How Salesforce shifted its 2030 climate goals while going all in on AI

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.

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.

Source: Salesforce annual impact reports. Note: Salesforce discloses emissions by the company’s fiscal year, which ends in January. We have used the previous calendar years here, as most emissions were generated in that time period.

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. 

Source: Trellis estimates based on data from Salesforce financial and sustainability reports.

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.”

The post How Salesforce shifted its 2030 climate goals while going all in on AI appeared first on Trellis.

All eyes are on the Net Zero Banking Alliance, but the real action is elsewhere

How will banks collaborate on the financial industry’s net zero progress? Do they even need to work together? Can the same financial institutions that enable fossil fuels help to usher in a low-carbon global economy?

Those questions hang in the air as the members of the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) are expected to announce a vote any day now over whether to remain a committed club with formal obligations or something looser, like a guidance-based framework.

The alliance has been on hold since Aug. 27 pending a decision pegged for September. It had already rejected binding requirements for members in April, following a rapid exodus of 20 major banks. The U.S. anchor members that have fled since December, including Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, are also heavy fossil fuel financiers.

Each exit sparked outrage from activist groups that urged banks to halt oil and gas investments immediately. Other experts warned that the financial sector’s net zero targets would enter a “zombie” state, neither alive nor dead but ultimately aimless.

Yet most of the NZBA’s members, about 120, have remained despite an ESG backlash and threats by Republican lawmakers. Meanwhile, individual banks are neither dramatically ditching their climate goals or firing sustainability teams, despite some walkbacks and surface title changes.

“The infrastructure that has been built up over the last couple of years has been intact,” said Brian O’Hanlon, managing director of climate finance at the Rocky Mountain Institute in Washington, D.C. “And that, to me, is a very interesting sign.”

No ‘climate heroes’

But whatever the alliance decides, O’Hanlon and other climate transition experts maintain that it’s the wrong thing to focus on. The group had been useful as a scaling mechanism that elevated best practices, he said, but the real change comes where banks deploy capital.

“I don’t think we ever should have looked at banks as climate heroes, but they do sit on the edge of the greatest transformations in the economy,” O’Hanlon said. “We’re in the energy transition right now where we are asking banks to pan for gold when it comes to the energy structures and the deals of the future.”

The issue can be more creative, he added: “Let’s get into the cost. Let’s look into the deals. Where’s the innovation coming into place here?”

O’Hanlon’s stance aligns with that of Saskia Straub, climate policy analyst with New Climate Institute. The Cologne, Germany, group has found that the voluntary targets of large U.N.-backed financial alliances have not meaningfully advanced decarbonization in finance. 

Instead, banks should engage investees and direct finance to real-world, low-carbon activities in the short term, according to Straub. And high-emissions sectors like steel, cement and shipping should be a priority. “Particularly important is actively engaging with investee companies and introducing clear consequences if emissions from financed and facilitated sources are not reduced,” she said.

Watchdogs watching

In addition, pressure on banks needs to shift to pragmatic action on the infrastructure, incentives and institutional capabilities that help them deliver on goals and remain commercially viable, according to O’Hanlon. And if activists don’t understand how the heavily regulated institutions they seek to influence actually function, progress can stall further.

“Banks are not developing projects on the ground,” he said. “They don’t provide the menu, they don’t shop for the ingredients and they don’t set this up.”

Yet banks can use better intelligence about renewable energy options, including the capital expenditure of clients and regional contexts, according to O’Hanlon.

A shift to ‘collective learning’?

The NZBA is only the latest group wobbling under the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), which launched in April 2021 amid high hopes under then-COP 26 President Mark Carney. The NZBA sub-alliance quickly attracted some 145 banks representing $70 trillion in assets.

Four years later, however, the banking alliance may follow the path of GFANZ itself, which restructured in January and relaxed criteria for membership, even allowing companies without solid net zero goals to participate.

Such groups were useful as a mobilization and scaling mechanism that elevated best practices, but even since their launch more companies have integrated sustainability into their business, experts note.

The pendulum has swung away from collective action, according to O’Hanlon.  “Maybe we’ve gone from collective action to collective learning,” he said. “We are seeing banks and other parts of the financial sector learn from each other much faster in a state of competition, and that will give projects and companies of the future more choice at lower costs.”

