and coalition builder will help us bring similar innovation to other industries that desperately need it.”

The machine learning startup hopes to rapidly produce and popularize crops that weather droughts and other conditions amplified by the climate crisis. The company’s “discovery engine” pinpoints the genetic basis for specific crop traits, then uses its findings to make quick, accurate simulations and predictions. Avalo doesn’t make genetic modified organisms; it finds ways to breed more plants that use fewer resources and chemicals.

Fashion loves cotton, its second most utilized fabric. But so do aphids and bollworms. Worldwide, cotton is responsible for roughly 10 percent of pesticide use and 2.5 percent of global use of farm-worthy land, according to the Pesticide Action Network. The crop also guzzles 3 percent of all water used in agriculture, according to the World Wildlife Foundation.

Only 2 percent of global cotton is grown with organic, traceability standards, such as the Better Cotton Initiative.

Avalo is also working on other low-carbon commodities, including rice and rubber. Its sugarcane efforts nabbed a partnership in March with CocaCola Europacific Partners (CCEP).

The company just raised most of its $14.9 million in funding in March, with a Series A round of $11 million led by Alexandria Venture Investments and Germin8 Ventures.

Threads of AI and fibers

Carey recently advised FibreTrace, another AI technology bid involving apparel materials. It enables end products to be traced to their origins by embedding a nontoxic, pigment-based identification marker in raw fibers. She recently described the growth in tech-focused companies boosting materials traceability and transparency as part of a generational shift in the industry. “You need someone to make sure it’s being applied properly, so you need your IT person but you also need a textile technologist,” she told California Apparel News last week.

It sounds like Avalo was listening.

[Join Trellis Network to gain the powerful peer network you need to drive more impact across your organization.]

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Fashion is only 8.6% toward 2030 emissions deadline. Here’s how to speed up

Key takeaways

  • It’s been six years since industry leaders set a 12-year goal for slashing 100 megatons of CO2.
  • Progress has been slow despite the fact that high-profile brands and retailers are deepening their decarbonization commitments and funding.
  • The Apparel Impact Institute is focusing on making deeper impacts with electrification and other technologies, and working in more regions.

Where the Apparel Impact Institute (AII) goes, so goes sustainable fashion. If the nonprofit’s latest accounting of progress is a fair indicator, then apparel companies need to quicken their pace if they are to close the gap between today’s achievements and the Paris Agreement-aligned target of net zero by 2050.

The brands, retailers and suppliers that engage with the AII represent the vanguard of decarbonization work for the sector, which the United Nations blames for causing 4 to 8 percent of global climate emissions. The group is working with about 2,000 suppliers to prevent the release of 100 megatons of CO2 equivalent by 2030. But halfway toward that deadline they have only come 8.6 percent of the way. Even so, the AII reported in its 2024 impact report that the companies it already works with are deepening their commitments and moving toward deeper, lasting emissions reductions.

Here are some key imperatives to emerge from that report.

Raise more money

The San Francisco nonprofit is unique for organizing pooled financing and hands-on programs to reduce emissions across complex corporate supply chains. Its participants, however, have only contributed 7.8 percent of the planned $2 billion in capital by 2030. Suppliers have invested $124 million and the AII has provided another $32 million.

The nonprofit has an enviable roster of partners. Target, Lululemon, H&M, Group, Gap, PVH, Ralph Lauren and HSBC contribute to the AII’s Fashion Climate Fund, which for three years has been trying to raise $250 million. The nonprofit in March sought to rally more brands and retailers to commit $10 million each toward the fund.

In 2024, the AII co-launched the Future Supplier Initiative with the Fashion Pact, a Paris-based net zero collective led by fashion CEOs. DBS Bank and the Guidehouse consultancy also participated in the effort, which gathers collective financing toward high-impact decarbonization projects for suppliers.

Lately, the AII has seen increased project funding and other engagement from industry more than philanthropies, according to AII President Lewis Perkins. “It’s never going to feel like it’s fast enough or big enough when you’re tackling something this big, but [it’s] leaning into a smaller circle of brands going bigger, which kind of tracks with how the industry has been operating all along. You have a number of leaders who are at the table, and then you have a lot of brand retailers who also may want to engage in impact, but they’re maybe not necessarily resourced to do so.”

Engage more suppliers

From 2018 to 2024, the AII has engaged with 1,261 supplier facilities and 9,689 farms.

Last year, the vast majority of those suppliers were in raw materials. The AII counted 9,689 such Tier 4 suppliers. That was followed by 353 materials suppliers, known as Tier 2, and 321 garment makers, known as Tier 1. The rest were a mix, including a handful of Tier 3 operations, which generally sell to Tier 2 suppliers.

One problem: The sector’s top 1,800 suppliers account for about 80 percent of its emissions, yet many lack decarbonization roadmaps.

“We’re trying to build more inroads into those suppliers,” Perkins said. “Traditionally, we’ve done that through introductions from brands, and that remains a strong way to meet them.”

The AII is also taking a regional approach, he added, partnering with groups that already have local contacts, such as Cascale, WRI and the Solidaridad Network.

