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

Sustainability consulting is currently a highly competitive career path, despite current ESG headwinds. Firms often receive 1,000 to 5,000 applications for a single role, and most organizations have turned to AI for help with identifying candidates with the greatest potential. 

To understand how candidates can stand out in today’s competitive landscape, I spoke with senior leaders at five sustainability consultancies. It quickly became clear that once highly sought-after experience in areas such as disclosure and greenhouse gas accounting has become easier to find. As a result, many technical skills have become table stakes, leading firms to focus more on specific combinations of skills, attributes and cultural fit. 

While networking has always been important, it carries a heightened significance in today’s job market. Referrals remain the best way to get your resume seen by a human and conversations with current employees can help you understand the nuances of what each firm values. 

Below are summaries of my conversations, edited for length and clarity. 

3R Sustainability

Headquarters: Pittsburgh, PA 

Approximate sustainability advisory team size: 40 consultants

Best known for: Sustainability strategy and management systems; decarbonization and resilience for the built environment; reporting, scoring, ratings and sustainability assurance

Jana Lake, president and owner on what makes 3R unique: 3R stands out for its human touch — we prioritize long-term relationships, a partnership approach with our clients and work–life balance for our consultants. Our consultants are encouraged to listen deeply, ask the right questions and motivate clients who may feel overwhelmed, while also supporting each other with a team-first mentality. We work remotely with our clients so that everyone has the flexibility they need to spend time with family or pursue other passions outside of work. 

What 3R Sustainability looks for in candidates: Cultural fit has always come first. We’re looking for candidates with a partnership mentality and a growth mindset who take a coaching approach to their work. It’s also important for candidates to clearly understand the sustainability context and what drives business value, reduces risk and improves management systems. 

How candidates can stand out: Candidates with internal sustainability experience have a unique appreciation for how difficult it can be to drive change across an organization and that makes them more empathetic and effective. We also appreciate candidates who have assurance experience and can understand how a sustainability assessment works from the other side of the table.

SE Advisory Services

Headquarters: Paris, France 

Approximate sustainability advisory team size: 3,300 consultants

Best known for: Net-zero strategy; regulatory-grade reporting; high-integrity carbon credits; climate risk consulting

Stuart Lemmon, head of the global sustainability practice, on what makes the team unique: We have always differentiated ourselves by the quality of the work that we do. We use processes that are underpinned by rigorous science to develop solutions for our clients that are data-driven and in alignment with international standards. 

The firm has been recognized as the “World’s Most Sustainable Company” by TIME Magazine and Statista for the past two years. We’re part of a larger global team of experts in energy, resilience, strategy and efficiency who really understand this work and walk the talk, which puts us in a very strong position to offer our clients high-quality end-to-end solutions. 

What SE Advisory Services looks for in candidates: We’re heavily focused on candidates with strong data science and engineering skills. They must be able to understand and interpret data within the context of the science and then understand how it informs strategy. 

We’re also looking for candidates who can engage effectively with clients. Every member of the team is expected to serve as a trusted adviser directly supporting our clients on their sustainability journey. And as a values-driven organization, we’re looking for people who are passionate about creating impact for our clients, are open and transparent, and work well within an empowered environment. 

How candidates can stand out: Exceptional candidates are capable of guiding a client’s progress along their journey while also thinking about where the market is going. They understand context and how the evolving regulatory and standards landscapes will impact the client. Strong candidates are also constantly thinking about a business’s operating model and how to improve it. They’ve learned how to use AI tools and can effectively incorporate them into existing tools and processes. 

KPMG

Headquarters: London, UK 

Approximate sustainability advisory team size: 5,000 consultants

Best known for: Sustainability strategy and implementation; sustainability reporting and assurance; climate risk and transition planning

Charlotte Fildes, global ESG head of talent, on what makes KPMG unique: We view ESG as a watermark running throughout the global organization that empowers our consultants to become agents of positive change and provides solutions and services that help our clients overcome the challenges facing our planet and society. 