The post All eyes are on the Net Zero Banking Alliance, but the real action is elsewhere appeared first on Trellis.

IKEA’s CEO explains why the C-suite still matters in the climate fight

At this year’s Climate Week in New York City, one theme stood out amid the 1,000-plus events and 100,000 attendees: leadership. Not just any leadership, but the kind that comes from the very top.

On our Two Steps Forward podcast, recorded live at Solutions House, my co-host Solitaire Townsend and I sat down with Jesper Brodin, CEO of IKEA and chair of The B Team, to explore the role of corporate leaders in accelerating the sustainability transition. What emerged was a candid conversation about agency, accountability and belief.

Fighting doom, building agency

For decades, sustainability professionals have debated whether CEO buy-in is indispensable. I argued yes: leaders like Walmart’s Lee Scott, Unilever’s Paul Polman and GM’s Mary Barra set bold courses that changed both their companies and their industries.

Townsend countered that while CEO support is transformative, it’s not the only path. “If your CEO isn’t on board,” she said, “go and engage your peers in middle management. You might find there’s a lot more power sitting there than you think.”

Brodin, who has spent three decades at IKEA, took the long view. “The solution on how to resolve climate change is an economic and technical transformation,” he said. “We need all leaders to collaborate because we’re in a hurry.” But he acknowledged that belief remains the hardest nut to crack — convincing skeptics that “climate smart is resource smart is cost smart.”

Proof in practice

IKEA has tried to make that case in tangible ways. Since the Paris Agreement, the company has grown revenues by 24 percent while cutting absolute emissions — Scopes 1, 2 and 3 — by more than 30 percent. Renewable energy investments alone have saved €97 million. Spare-parts programs and secondhand platforms extend product life cycles, turning circularity from concept into business model.

It’s a reminder that climate action isn’t charity or compliance — it’s competitiveness. Yet Brodin noted that half of CEOs still hesitate to speak publicly, wary of being accused of greenwashing. The result is a strange paradox: commitment is strong, but confidence is shaky.

Leadership imperative

So, do CEOs still matter? Brodin believes they do, profoundly. “We have long passed where sustainability belongs to the CSO,” he said. “Today, all leaders need digital competence and sustainability competence. It’s no longer an expertise field.”

That shift — from niche to norm — may be the legacy Brodin leaves as he steps down from IKEA after 30 years. The company’s trajectory suggests there’s “no way back,” as he put it. The challenge for other CEOs is whether they’ll find the courage to not only act, but to say out loud why they’re acting.

The Two Steps Forward podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and other platforms — and, of course, via Trellis. Episodes publish every other Tuesday.

The post IKEA’s CEO explains why the C-suite still matters in the climate fight appeared first on Trellis.

AI prompts for sustainability pros — recommended by sustainability pros

The power of generative artificial intelligence is abundantly clear, yet surveys show only a minority of workers use ChatGPT or rival services on a regular basis. That’s partly because it can be challenging to figure out where to apply AI, and how to ask it to do what you want.

If you’re among those who are yet to see proven value from AI in your work, here are some useful prompts to get you started. Each is recommended by a sustainability professional who vouches for its usefulness.

For editing text

This prompt tackles what Luke Elder, a senior lead for sustainability reporting at Google, calls a common challenge in corporate reporting: synthesizing contributions from hundreds of different authors into a cohesive voice. 

“Our annual Environmental Report is drafted by many teams across the company,” said Elder. “While each provides critical data and insights, the final document must read as if it were written by one person. It also needs to align with our specific tone, follow our best practices for disclosure, and reinforce our core messages.”

To quickly refine draft text, ensure clarity and alignment with established style, Elder uses this prompt:

“You are an editor for our annual Environmental Report. Your goal is to review the provided draft text for clarity, conciseness, and alignment with our reporting tone. Refine the text to eliminate jargon, improve flow, and ensure it reinforces our key sustainability messages.”

To help the AI edit with the right tone in mind, Elder recommends either adding a few words to define that tone — “frank,” “plainspoken” or “ambitious,” for example — or pointing the AI toward a report that uses the tone you’re looking for.