Listen to current suppliers

“There are a lot of ‘asks’ put on suppliers coming from brand retailers, as well as from various other NGO organizations,” Perkins said. “One of the things we heard last week, and will continue to hear, is about audit fatigue, certification fatigue — just looking at all they’re being asked to do and the cost of that.”

That’s why the AII is working closely with other multi-stakeholder initiatives that touch suppliers, from the farms through the materials purchasing. These include Cascale, Textile Exchange and the ZDHC (Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals) initiative.

Perkins recently returned from a week in India, a key focus area for the AII this year along with China, Bangladesh and Vietnam. In India coal powers textile dyeing, spinning, and weaving operations, and the AII has engaged with 107 facilities there. In China, the planet’s largest apparel exporter, the organization has 450 partner facilities.

Next up for the AII in this realm: expansion in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Continue picking low-hanging fruit

The AII’s pilot programs in 2024 included helping companies with Tier 1 decarbonization action plans; helping with renewable energy transitions throughout Asia; and helping 11 Italian tanneries for luxury brands use energy and water more efficiently.

In 2024, the organization removed the equivalent emissions of 52,119 cars, saved 2.4 million swimming pools of water and the energy usage of 14.3 million washing machines.

The AII will continue to run foundational energy efficiency programs. “In order to get larger levels of CO2 emission reduction, we are really looking at lowering the intensity of carbon that’s coming in on these projects,” Perkins said. “We’ve got to go to higher level projects.” To that end, the AII would direct capital toward electrification in Tier 2, where the majority of CO2 emissions happen, such as in “wet” processes like dyeing.

The organization’s Climate Solutions Portfolio tracks specific, vetted solutions for companies to consider for their CO2 targets. The AII offers grants for emerging technologies including for waterless dyeing, precision agriculture and electrification. Supporting low-carbon thermal energy to replace coal-fired boilers and other high-carbon operations is another focus.

Move beyond efficiencies

In 2025, the AII plans to expand past efficiency projects in its Climate Solutions Portfolio, achieving deeper decarbonization. Electrification is key, according to Perkins. “Other recent reports that we’ve launched on carbon intensity are pointing us towards transitions, to heat pumps and heat exchange,” he said.

For that, Perkins added, the AII could support companies in brokering Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) for clean energy or to directly install electrification onsite.

Stay the course

In this period of geopolitical volatility, the AII does not anticipate major geographic pivots. Instead, Perkins expected continued further commitments to the suppliers that already have long-term partnerships with brands and retailers.

“Obviously, we’re in a year where there’s some transition that we’re going to learn more as we go,” he said. “But what we’ve consistently seen is dedication from the industry to continue advancing a lot of this work.”

[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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Progress, not perfection: What we can learn from Microsoft and HSBC’s climate target pullbacks 

Key takeaways

  • Two major companies, Microsoft and HSBC, recently deemed their climate targets out of reach — but had very different responses.
  • Microsoft refined its stance and decided to press forward by focusing more directly on carbon reduction and clean energy. HSBC, on the other hand, postponed its direct operations climate targets, highlighting the intricate realities of decarbonization.
  • These responses show that sustainability professionals must shift the conversation from penalizing companies for not meeting idealized standards to celebrating tangible, responsible action that moves us closer to a sustainable future.

As the global climate crisis intensifies, the corporate path to decarbonization has never been more complex. It’s fraught with technological hurdles, regulatory uncertainties and changing political tides. It’s also largely dependent on voluntary climate action – which is increasingly difficult amid corporate financial realities and market conditions. 

These realities are not without consequence. Many corporate climate targets are shifting, even within businesses that have previously committed to decarbonization. In fact, two major players, Microsoft and HSBC, recently deemed their climate targets out of reach. 

Although these two companies are responding very differently, both cases highlight the real-world pressures on voluntary climate action — and underscore an urgent need to focus on progress, not perfection, to incentivize corporate climate action.

Contrasting responses

In February, Microsoft announced it was recalibrating its climate investments after acknowledging it would miss key interim milestones on its path to becoming carbon negative by 2030. In fact, the tech conglomerate said its emissions had increased in 2023 and its decision to stop buying renewable energy consumption certificates could force the company to stop calling itself “carbon neutral”. Instead, it plans to focus more directly on carbon reduction and clean energy via direct emissions cuts and high-quality removals, despite its previous assertions that its targets are a “moonshot.”

Although refining its stance, Microsoft is still pressing forward. Its recent pivot in climate strategy is not merely about adjusting investments — it’s also a candid recognition of today’s reality and how hard it is to strive for ambitious climate-change targets. 

This adaptive approach underscores an important truth: while the goalposts may have shifted, continuous, flexible commitment is far more impactful than clinging to outdated benchmarks. This is laudable, but it’s unclear if taking an adaptive approach will become the corporate norm or be left as the exception.