Our consultants are passionate about making a difference and working towards the goals in the KPMG: Our Impact Plan, which includes a validated Science-Based Target (SBT) to decarbonize our business by 50 percent across all scopes by 2030 compared to our FY19 baseline.

What KPMG looks for in candidates: We have always looked for candidates with strong analytical minds and excellence in client service, but as we’ve moved forward with implementing KPMG’s Our Impact Plan, we’ve been increasingly looking for purpose-driven thinking as a core competency. Our consultants are interested in more than just solving problems; they’re also motivated by a meaningful career and want to drive meaningful change that creates and protects value for our clients. 

How candidates can stand out: The most competitive candidates combine ESG skills, such as reporting or climate analytics, with value-driven transformation abilities. We’re also looking for candidates who understand the risks and value creation potential across the full ESG project life cycle. They can connect the dots and articulate how a change in one functional area can impact risk mitigation, operational efficiency and competitive positioning across the entire organization.

WAP Sustainability

Headquarters: Chattanooga, TN 

Approximate sustainability advisory team size: 80 consultants

Best known for: Corporate sustainability; product sustainability; certifications and verification

William Paddock, CEO and managing director on what makes WAP Sustainability unique: We are known for our balance of strategy and execution, as well as our well-rounded cross-functional service offerings. We meet our clients where they are on their sustainability journey and stay grounded in the realities of this work. Our team combines a “get it done” mentality with a culture of camaraderie and respect for each other’s skills. 

What WAP Sustainability looks for in candidates: There are two skill sets that we’ve always gravitated towards: a growth mindset and the ability to thrive in ambiguity. Because the sustainability space is constantly changing, we look for self-motivated learners who want to build skills across our service lines while keeping pace with new developments. Every client has a unique set of needs, drivers and level of ambition so every engagement will be different and consultants have to be able to adjust for that. 

How candidates can stand out: We’re most interested in candidates who can clearly demonstrate experience with moving the needle and making the right structural differences within an organization. We look for people who have tangible accomplishments in things like strategy or supplier engagement and are looking to join a consulting firm in order to scale their impact. 

WSP

Headquarters: Montreal, Canada 

Approximate sustainability advisory team size: 130 US-based sustainability consultants, hundreds more globally

Best known for: Sustainability strategy and program design; decarbonization and carbon accounting; climate resilience and adaptation planning 

Julie Hughes, vice president, sustainability, energy and climate change, on what makes WSP unique: As an advisory team operating within the context of an engineering firm, we’re in a unique position to help our clients develop a vision, build a strategy and implement actionable plans. It’s incredibly rewarding to see an aspirational vision start to manifest in real actions.  

Our consultants are big thinkers with big ideas, and they’re also practical people who are technically sound and comfortable digging into the details that drive projects forward. They have a lot of personal agency to identify the skills that they want to develop and pursue projects they want to work on. Our team is a special blend of collaborative, supportive and respectful. We treat each other as fellow human beings first, and as co-workers second.  

What WSP looks for in candidates: Consulting is inherently about enabling others to succeed, so it’s important to have humility and a proclivity for helping other people — rather than a desire to have the spotlight or receive all the credit. We look for people with a natural inclination towards helping others who derive real joy and satisfaction from that act.  

We’re looking for natural learners who are intellectually curious, appreciate diverse perspectives, believe in what’s possible, and are excited by growth and change. 

How candidates can stand out: We’re particularly interested in candidates who are “pragmatic visionaries,” people who are adept at developing ambitious and aspirational ideas, but are also able to break those ideas down into actionable steps. We need team members who can paint a vivid picture for a client that helps them envision a better future, but can quickly pivot to the tactical, creating an action plan that builds towards that tomorrow. While we’ve always looked for candidates with intellectual agility and versatility, adaptability and comfort with change has recently become even more important. There’s a significant feeling of uncertainty in the market right now and we’re looking for people who are able to navigate that uncertainty productively, and with a level of empathy and grace that keeps our clients and our team moving forward.

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

Robert Metzke, who shepherded Dutch medical equipment company Philips’ push to integrate environmental considerations into new product design, is leaving to lead sustainability at German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom.