For checking on supplier progress

Your suppliers are your partners on the journey to net zero, but how are they faring in their emissions reduction efforts? Renu Yadav, a senior program manager for global sustainability at LinkedIn, likes to evaluate her company’s suppliers using this prompt:

“Review [company name]’s latest sustainability report, highlight how their emissions are trending, and list their Scope 3 reduction strategies.”

Explained Yadav: “To drive our Scope 3 emissions reductions, it’s crucial to track the progress our suppliers are making toward their own sustainability commitments. This prompt helps me understand how our key suppliers are advancing on their commitments, which in turn informs our supplier engagement and risk management efforts.”

For anticipating media scrutiny

To prepare for the media questions that follow the launch of his company’s annual environmental report, Google Director of Sustainability Reporting Alex Hausman asks Gemini — Google’s AI assistant — to role-play a reporter and generate critical questions.

“This helps us build a robust internal Q&A document, ensuring our communications, marketing and other teams are prepared with clear, consistent and data-driven responses” said Hausman. “It allows us to be transparent and responsive while freeing up our team to focus on other high-impact work.”

Here’s his prompt:

“Imagine you are a reporter for a major news outlet covering corporate sustainability. Based on the provided Environmental Report, what are the most challenging and insightful questions you would ask? Then, draft clear and concise answers to those questions using only information found within the report itself.”

For making sense of frameworks

Hands up if you know the key differences between sustainability reporting frameworks from the Global Reporting Initiative, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and the Task Force of Climate-related FInancial Disclosures. For extra credit, lay out how new disclosure rules from the state of California and the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive change matters.

If this kind of thing is not your idea of a good time, Yadav has a prompt for you:

“Compare common sustainability frameworks (GRI, SASB, TCFD) and highlight their similarities, differences, and relevance for corporate reporting.”

“I use this to stay up to date with evolving ESG reporting standards, understand which frameworks are most relevant to my company and identify overlaps to minimize reporting efforts,” she explains. “This not only helps me understand the basics of each standard but helps me understand which framework investors or regulators are prioritizing.”

Got a favorite prompt?

We’re sure there are many sustainability professionals out there with equally useful prompts. If you think you’re one of them, send us your suggestions and we’ll share the best as updates to this post.

For a deeper dive, attend the AI in sustainability session at Trellis Impact 25, where Yadav and Elder will be joined by Google’s Anna Escuer and entrepreneur Olya Irzak to discuss how AI could transform how teams collect, analyze and act on emissions data.

The post AI prompts for sustainability pros — recommended by sustainability pros appeared first on Trellis.

3 Climate Week NYC themes you should know

The corporate climate “actionists” who converged in New York last week for the 16th annual Climate Week NYC are resigned to the reality that federal policy won’t favor their agendas for at least another three-plus years. 

Even so, the majority of corporations with net-zero aspirations are not retreating from their top-level commitments. They’re just not talking about them as loudly.

At least three research analyses published to coincide with Climate Week NYC suggest that companies committed to reducing emissions and conserving nature and biodiversity are actually doubling down on that agenda:

  • The number of U.S. companies with net-zero commitments rose 9 percent in the past 12 months, according to the Net Zero Tracker’s 2025 stocktake, which did note that most of those pledges aren’t very robust.
  • A focused study that included 75 top companies by market capitalization found that while roughly 13 percent retreated from programs between April 2024 and May 2025, nearly one-third increased their investments.  
  • Close to 90 percent of CEOs think the case for sustainability is stronger now than five years ago, according to research by Accenture and the United Nations Global Compact, which represents more than 20,000 member companies. Almost all of 2,000 surveyed executives expect to include these metrics in their core strategies and compensation structures by 2050. 

“That makes sense, because being a business leader is not about opinions from one day to another, it’s about building, it’s about investing, it’s about transformation,” said Ingka Group CEO Jesper Brodin, referencing the Global Compact data during a panel discussion at the Nest Climate Campus. Ingka, IKEA’s largest retailer with $47 billion in revenue in 2024, is on pace to meet its 2030 target to halve emissions. A cross-functional committee of business leaders that meets at least eight times annually manages this strategy.