Less than a week after Microsoft’s announcement, HSBC opted to delay its climate targets related to its own operations, citing uncertainties around the Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) guidance on carbon credits and the complexities of reducing Scope 3 emissions. The world’s seventh-largest bank now aims to reach a state of net zero direct operational emissions by 2050 – not by 2030 as it had originally planned. Importantly, this decision applies only to HSBC’s operational emissions — its targets for the much larger financed portfolio (which is where the majority of HSBC’s emissions sit) remain unchanged. 

HSBC’s decision to postpone its direct operations climate targets highlights the significant challenges many companies face today. Confronted with the intricate realities of decarbonization and the unpredictable guidance around the use of carbon credits, HSBC’s cautious delay is an unfortunate, if understandable, response. 

Rather than interpreting HSBC’s move as a sign of reluctance, consider it a reflection of the genuine difficulties encountered when translating ambitious climate goals into practical, actionable plans. Uncertainty around whether carbon credits can credibly be used as a short-term bridge to longer-term reductions, a lack of clear guidance from standard setters, challenges in measuring and reducing Scope 3 emissions, and the operational complexity of cutting emissions across large, global supply chains are all massive hurdles to face. In this context, HSBC’s approach is a predictable reaction to current market conditions.

Incentivizing action over perfection

While both Microsoft and HSBC stepped back from aspects of their climate plans, their responses took different forms. Microsoft communicated its challenges openly and renewed its focus on tangible action. HSBC delayed its targets for direct operations in response to evolving guidance and market uncertainty, while maintaining its financed emissions goals. The question now is whether more companies will take Microsoft’s path — acknowledging difficulties while reinforcing ambition — or opt for a more cautious, phased approach such as HSBC’s.

These contrasting examples reveal a critical truth: insisting on absolute perfection before action is taken – and lambasting companies for their claims – can do more harm than good. In some cases, companies taking early steps, such as experimenting with credits or interim goals, are publicly criticized, leading others to delay action for fear of reputational risk. We must shift the conversation from penalizing companies for not meeting idealized standards to celebrating tangible, responsible action that moves us closer to a sustainable future.

A call to standard setters and guidance providers

Standard setters and guidance providers, such as the SBTi, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), have a pivotal role to play in shifting the conversation. Instead of imposing stricter benchmarks that may inadvertently slow down climate progress, they can develop flexible, tiered standards that recognize and reward incremental improvements. Appropriate claims language, reputational benefits, and collaborative partnerships can all be leveraged to create an environment where companies feel supported in taking decisive action now rather than postponing progress until a later date.

The paths chosen by Microsoft and HSBC remind us that corporate climate action is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. While some companies will continue to push forward aggressively, others will choose to navigate internal and external headwinds with a more measured pace. Instead of bashing imperfection, we need to inspire companies to take environmental action — even if that action isn’t flawless.

[Join more than 5,000 professionals at Trellis Impact 25 — the center of gravity for doers and leaders focused on action and results, Oct. 28-30, San Jose.]

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How tariffs are challenging purpose-driven small companies

Key takeaways

  • Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) that feature sustainable, circular or ethical practices are especially vulnerable to tariff whiplash.
  • In fact, rising costs and shifting pressures are forcing some to halt operations.
  • Transparent, diversified supply chains have helped others adjust — but can’t fully shield them from uncertainty.

The White House’s recent assault on global free trade poses unique challenges to the 99 percent of U.S. businesses that employ fewer than 500 workers. Rapidly reconfiguring supply chains squeezes all small businesses with slimmer margins, tighter production lines and more limited access to capital than large corporations. But unpredictable tariffs are especially problematic for the portion of the nation’s 33 million small businesses that are built atop nature-friendly credentials.

These SMBs are likely to have to slash sustainability initiatives and costs, according to Donatela Bellone, a former McKinsey consultant who is currently involved in a fashion-related startup. Companies that seek to buy materials from responsible facilities already face higher costs, and shoppers are reluctant to pay any additional premium, she added.

Unfortunately, brands that bake sustainability into their business models lack a unified lobby to send to Congress, but some are beginning to mobilize. “This doesn’t feel like the path to economic success for our country,” wrote Eagle Creek CEO and owner Travis Campbell to lawmakers on April 3, about anticipated tariffs of 32 percent on imports from Indonesia, its primary supplier. The outdoor gear brand, based in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, had already frozen hiring and lowered sales forecasts before the White House paused those tariffs for 90 days.

Meanwhile, the CEO of “circular bag” brand Day Owl, Ian Rosenberger, last week tried to rally fellow small business leaders. “The reality is that making our goods in the U.S. has been prohibitively expensive for a long time, making our bag prices unattainable for regular folks,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, around the U.S.

Here’s what other American SMBs told Trellis about the impact tariffs are having on them.

Bambu Home

Demand has been strong for bamboo spoons and cutting boards, especially after a scare last fall related to chemicals in black plastic utensils, according to Jeffrey Delkin, president of Bambu Home. But tariffs forced the Portland, Oregon, company to halt production and shipment. “Right now, everybody is frozen,” he said. “We’re shifting gears in live time.”