He will take over from Melanie Kubin-Hardewig, currently responsible for Group Corporate Responsibility at Deutsche Telekom, who is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities effective June 30, 2026. Metzke will report to Michael Hagspihl, who’s responsible for global strategic projects and marketing partnerships. In a statement, Deutsche Telekom said Metzke will focus on the further development of its global impact strategy and performance management for its sustainability initiatives.

Metzke, a 17-year veteran at Philips, led sustainability for the past nine years. He most recently was senior vice president and global head of sustainability. 

During Metzke’s tenure, Philips became the first health technology company to have the emissions reduction targets across its entire greenhouse gas footprint approved by the Science Based Targets initiative.

The company also met its promise to include “EcoDesign” metrics — including reduced energy consumption, the elimination of hazardous substances and the use of lightweight or recycled materials — in all of its new product design roadmaps.

Philips is one of the few companies that calculates an environmental profit and loss statement that puts a monetary value on its environmental impact. The company uses that to prioritize emissions reduction investments. For example, it inspired a feature that uses artificial intelligence to reduce energy consumption in MRI machines.

Metzke cites more milestones in the Sept. 30 LinkedIn post about his job switch, with a shoutout to Philips employees: “Real change happens where human hearts meet, beyond roles and ratio. The late-night brainstorms, the courageous conversations, the shared belief that business can — and must — be a force for good.”

Simon Braaksma, head of non-financial reporting at Philips, will replace Metzke on an interim basis. “Our strong teams and foundations will ensure our ESG commitments continue without interruption,” the company said. 

Deutsche Telekom, a much larger company than Philips with close to $134 billion in revenue in 2024, was not immediately available for comment. Its emissions reduction plan calls for a 55 percent cut across its entire carbon footprint by 2030, compared with 2020. 

Like Philips, Deutsche Telekom cites circular business models that reimagine how products are sold and repaired as integral to its sustainability plan. The telecom’s goal is to make all of its technologies and devices “compatible” with a circular economy — prioritizing longer use cycles supported by repair services and materials reuse. Philips generates close to 25 percent of its revenue from circular models for upgrading or replacing its products.

Editor’s note: This article was updated Oct. 2 to add more details from Deutsche Telekom.

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Jaycee Pribulsky, a longtime Nike leader who only 19 months ago became its chief sustainability officer, has joined Apollo Global Management as partner and chief sustainability officer effective Oct. 1.

She succeeds Dave Stangis, who four years ago became the firm’s first CSO. He will remain a partner, then serve as senior advisor starting in 2026 before he retires.

“Jaycee brings deep experience in sustainability, and her leadership will be critical in continuing to advance and scale our platforms,” stated Stangis, who also served as the first top sustainability executive at both The Campbell’s Company and Intel.

Pribulsky had teased an “incredible opportunity” in a LinkedIn post Sept. 9. She will return to New York City after eight years in Beaverton, Oregon.

As Pribulsky rose from senior director to vice president supply chain roles to the CSO seat, her focus included thinning emissions from 500 factories employing a million people across 41 countries. She replaced CSO Noel Kinder in February 2024 when he left for Lululemon.

Nike, which had cut its sustainability team by 30 percent at the end of 2023, has not named a new CSO.

About Apollo

Heading up strategy, reporting, climate and employee engagement at Apollo Global Management is a marked shift from working at Nike, with its more than 77,000 employees. Apollo, which is public, employs 5,100 people in 37 global offices and manages $840 billion of assets, including a $70 billion private equity portfolio. She leads a team of roughly 30 people dedicated to sustainability across the company.

“Apollo is known for its scale, capabilities and focus on delivering performance and resilience for clients and portfolio companies,” Pribulsky said in a press statement. “I am excited to build on that foundation working closely with colleagues and partners, using Apollo’s sustainability strategy as a practical tool for long-term value creation.”

Now that Stangis has cemented a foundation for sustainability reporting and risk management at Apollo, Pribulsky’s task includes continuing to use sustainability to create business value.