Only half of the CEOs responding to the UN Global Company survey, however, felt comfortable communicating this agenda — a refrain discernible in the other analyses.

“I think the corporate sector has gotten pretty quiet on these issues, whether or not they are moving forward,” said Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert during a panel discussion at the Nest Climate Campus. “I think there’s a real lack of leadership right now from the business sector, a real lack of leadership response to what we’re navigating.”

Here are three themes of note from the weeklong industry gathering:

Real work continues

Some 100,000 people came to New York to attend more than 1,000 summits, panels, receptions, climate tech pitch sessions and countless face-to-face meetings.

“This week for me, is about finding new people that I have not known before, hearing about new climate initiatives,” said Kate Heiny, vice president of sustainability for Booking Holdings, the company behind travel sites including Booking.com, Kayak and Open Table. “I often look to other industries and not the one that I’m in. I think that learning from other places has always been something that I would look to for growth. So it’s people, it’s ideas.”

That need for connection, validation and fresh perspective was echoed in many of my interviews throughout the week. “I think it has just been great to see that the majority of companies are just plowing on like we are,” said another chief sustainability officer, speaking on background.

“I see very serious people doing really extraordinary things, continuing at full force and momentum,” said Andrew Mayock, who headed the federal government’s sustainability strategy under President Joe Biden. 

Mayock was appointed the inaugural vice chancellor at the University of Colorado Boulder in March. He’s already shaping new master’s programs for integrating sustainability into business, engineering and policy. Mayock is also coordinating development of a new classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement that will recognize colleges and universities that include climate action as part of their mission.

“I’m really buoyed by being here,” he said.

AI debate gets more nuanced

Plenty of companies in attendance were willing to talk about how artificial intelligence stands to accelerate both their company’s environmental agenda and revenue growth. 

Packaging company Ranpak, which counts Amazon and Walmart among its many big-name customers, is already deploying AI for applications such as rightsizing packages or detecting how much cushioning is needed to protect items in them. “What excites me, frankly, is the stuff that we haven’t figured out yet … the problems that haven’t even been identified yet that can be solved with all of this data,” said David Murgio, chief sustainability officer at the company.  

NVIDIA’s head of sustainability, Josh Parker, downplayed ominous predictions about AI load growth that could strain the U.S. grid, suggesting that the electrification of vehicles and industrial loads is a bigger load factor over time and AI plays an important role in easing bottlenecks.  

“AI is helping us modernize the grid, helping us integrate renewables and batteries,” he said during one panel.

NVIDIA’s influence on the AI ecosystem cannot be understated. Its chips are at the center of data center buildouts by Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft, and the company on Sept. 22 announced a deal to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI’s infrastructure ramp-up. 

Natural gas isn’t going away

The biggest tech companies are spending billions of dollars on the AI data center buildout. To tame the associated emissions they’re investing in creative contracts to keep nuclear power on the grid, support new nuclear technologies and add emerging generation options, such as geothermal.

Here’s the thing few of them are talking about: 40 percent of the electricity powering U.S. data centers comes from natural gas, and it will be the biggest contributor of additional capacity between 2025 and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

Meta’s big $10 billion project in Louisiana, as one example, will require three new gas turbines. Elsewhere, natural gas plants that weren’t running at full capacity are being commissioned for more load, said Julio Friedmann, chief scientist for carbon removal advisory firm Carbon Direct. “The thing that people don’t talk about, the hidden aspect of what’s actually happening, is that the easiest thing to do is just ramp up existing natural gas capacity,” he said. 

While the tech firms are investing in as much renewable energy as possible to counter this rise, the Trump administration is making those deals tougher to complete. It plans to stop the retirement of aged coal power plants, for example, and U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright last week said data center operators should be prepared to shoulder the burden of their loads by co-locating near specific sources. That’s what Amazon plans to do, for example, near a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.

Natural gas is a better alternative than coal, although much of the capacity being added is “uncontrolled,” meaning the methane emissions are vented into the atmosphere, Friedmann said. Adding carbon capture and storage to natural gas facilities presents one potential solution, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to kill the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program could make it harder — if not impossible — for companies to tap into the 45Q tax incentives for those projects.