The B Corporation is sitting on several months of inventory. “We don’t have a business model that works anymore,” Delkin said, describing the effect of the 145 percent levies against China, where the company sources bamboo certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

“It’s a nice circular model where the manufacturer is within an hour or so of the material where it’s growing in the wild,” he said. “They are, of course for good reason, worried about their business as we are, too.”

“We’re an eco-friendly, small family business,” Delkin said. “What effect is this going to have other than we go out of business? We’re not going to make what we make in the United States. We won’t be able to find people to do it or material.”

Framework Computer

“First, I want to acknowledge that this sucks, for you, for us, and for our mission to remake consumer electronics,” Framework CEO Nirav Patel wrote in a recent blog post. The San Francisco startup —which manifests the principles of the right-to-repair movement with open source computer designs that include recycled materials — has updated its blog three times since, in response to the rapid-fire moves of the White House.

Framework had planned to temporarily absorb the additional tariffs on Taiwan, where most of its manufacturing happens, while charging U.S. customers more; migrating production to lower-tariff regions was already in process. Reworking all manufacturing, however, remains a “theoretical long-term solution,” Patel wrote.

Grey Matter Concepts

Grey Matter Concepts sells men’s knitted socks, base layers and T-shirts to DKNY, Wrangler and Walmart. The decade-old business, which employs roughly 100 people, blends organic, regenerated and virgin sources of cotton, and it uses polyester derived from recycled plastic bottles. The brand’s factories are certified by third parties for sustainability and fair labor practices.

“Our attitude is, ‘Let’s just be patient here,’” said Robert Antoshak, vice president of global sourcing and development for the Manhattan company, which has that luxury because it sources materials from a variety of nations including India, China and the U.S. “Some people are really panicked because they are so exposed with China. But in our case, it’s more, ‘Let’s let things work their way out, and not hit the panic button.”

Dr. Bronner’s

For 77 years, Dr. Bronner’s has sold “All-in-One Magic” castile soaps in quirky, text-heavy bottles. Fair Trade-certified, they feature vegan and organic ingredients.

“Dr. Bronner’s Chief Operations Officer has reported that the tariffs, as they were originally announced, may cost us an estimated 3.4 margin points in terms of net revenue,” said Ryan Fletcher, vice president of public relations.

Based in Vista, California, the soapmaker employs more than 300 people, but it counts 17,487 smallholder farmers in its global supply chain. The company recently shared that it is declining to renew its B Corporation certification.

Fletcher said, “While our company is strong, and our mission and values are resilient, the proposed tariffs would be a setback for purpose-driven businesses and conscious consumers alike who seek to make the most ethical choices in their spending—which often means spending more to ensure fair wages, environmental stewardship, and general community well-being. Tariffs raise the cost of doing business even more for those of us who are already committed to the higher operating costs inherent in ethical business models.”

Ritual

Ritual ships “clean” multivitamins with transparent sourcing to shoppers and Target stores; its boron comes from Momence, Illinois, its vitamin E from Buenos Aires and its folate from Pisticci, Italy. The Culver City, California, company’s sourcing bona fides include Clean Label Project Certified, Climate Pledge Friendly and Non-GMO Project Verified.

According to Chief Impact Officer Lindsay Dahl, it is too early to see what the tariffs will mean for business, but that should change soon enough.

“Built on a foundation of traceable ingredients, knowing our suppliers well, and where the ingredients are manufactured, has allowed us to begin to understand the impacts of tariffs much faster than if we were a traditional business that doesn’t have supply chain maps and manufacturing locations readily available,” she said. 

Bunch Bikes

Founded in 2017, the cargo bike maker employs 11 people in Denton, Texas. Though it manufactures in the U.S., Bunch sources components from China and Taiwan, so tariffs will mean each of its products will cost $1,100 more to make, according to a company blog post. As a result, the company plans to raise retail prices, which currently start at $6,100.

“In short, we will be ok; there are alternatives,” said Founder and CEO Aaron Powell. “And though they’ll take time to get up and running, it’s the uncertainty that is the real problem.”

TS Designs

The “Made in the U.S.” T-shirt screen printer, based in Burlington, North Carolina, uses natural fibers and original water-based inks. Its partner effort, Solid State Clothing, sells a $70 shirt of regionally grown cotton, tie-dyed with marigolds.

The Administration’s grant freeze halted the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s support of the climate-friendly practices used on company President Eric Henry’s 4.5-acre farm, but that was just the beginning. “Now, we’re facing new tariffs,” he said.

As a result, the B Corporation, founded in 1977, is holding up a hardware shipment from Europe while it assesses the tariff implications. “This equipment is essential to our broader plan to revitalize and localize apparel manufacturing,” Henry said. “Tariffs are immediate; building resilient supply chains takes time.”

Though he believes a strategic application of levies can create positive change, “the on-again, off-again nature of these tariffs creates chaos.”

[Gain insights to move beyond incremental action and accelerate the shift to a circular economy at Circularity, April 29-May 1, Denver, CO.]