“Private capital is essential to bridging the gap where traditional funding falls short, and we see opportunities to deploy long-term capital in ways that drive both strong returns and meaningful value creation,” Stangis noted in Apollo’s 112-page sustainability report for 2024. “One of the biggest areas is in advancing the energy transition where we are investing in scalable, resilient solutions that will power industries for decades.”

Apollo helped to move some $59 billion within its funds toward climate-transition related investments. The goal is $100 billion by 2030. A sample investment: SunPower received $300 million in support for its home solar and storage offerings through Apollo’s funds and affiliates last year.

Nonetheless, Pribulsky joins the firm at a turbulent time for asset managers. Facing an ESG backlash from the White House, they are also under regulatory pressure to make sustainability reporting more transparent and defend their impact claims. “Alternative” managers such as Apollo also face the tensions of delivering returns from distressed or high-risk investments, including those related to fossil fuels, that don’t align tidily with sustainability goals.

Pribulsky’s career

For more than two decades, Pribulsky focused on sustainability and operations, particularly in sourcing. She also has a deep and varied set of experiences in public relations and governance, including at Bloomberg, Waggener Edstrom, Citigroup and United Technologies.

Before completing an MBA at Columbia University, Pribulsky worked in President Bill Clinton’s White House, including stints as his special assistant and a scheduler for first lady Hillary Clinton.

“Jaycee’s cross-sector experience and track record of building durable, business-aligned sustainability programs will continue to advance Apollo’s differentiated approach and competitive leadership,” Apollo Asset Management Co-President Scott Kleinman stated.

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Like many fast-growing companies betting on artificial intelligence, Salesforce is pacing far behind its climate action plan. 

The $38 billion enterprise software business said in 2021 that it would halve absolute emissions by 2030. Four years later, the company can point to solid progress on cutting emissions from electricity use. But those gains have been entirely canceled out by emissions growth elsewhere, including in the data centers that power its AI products.

Special Series

Chasing Net Zero

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GSK: Can it keep the biggest climate promise in pharma?

Series Overview & Methodology

Against that backdrop, the company has dramatically shifted how it intends to cut the biggest part of its carbon footprint. In the latest installment of Chasing Net Zero, our in-depth series that includes profiles of emissions progress at ArcelorMittal, Nestlé and GSK, we unpack the forces behind the move and explain why some observers are asking whether the switch has weakened Salesforce’s ambition on climate action. 

Salesforce is now basing its Scope 3 target — which includes data centers and other sources outside its immediate control, such as goods from suppliers — on improvements to emissions intensity rather than absolute reductions. Using this measure (Scope 3 emissions divided by the company’s gross profit) leaves open the possibility that the company’s absolute emissions could increase even if it meets its goal. 

What’s more, an analysis by Trellis of the company’s new intensity commitment suggests it will likely hit its goal just a year after setting it, raising questions about the depth of its ambition. 

Salesforce describes its decision to lean into emissions intensity, outlined in its most recent stakeholder impact report, as a “more actionable and pragmatic” route to net zero. “For a high-growth company like Salesforce, this approach is more practical given that growth may outpace the global rate of decarbonization,” said Sunya Norman, senior vice president of impact.  

Leadership legacy

Salesforce became one of the earliest companies from any industry to embrace net zero when co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff signed a splashy 2015 pledge organized by fellow billionaire Richard Branson. 

Its initial plan, validated by Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) four years later, called for halving emissions from operations and electricity use (Scopes 1 and 2) by 2030 — a commitment Salesforce achieved several years early thanks to investments in renewables. Subsequently, it has upgraded to a more ambitious 2030 target for Scope 1 and 2.

The 2019 plan also targeted a 50 percent cut to emissions from use of fuel and energy elsewhere in the company’s value chain. In a 2021 climate action plan, Salesforce expanded that commitment to all upstream and downstream Scope 3 emissions, including electricity consumed by data centers that run its software, but which the company doesn’t own. (The company did not have that broader pledge validated by the SBTi.)