“The other thing is that all of this action on natural gas means the prices are going up, which is making all of this more expensive,” Friedmann said. 

The post 3 Climate Week NYC themes you should know appeared first on Trellis.

How P&G makes the business case for sustainability 

Procter & Gamble’s long-term chief sustainability officer, Virginie Helias, started her career as a marketer and brand manager, but she doesn’t think consumer products should be priced higher just because they have a lower environmental impact that may have cost more to achieve.

“We don’t price for sustainability, we price for performance,” Helias said in our interview at the Nest Climate Campus, one of 1,000 events scheduled during Climate Week NYC. “I’m trying to hit the magical trifecta of superior performance, sustainability and value creation.”

One example is a new edition of P&G’s NyQuil and DayQuil over-the-counter medication for cold and flu symptoms. The new liquid capsules are 25 percent smaller, which makes them easier to swallow and concentrates the ingredients. They’re sold in a recyclable bottle, instead of single-use blister packs. 

Another innovation, Head & Shoulders Bare, appeals to consumers seeking shampoos free of sulfates, dyes or silicone. It contains just nine ingredients and comes in a lightweight bottle that can be rolled up as the product is used. That cuts out 45 percent of the plastic used for similar bottles and allows consumers to use more of the product.

During an era when the average tenure for chief sustainability officers is roughly four years, Helias has preceded over three distinct phases of P&G’s journey: the development of core sustainability metrics, the integration of this strategy into the company’s core businesses and a new shift that views environmental improvements as a source of value creation.

“I think my biggest asset when I started 15 years ago in this role is that I didn’t know anything about sustainability,” she told me. “The only thing I knew is that it could be a driver for brand building and innovation.”

Business integration required

The first phase of P&G’s sustainability plan — from 2011 to 2017 — was about creating foundation metrics, including the ones highlighted in the company’s 2030 climate goals, according to Helias. 

The company reported mixed progress towards its greenhouse gas reduction commitments in August. While P&G shrank emissions from its own operations and energy use (Scope 1 and 2) by 60 percent since 2010, it’s not on pace to cut emissions from suppliers (Scope 3) by 40 percent per unit of production based on a 2020 baseline. So far, it has reduced them by 9 percent.

Innovations related to water are also central to P&G’s sustainability, which makes sense considering that the division selling products including the Tide and Cascade detergents contributes more than one-third of the company’s profit. 

The company set a goal to improve the efficiency of its production water use by 35 percent against a 2010 baseline. It has made a 26 percent increase, and recycled 3.49 billion liters of water from its facilities during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024.  

To address these commitments, Helias recruited a “coalition of the willing” — other business leaders inside and outside the company who accelerated the integration of P&G’s environmental priorities into product development roadmaps and partnership initiatives. The work of integrating environmental metrics with other key performance indicators has accelerated since 2021.

“We know that sustainability as a separate path is a dead-end path,” she said.

P&G now challenges suppliers to think about low-carbon technologies as a way to offer superior performance for a product. Companies that help P&G innovate in ingredients or packaging could benefit from better business terms.

“One of the ways we do that is by forming long-term partnerships for offtakes,” Helias said. “So, we help our suppliers derisk their investments.”

One example is P&G’s relationship with PureCycle Technologies, which is commercializing a plastics recycling technology invented by P&G scientists to remove colors and other contaminants that make it tough to use recycled plastics.

P&G decided to license its intellectual property to PureCycle to scale availability across the industry, including to its rivals. The production output of PureCycle’s first plan is sold out for the next 20 years.

What’s needed now: ‘an abundance of ideas’

Helias acknowledged that corporate sustainability practitioners face significant geopolitical and economic headwinds as 2025 winds to a close. She likened this moment for the movement to hitting the 20-mile mark of a marathon, when successful runners must summon new energy to reach the finish line.

Moving forward calls for radical creativity and “an abundance of ideas” that explicitly link environmental improvements to new value creation, Helias said. That’s her priority for 2026, when Helias will have a new boss, incoming president and CEO Shailesh Jejurikar. She now reports to Jon Moeller, who is retiring effective Dec. 31.  

 “What we need to do is to create our own tailwinds,” Helias said, “and those have to be around innovation that delivers superior value and performance, with sustainability as an amplifier of superiority.”