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AstraZeneca’s $130 million biomethane plant is a model for high-emitting industries

Key takeaways

  • The plant is expected to supply 100 gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable gas annually to AstraZeneca’s U.K. operations.
  • It was built by Future Biogas with a 15-year, $130 million offtake agreement from AstraZeneca.
  • It uses dedicated energy crops rather than waste materials.

In an industry better known for pioneering new medicines than renewable energy, AstraZeneca has taken a significant step towards the latter: the pharmaceutical giant is now fueling its U.K. operations with “green gas” from a purpose-built biomethane plant.

The facility, located at Gonerby Moor in Lincolnshire, east England, and operated by Future Biogas, is the U.K.’s first unsubsidized biomethane plant dedicated to serving the life sciences sector.

It also represents a serious commitment to decarbonization — and a template for other high-emitting industries to copy.

“We’ve been on a journey in the U.K. for many years to reduce our carbon footprint,” Liz Chatwin, vice president of sustainability and global safety, health and environment at AstraZeneca, told Trellis. “The missing piece of the puzzle was our source of heat power.”

That gap has now been filled by biomethane produced from locally grown energy crops through anaerobic digestion, then injected into the national gas grid. Biomethane is considered carbon neutral because the carbon released during digestion and burning is absorbed by the plants as they grow.  

The plant is expected to supply 100 gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable gas annually to AstraZeneca’s sites in Macclesfield, Cambridge, Luton and Speke — enough to meet the heat demand of more than 8,000 U.K. homes. 

The plant, built with a 15-year, £100 million ($130 million) commitment from the pharmaceutical giant, completes AstraZeneca’s goal of having all its U.K. R&D and manufacturing powered by 100 percent renewable energy. AstraZeneca will take all of the plant’s generation capacity for at least the next 15 years.

Why biomethane is a good fit for the life sciences

The pharmaceutical industry has a big emissions problem. According to a 2019 study, pharma companies generate over 48 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per $1 million of revenue — around 55 percent more than the emissions intensity of the automotive sector. 

In all, roughly 4.5 percent of global emissions are attributed to the healthcare sector, with the bulk associated to pharmaceutical procurement, production and use. 

So why turn to biomethane?

“There’s a lot of processes in pharmaceuticals that are hard to electrify because they require high heat, like raising steam,” said Philipp Lukas, CEO of Future Biogas. “Biomethane is a drop-in fuel for that. It’s a one-for-one substitute, meaning all the infrastructure to deliver and use it is already there. 

“If a company wants to decarbonize quickly whilst on that journey to electrification, then operating on biomethane can provide a solution in 12 to 18 months.” 

Future-proof power supplies

Beyond convenience, the project also aims to be self-sustaining. Unlike many earlier biogas schemes, this plant operates without subsidies and uses dedicated energy crops, not waste materials. 

That distinction matters. While animal manure can be a valuable feedstock for biomethane, Lukas noted, it comes with the complication of possibly promoting intensive livestock farming. “AstraZeneca wanted something where they could see the sustainability all the way through,” he said. 

Instead, crops are grown locally under five-year contracts that help farmers invest in regenerative practices, such as diversified crop rotation, reduced fertilizer use and improved soil health.

“The exciting thing about this is that you can support food production, not only boosting resilience but also reducing fossil fuel inputs on the farm,” Lukas said. 

Cut carbon, and capture it too

The Gonerby Moor site doesn’t stop at producing biomethane. It also includes carbon capture technology that removes CO2 from the fermentation process — CO2 that the energy crops had absorbed from the atmosphere a season earlier.

To begin with, the captured gas will be used in industry — for greenhouses, soft drink carbonization and the like – but longer-term, AstraZeneca hopes to send it for permanent geological storage through Norway’s Northern Lights project, turning the plant into a carbon-negative operation.

According to AstraZeneca, the partnership with Future Biogas will reduce its emissions by 20,000 tons of CO2 equivalent per year. A major retrofit of its Macclesfield combined heat and power (CHP) plant will save another 16,000 tons. 

All of this is part of the company’s Ambition Zero Carbon program, which aims to halve emissions across its full value chain by 2030 and reach science-based net zero by 2045. 

A potential model 

It’s a bold move — but is it replicable? That is, could other pharmaceutical or life science companies adopt a similar approach?

“The Moor Bioenergy plant serves as an excellent blueprint for other companies in our sector.” said Chatwin. “By utilizing locally sourced bioenergy crops and innovative carbon capture technologies, we are demonstrating how energy efficiency and sustainability can be integrated into manufacturing and research processes.”

“The unsubsidized nature of this project highlights the wider role of corporations in helping to build up renewable energy infrastructure,” said Amy Booth, a researcher at the University of Oxford who studies the environmental impact of health systems. “It would be nice to see others in the industry taking that up too.”

AstraZeneca is not only buying into biomethane; it has also cut its energy demand. The original estimate was that the company would need 350 GWh of electricity per year. After a company-wide push on energy efficiency — upgrading equipment, improving insulation and switching to electric systems where possible — that figure dropped to 100 GWh. 

“Always follow the maxim: use less, and pay more,” said Lukas. “The less energy you need, the more you can afford to invest in the sustainable options.”