To shrink its biggest emissions source — purchased goods and services, including the cloud capacity it sources from Amazon Web Services and Google — and meet a 2019 goal of having 60 percent of Scope 3 emissions come from suppliers with science-based targets, the company uses contracts that require strategic suppliers to cut emissions. Salesforce also turned its climate strategy into a source of business, packaging the system it built to track its emissions into a product called Net Zero Cloud, priced at $210,000 annually. 

Yet progress on overall emissions has been a victim of financial success. Since setting its first science-based targets, Salesforce has acquired data analytics software provider Tableau and messaging software firm Slack. It’s also merged with AI management player Informatica. The moves helped triple revenues — and contributed to absolute emissions staying stubbornly flat.

In 2024, the company’s emissions were just 1 percent below its 2018 baseline inventory of roughly 1 million metric tons. While the company reached its 2030 reduction goals for Scope 1 and 2 two years ago, overall emissions from Scope 3 activities — which made up more than 90 percent of its 2024 emissions — swelled 10 percent between 2019 and 2025. The company also fell short of its Scope 3 fuel and energy use goals, as well as its supply chain coverage goal.

Reboot required

Salesforce undertook a cross-company review in 2024 to reconsider its science-based targets as part of SBTi’s five-year review requirements. It dedicated a data scientist to analyzing progress and forecasting future scenarios, using internal metrics such as headcount adjustments, expansion plans and revenue projections alongside third-party data including grid decarbonization forecasts.

The company’s market-based reduction targets for Scope 1 and 2 are now more ambitious: A 67 percent drop by 2030, compared with the 50 percent reduction previously sought and already delivered, followed by a 90 percent cut by 2041. 

But it’s in Scope 3, which contributes the large majority of Salesforce’s total emissions, where things get more complicated. Instead of another absolute goal, the company is targeting emissions intensity cuts of 68 percent by 2031 and 97 percent by 2041. 

Around 80 percent of companies with SBTi-approved plans have absolute reduction goals — and this method is what many investors and stakeholders expect. Still, the initiative’s Corporate Net Zero standard allows Scope 3 intensity goals in high-emitting sectors where growth is projected to be sector-wide and significant. 

Salesforce is not the first tech company to make the switch: Design software firm Adobe opted for a Scope 3 emissions-intensity target when it updated its commitments in August 2024. Other well-known software developers are considering this option as part of the near-term target reviews that the SBTi requires every five years, according to insiders.

The megatrend underlying this thinking: Predictions of soaring energy use in AI data centers, which could consume 12 percent of all U.S. electricity by 2028. That’s driving an uptick in natural gas plant construction and is one reason why the three biggest software companies racing to claim AI leadership — Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft — have all seen recent increases in emissions. 

“You could view these economic intensity targets as a way of managing emissions in the short term as we are waiting for mitigation technologies to scale,” said Emma Armstrong, executive director for North America at consulting firm Anthesis. “They can be challenging to achieve and, for most companies, will require a very meaningful decoupling of emissions from growth.” 

Both of Salesforce’s new goals for emissions intensity are above the minimum required by SBTI, Norman said. “The way to think about our [old] targets versus our new targets is these Scope 3 targets are much more comprehensive, and they’re completely aligned to science-based target methodology that didn’t exist five years ago,” she said.

The idea of emissions intensity often resonates with business leaders outside the sustainability function, said Armstrong. “Ten years ago, companies could set a target, it could be very ambitious, but there was less high-level scrutiny,” she said. “Those days are 100 percent gone. You cannot take a target to senior management unless you can tell them exactly what you’re going to do to deliver.”

Easily achievable goal

How likely is it that Salesforce will reach its new near-term pledges? 

The company won’t start officially publishing its new metric until next year’s impact report. Trellis analyzed Salesforce’s emissions intensity since its baseline year using historical emissions and gross profit data. 

Those calculations show that the company reduced its intensity by 62 percent since 2019, suggesting Salesforce is already close to its near-term goal. Indeed, if it maintains the pace of reductions seen in recent years, the company could hit the goal in 2026. What’s more, if its cumulative gross profit grows more than 50 percent over the next five years, Salesforce could meet its intensity goal and still report an absolute increase in Scope 3 emissions. 