The post How P&G makes the business case for sustainability  appeared first on Trellis.

Why composting is more accessible than it seems (and getting easier)

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

For years, one hurdle to diverting food waste from landfills has been limited collection of this material across the U.S. But new research shows that access to composting in cities across the country has increased by 8.9 percentage points, up from 27 percent in 2020 to nearly 36 percent today.

Composting is a critical tool in the climate change toolbox. It diverts food and other organic waste from landfills, where food waste accounts for 58 percent of landfill methane emissions, the greenhouse gas equivalent of 50 million passenger vehicles. Plus, the finished compost is incredibly effective at enriching soil and promoting carbon sequestration. Since as much as a third of what we send to landfills is food, sending this material to another home is a key sustainability strategy.  

First, though, we need better data. Knowing where people have access to composting programs — and what they’re allowed to put in the bin — is essential for driving food waste diversion efforts and understanding whether compostable packaging can be a viable option across the country. 

The different types of composting access 

Knowing where residents can compost is important, but we also need to know how the program is structured. Residential access to composting collection can be through:

  • Municipally run curbside programs, administered by a resident’s city or county. These are generally considered to be easier to use, as residents typically already access other waste services through their municipalities.
  • Privately run curbside programs, managed by private composting companies that pick up material from residents and take it to a nearby composter or their own composting sites. These programs are often structured as a monthly subscription service (typically in the range of $30/month), and see use from motivated residents.
  • Drop-off programs, which can be managed by the municipality or private companies, often offer multiple drop-off locations, and are typically free but in some cases may include a fee. 

An evolution over the past five years

Five years ago, the environmental nonprofit GreenBlue developed interactive maps and charts of municipally run and privately run composting programs, available on Tableau Public. The study looked at data on program availability and material acceptance in the 1,000 most populous U.S. cities, whose combined population represented approximately 40 percent of the total U.S. population. Cities are key to the composting puzzle. They’re densely populated, they typically offer curbside waste and recycling programs, and some have goals around zero waste or packaging circularity. 

Fast forward to this year and we have an updated dataset to understand the state of composting access today. Expanding the dataset to the 6,233 largest U.S. cities, representing more than 60 percent of the nation’s population, we learned that:

  • Today, 17.8 percent of the measured U.S. population has access to curbside or drop-off programs that accept food waste only (no compostable packaging accepted), up from 16 percent in 2020.
  • 18.1 percent of the measured U.S. population has access to curbside or drop-off programs that accept some form of compostable packaging in addition to food waste, up from 11 percent in 2020.
  • In total, nearly 36 percent of the U.S. population has access to some kind of curbside or drop-off composting program that accepts either food waste only, or food waste and some forms of compostable packaging. This was 27 percent in 2020, resulting in an 8.9 percentage point increase. 

What this means for food waste and compostable packaging 

Clearly, there’s more work to be done. Access to composting programs is not widespread, and if we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by diverting food and other organic waste from landfills, more cities and private haulers will need to start offering these services. Cities will also need to see support, advocacy and demand from companies — organizations can advocate for expanded infrastructure through the US Composting Council and Biodegradable Products Institute, and make sure that their own corporate operations and headquarters are signed up for food waste collection. 

At the same time, we can take a moment to celebrate. Composting access is growing, and it’s a more-than-legitimate, not-so-hippie waste management strategy that’s quietly building local soils and economies. As companies lean into composting advocacy, we’ll see big payoffs for the climate, for waste reduction and for local landscapes. 

The post Why composting is more accessible than it seems (and getting easier) appeared first on Trellis.

85 percent of people say companies should push governments on climate action

At a time when it’s hard to find consensus on many issues — particularly in the sustainability space — new research shows a majority of the public want companies to step up and fill the climate change void left by some governments around the world.

New data from Trellis data partner GlobeScan shows that 85 percent of people around the world believe large companies should actively encourage governments to take stronger action on climate. While the percentage of those who strongly agree has slightly declined over the last few years, the overall consensus remains clear: People expect business to lead on climate advocacy. Only 15 percent of respondents express disagreement, underscoring the enduring public mandate for corporate climate leadership.