The company is planning to invest in other renewable energy projects, including a partnership in the US with Vanguard Reneawables to deliver biomethane to all of its sites by the end of 2026. 

Other companies are also exploring biomethane. French pharmaceutical company Sanofi recently announced a purchase agreement to decarbonize 56 percent of its gas consumption in France. The 6-year deal covers 1.3 TWh of power, along with an additional 10-year contract covering 110 GWh to decarbonize Sanofi’s site in Lyon.

GSK, another pharmaceutical behemoth, is instead looking to solar. The company entered into a virtual power purchase agreement in 2024 to supply 50 percent of its European operations with solar power for 12 years using sites in Spain. 

Challenges ahead 

Energy procurement alone will not significantly shrink AstraZeneca’s footprint. Upwards of 90 percent of the pharmaceutical industry’s emissions are Scope 3, stemming from complex global supply chains that encompass everything from packaging and logistics to the end use of products, all operating under varying regulations across different countries. 

“I would congratulate [AstraZeneca] on this, but to put it into perspective, Scope 2 is a small part of the overall emissions challenge,” said Jagjit Singh Srai, head of the Centre for International Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge. “Scope 1 is something you can really control — that’s your energy efficiency, etc. And I think the next most controllable element is your energy sourcing. They will be looking at Scope 3 also and addressing that directly.” 

AstraZeneca has its eyes upon the Scope 3 challenge, as well.

More than two thirds of U.K. company’s suppliers have committed to science-based targets, Chatwin said. The company is also a founding member of Energize — a collaboration between Schneider Electric and 19 global pharma companies to “facilitate renewable power at scale for our suppliers.”

“While there is still more to be done,” Chatwin added, “we’re making progress, and it is indeed a shared challenge.” 

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GM taps Dell’s sustainability chief as new CSO

Key takeaways

  • Cassandra Garber’s former employers include 3M, Coca-Cola and General Electric.
  • She built the sustainability team from scratch at medical supply company McKesson.
  • Garber was at Dell for four years, most recently as chief sustainability officer.

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

Cassandra Garber is leaving her post as chief sustainability officer of computer firm Dell Technologies to take on the same role at automaker General Motors. 

Garber’s first day at GM is Earth Day, April 22. She succeeds Kristin Siemen, who retired Oct. 31 after a 30-year career with the company. One of Siemen’s top lieutenants, Kathi Walker, has been acting as interim CSO at GM.

Garber disclosed her decision to trade “keyboards for dashboards” in a post on LinkedIn that recalled hours spent visiting her grandfather’s radiator shop while growing up in Huntingburg, Indiana. In her new role, she’ll drive GM’s zero-emissions vehicle transition strategy and circular economy business practices that reduce waste across GM’s supply chain.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my career, it’s that sustainable business is smart business,” Garber wrote on LinkedIn. “Reducing risk, seizing innovation and growth opportunity WHILE delivering real and meaningful impact is where it’s at. It’s hard, but when done, and done well, it’s transformative for both business and our world.”

Garber is building on a strong foundation, although GM and other automakers face an uncertain future amid the Trump administration’s unpredictable trade tariff strategy.

GM managed to reduce tailpipe emissions 3 percent between 2018 and 2023. The company recently posted its best first-quarter sales since 2018, including a 94 percent increase in EV purchases.

Wide range of experience

Garber joined Dell in August 2021 to overhaul the company’s environmental, social and governance strategy — with the goal of embedding those metrics more deeply across the business.

“In just under four years we’ve reinvented the entire ESG organization, integrated it across the company, innovated in products and programs and processes, streamlined and prioritized our focus, had a meaningful impact in so many ways, and we’ve celebrated the amazing humans who made all this happen,” she said in another LinkedIn post.

Garber spent 10 years at General Electric in communications and marketing roles before moving on to sustainability leadership roles focused on reporting and strategic initiatives at Coca-Cola Co. and 3M. She also built the sustainability team at medical supplier McKesson from scratch.

Dell did not respond to a request for comment about its plans to replace Garber.

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Global plan for maritime shipping leaves industry short of net zero goal

Key takeaways

  • International Maritime Organization agrees to emissions intensity fuel standard.
  • System include options for shipping companies to buy credits if targets are missed.
  • Projections from environmental groups suggest the framework won’t deliver on net zero.

Plans to impose an emissions levy on international shipping, decided Friday by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), were simultaneously welcomed as a critical step forward and decried as flawed due to significant holes in the process for accounting for emissions.

The uneven reception reflects intense divisions among negotiators and the resulting compromise the IMO was forced to make when its Marine Environment Protection Committee wrapped up discussions in London. 

The organization had previously committed to transitioning the industry to net zero by around 2050, and the committee had been tasked with finalizing a mechanism for doing so. European Union nations and allies were pushing for strict emissions standards, while a coalition including Brazil, China and others advocated for more flexible mechanisms. 