When asked to comment on the level of ambition for the emissions-intensity goal, Norman noted that the new, near-term SBTi-validated target is more comprehensive than the one it replaces, which covered just one category of Scope 3. “We are aligning to this metric in line with SBTi guidance and above their minimum requirements,” she said.

Emissions intensity targets focused on metrics, such as the energy used in production, are valuable for specific commodities, as they can serve as industry benchmarks, but ones pegged to profit are less meaningful, said Thomas Day, a climate policy analyst at the NewClimate Institute, which analyzes company emission commitments in its Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor.

“The only stakeholder group that I can see benefiting from such an approach is investors that are not actually interested in the company decarbonizing, but rather just want to know that the company has the profit margin to absorb any potential regulation related to carbon pricing that may come along in the future,” he said.

How Salesforce plans to make progress

AI has swelled Salesforce’s addressable market from billions to trillions of dollars as it enters its 26th year. Its technology, Agentforce, uses autonomous agents to automate tasks such as nurturing sales leads, and to offer tips on how to close a deal. 

“This is not just a technology shift, this is a shift in how work gets done,” noted Salesforce CEO Benioff this year. The company has publicly committed at least $1.5 billion to fund AI innovations. 

Salesforce is also at the forefront of industry-wide efforts to define priorities for “sustainable AI” and evaluates its own AI investments with sustainability in mind, beginning with this question: Is the application really warranted? 

“The first part of the strategy starts with acknowledging that not every business activity needs to be replaced with or augmented by AI,” said Norman. From there, the company cuts power use by prioritizing the efficiency of its AI code and reducing the size of data sets used to train its algorithms. 

But it’s the company’s approach to technology infrastructure that will be the most crucial factor in mitigating AI-related emissions. In recent years, data centers represented an average of 19 percent of Salesforce’s total market-based emissions. To reach its new targets, Salesforce needs to cut the absolute emissions from suppliers and data centers by 13 percent and 10 percent, respectively, alongside measures to tame business travel and the footprint from its offices. 

Unlike two big competitors, SAP and ServiceNow, Salesforce doesn’t host applications in its own data centers. Rather, it runs them on a combination of equipment co-located in bigger data centers owned by partners, such as Digital Realty, and on cloud computing services managed by Google and Amazon Web Services. 

That hybrid approach could be a big advantage, because Salesforce leaders estimate that economies of scale make cloud data centers 40 percent more efficient than co-located infrastructure. Studies by big cloud providers offer a similar narrative: Microsoft, for instance, claims its Azure platform is 98 percent more efficient than a bespoke approach.

Salesforce also plans on leveraging its status among the top five enterprise software companies to motivate emissions cuts by its big cloud and infrastructure partners. More than half of Salesforce’s strategic suppliers have agreed to emissions cuts in their contracts. These are “super strategic relationships that need to have sustainability as part of the broader conversation,” Norman said. 

Salesforce’s contract structure — still unusual in any industry — is a real advantage as the company tackles its “massive” Scope 3 target for 2040, said Jennifer Vieno, ESG research director for technology, media and telecommunications with Morningstar Sustainalytics. In particular, it makes it easier to see what strategies actually have an impact, she said. 

Executives hope these efforts will help Salesforce navigate the transition every software company with net-zero commitments is confronting. While three of the biggest players in AI infrastructure — Amazon, Google and Microsoft — are sticking by original commitments, their emissions have skyrocketed, forcing all to rethink sustainability strategies. Microsoft, for instance, has said it will retire millions of carbon credits annually to meet its goal. Against this backdrop, Salesforce’s decision to revise its approach can be viewed as a pragmatic way to manage emissions amid a period of growth.

“We believe that intensity-based targets can be a useful tool,” said Kelly Poole, energy and climate coordinator with nonprofit As You Sow. “In general, they are trying to take accountability for Scope 3 emissions. I do see them as playing an active role.”

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