Global tax

The resulting agreement is a hybrid mechanism that resembles emissions trading schemes. Owners of large vessels will face gradually increasing emission-intensity requirements, culminating in as much as a 43 percent reduction by 2035, compared to a 2008 baseline. Companies that fail to hit targets will have to pay a fine, use credits accumulated by beating targets in previous years or purchase credits from other owners.

The requirements will come into force in 2027, pending approval at a IMO meeting later this year. They are being described as the first global tax on greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental organizations who attended the negotiators were not celebrating, however. One key issue surrounds biofuels, such as those derived from vegetable oils. Among “drop in” fuels — those that can be used without modifying ship engines — biofuels will be attractive to ship operators because they are the cheapest and most readily available, according to the non-profit International Council on Clean Transportation. 

When estimating the impact of these fuels, the council and other organizations argue that it’s not enough just to look at the emissions generated by growing and burning the fuels. Producing biofuels can displace crops used for food and animal feed, increasing the risk that non-agricultural land, including forests, will be converted for farming. The council noted in a statement that the IMO’s aviation counterpart, the International Civil Aviation Organization, includes such indirect emissions in its accounting and that EU maritime rules limit or exclude food or feed-based biofuels. The IMO’s new framework “does neither,” said the council.

Net zero miss

Other groups questioned whether the combination of financial penalties and fuel targets would be sufficient to transition the industry to net zero by 2050 as the IMO intends. Researchers at the non-profit Transport & Environment (T&E) projected the likely impact of the new framework and concluded that the emissions savings would fall short of both the IMO’s stated goals and a trajectory aligned with 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. “Overall, the outcome of these two weeks of negotiation was disappointing,” said Felix Klann, T&E’s maritime transport policy officer.

The glass-half-full view of the negotiations? That any kind of conclusion was reached. President Donald Trump complicated an already fraught process by withdrawing the U.S. delegation while the talks were underway. The framework also needed to be put to a vote, an unusual step for an organization that generally operates by consensus. The Global Maritime Forum (GMF), a non-profit focused on decarbonization that partners with many shipping companies, was among the organizations to note that the framework falls short. But, the GMF added, “Given ongoing geopolitical tensions and trade disruptions, this binding agreement represents an example of multilateralism still at work.”

[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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Apply now: Trellis 30 Under 30 rising stars in climate in 2025

The Trellis 30 Under 30 recognizes young innovators and trailblazers for standout and tangible contributions to mitigating climate change as part of their professional work. 

Since 2016, the Trellis 30 Under 30 has been a mark of accomplishment for young professionals around the world acting on climate through business — advancing sustainability through strategy, tech, nature, decarbonization, communications, the circular economy, finance and more. 

Here’s how to apply for the 2025 list.

Trellis makes a point of highlighting the contributions of young people to climate action because the next generation is much more likely to be exposed to climate change and its consequences like flooding, heat stress and water scarcity. “Children aged 10 or younger in the year 2020 are projected to experience a nearly four-fold increase in extreme events under 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming by 2100,” according to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

The 270 individuals named to the Trellis 30 Under 30 list over the past decade have made specific, direct and measurable progress. 

Recent honorees

There’s Dan Dinh, who drives green chemistry, ingredient transparency and packaging sustainability at $19 billion (market cap) Estée Lauder in New York and its brands like Aveda, Clinique and Origins. Or Edward Freer, who led communications of the London Stock Exchange’s double materiality assessment, reporting on how the company affects the environment and how the environment affects the company. And Holly Funk, who identified ways to save 15,000 metric tons of CO2 by optimizing ship itineraries for Norwegian Cruise Line in Miami.

How it works

The Trellis 30 Under 30 (until last year called the GreenBiz 30 Under 30) recognizes early-career sustainability professionals actively addressing climate change through their work. A team of Trellis climate journalists and experts evaluates applicants based on their recent contributions as part of their professional employment. 

Qualifications: 

  • Nominees must be 30 years or younger as of June 30, 2025. 
  • Applications must be received by May 5, 2025.
  • Nominees must have driven impact while working for a company or organization (not while a student).
  • The climate work must be recent, which we define as taking place between 2023 to 2025.
  • Priority placed on corporate climate professionals.

Evaluation criteria:

  • Measurable impact of the project and its significance to addressing climate change. Numbers matter. (Some examples: Quantified the company’s Scope 3 supply chain emissions, making up 80% of its CO2 footprint. Conducted due diligence for ESG investment portfolios with more than $1 billion in assets under management. Closed a $10 million Series A fundraising round for a climate startup.)
  • Leadership the nominee exemplified. 

This year’s awardees will be announced in June 2025. The list will aim to reflect diverse personal and professional backgrounds, sectors and geographies to showcase the many opportunities to drive change through business. The Trellis Emerging Leaders is a different program that supports a cohort of young BIPOC climate professionals, many of whom are students.

Apply to the 2025 Trellis 30 Under 30 today.

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The sustainability profession is at an existential crossroads. Here’s how it can survive

Key takeaways

  • The sustainability profession needs to decide if it’s to raise the bar and become a trusted profession or be co-opted to sanitize increasingly destructive corporate and political activities.
  • If professionals decide to raise the bar, they must do so via four core qualities: knowledge, competence, ethics and accountability.
  • One defining feature of trusted professionals is their higher duty of care to society.

For many sustainability professionals, these are disorienting times. Between the rollback of climate policy and environmental protections to the erosion of evidence-based truth and science itself, it’s difficult to rise to the challenges associated with creating a long-term sustainable society.

While we still believe in the potential of the sustainability profession, it’s time to reevaluate its purpose. We need to consider why the profession has failed (so far) to usher in the needed course correction. 

That’s why we’ve drawn on lessons from more established professions that have earned the public’s trust to help the sustainability profession find its next iteration.

The role of professionals in society

Our most trusted professions have developed to fulfill widely recognized societal needs. The Hippocratic Oath, for example, states, among other things, “do no harm.” To wit, we’ve seen the medical profession improve people’s health, well-being and life expectancy. Similarly, professional engineers apply science to create infrastructure and technologies that improve human well-being, safety and, in some cases, environmental protection. While imperfect, most people agree that these and other professions benefit society in major ways compared to a world in which they don’t exist.

Our most credible and trusted professionals distinguish themselves through higher levels of knowledge, competence, ethics and accountability. They consistently demonstrate these qualities amid high uncertainty, challenging power dynamics and potential conflicts of interest. 

A core, defining feature of professionals is their higher duty of care. For some of the most respected professions such as doctors and engineers, that duty of care is widely expected and legally mandated. For example, a clinician makes decisions based on advanced understandings of human systems (respiratory, circulatory) and unique patient needs. While most of us are concerned with health, we’re not all qualified health professionals. The same could be said of sustainability. With our most trusted professions, the public expects a higher duty of care from professionals because, in many ways, their lives depend upon it. 

Four qualities to professionalize sustainability 

Today, sustainability professionals run the gamut from chief sustainability officers to “green” marketing experts to procurement specialists. The multitude of sustainability qualifications, standards and certifications often focus on making an impact in a particular context, but not on the profession itself. Professional associations such as the International Society for Sustainability Professionals and Association of Climate Change Officers focus on knowledge, competencies and community-building – but not on ethics, duty of care or accountability.

At the same time, the profession is increasingly influenced by companies and politicians obstructing meaningful progress in favor of short-term business, economic or political goals. Instead of being asked to consider broader systemic change, sustainability professionals are tasked with positive marketing stories, stakeholder relations or reporting. Just look at Microsoft’s recent decision to walk back its ambitious carbon positive ambitions in favor of accelerated energy consumption for AI expansion. 

What’s more, criticism of sustainability professionals is growing, damaging the credibility of the nascent profession with accusations of “creating the illusion of progress” or “sanitizing the destruction.” 

If the profession is to become credible and trusted, elevating these four core professional qualities is necessary:

Knowledge: One of the biggest differences between professionals and non-professionals is the depth and breadth of their knowledge. Sustainability professionals are systems thinkers who understand peer-reviewed and evidence-based sustainability science, planetary life support systems and limits. They also understand humanitarian principles related to intra- and inter-generational equity and human rights along with procedural principles for co-creating regenerative solutions with diverse communities.

In practice, sustainability professionals typically complement fundamental knowledge with “instrumental” tools, such as renewable energy technology, corporate sustainability reporting or economic analyses. Credible professionals can distinguish between what’s instrumental and fundamental; a surgeon may use advanced surgical tools but never forgets how the circulatory system works. Similarly, sustainability professionals may develop a business case, while also understanding that contributing to fit-for-future planetary systems is fundamental. 

Competence: Professionals apply knowledge; they not only know something but can do something. They use leadership qualities, skills and integration capabilities that create new, fit-for-future realities, such as facilitating multi-disciplinary networks to transform energy systems into net-zero emissions. 

Ethics: To earn credibility and the public’s trust, sustainability professionals must also follow robust ethical principles. In practice, this means that at a minimum, sustainability professionals are empowered to provide informed, well-reasoned, diplomatic advice to employers, clients and governments without fear of reprisal.

Unfortunately, employers and/or powerful corporate lobbies and government actors can unreasonably restrict or punish sustainability professionals for speaking and acting ethically while those who engage in misinformation are sometimes rewarded. This underlines the importance of strengthening a professional community that’s willing and able to “speak with the voice of its members” to protect individual professionals. Conversely, when professionals act unethically, associations can carefully adjudicate and potentially sanction their members.

Accountability: While professionals’ primary responsibilities are to their clients and employers, those who earn widespread credibility and trust also demonstrate an ethical commitment to the health, safety and well-being of society.

On the path to professionalization 

Sustainability professionals are at a crossroads: either raise the bar or be co-opted to sanitize increasingly destructive corporate and political activities. To further advance their standing, sustainability professionals can strengthen their professional qualities as described; organize strong and principled professional associations; and advocate for the highest standards of professionalism, including a higher duty of care to society. 

[Join more than 5,000 professionals at Trellis Impact 25 — the center of gravity for doers and leaders focused on action and results, Oct. 28-30, San Jose.]

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