Support is especially strong in emerging markets, where citizens are looking to business as a catalyst for progress:

  • Kenya (94 percent)
  • Nigeria (94 percent)
  • Vietnam (93 percent)
  • Indonesia (92 percent)

Even in countries where climate policy is politically sensitive, such as Germany (70 percent) and the Netherlands (72 percent), strong majorities still support corporate engagement. In the U.S., where there has been significant pushback against corporate climate activism, as much as 78 percent of the public want companies to engage the government on climate action.

What this means

The public is not just open to corporate climate advocacy; they expect it. This presents a strategic opportunity for businesses to step into a leadership role that goes beyond internal sustainability efforts. Advocacy can build trust and legitimacy, especially in regions where climate impacts are felt most acutely. At the same time, silence or neutrality may be perceived as indifference. As global attention watches Climate Week NYC and COP 30 this fall, companies have a clear mandate to use their influence to shape policy and accelerate climate action. 

The post 85 percent of people say companies should push governments on climate action appeared first on Trellis.

3 ways CSOs can engage employees

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

Much attention is paid — justifiably — to the outcomes of companies’ various sustainability efforts: energy consumption, fair labor practices, governance frameworks and water and waste reduction, to name a few. Those outcomes, however, are driven by processes, and those processes by people. So for CSOs, a critical part of the job comes more from the field of communications than environmental science: employee engagement.

It’s no surprise that public discussions of sustainability often cover processes, workflows, product specifications, supply chains and metrics. Those are all incredibly important and they’re clear, measurable ways to hold organizations accountable. Yet at the most basic level, impact isn’t driven just by strategy or technology — it’s driven by people.

I’ve found that behind closed doors at events such as Climate Week NYC, business leaders focus on the people in the organization. Using one’s people right is a big opportunity for every company, and an enormous one for global enterprises, where 200,000-plus human beings can be viewed as simply colleagues — or compatriots. This is true now as AI and other technological advances require ongoing reviews of how tap people for where their unique skills are needed most.

Turning employees into CSO partners involves embedding sustainable thinking not just into corporate processes, but in daily decision-making. This is valuable for several reasons: it can help justify investment, drive timelier decisions, cement a stronger value proposition to clients and cultivate coordinated action across the business.

There are myriad ways to approach this, but I’ve found it helpful to break down engaging with employees into three pieces.

1. Find and leverage natural allies

Thanks to the inherent goodness that drives so many people, most organizations are fortunate to have a core group that already cares deeply about sustainability — even if it has nothing to do with their role. That might be a software engineer passionate about the environment, an HR administrator who volunteers on human rights or project manager concerned about extreme weather. This group may add up to only 10 percent of employees, but it remains a phenomenal, “free” foundation.

The task is to identify those people throughout your organization and consider how to organize them in a meaningful way. At IBM, we did this in my first year by holding a “Global Sustainability Forum” that targeted about 60 employees, ranging from design consultants to infrastructure developers, representing every part of our business that touched on sustainability — regardless whether they viewed it that way. That year we established a network of ambassadors and articulated how sustainability was key to their work. This year we invited broader participation and are expecting almost seven times more participants.

Many companies have a form of sustainability “ambassadors.” Often these focus on volunteering and intermittent projects, items more “apart” from core business than ideal — but these programs do help bring together natural allies. IKEA, for example, has taken this a step further by seeking candidates in their hiring that are enthusiastic about their environmental goals.

2. Don’t invite the rest over — go to where they are

It’d be natural to think the next step involves “bringing over” the remaining 90 percent to your foundation, but creating affinity is difficult and time-consuming, when possible at all. People are busy, understandably, working toward their own KPIs. Instead, an effective strategy should include a narrative that inserts your work into what the others already care about.

For example, CSOs and their teams can aid the KPIs of other teams by assisting with business development, using sustainability angles to promote products or services through channels and platforms and people not already being used. They can also roll up their sleeves, establish regular touchpoints and simply ask their colleagues how they can help. What do sales and product managers need to address client requirements? What language should we be using (we all know sustainability can suffer from jargon)?

Mastercard does this well, with an “Impact Steering Committee” that spans all its business units (including their respective leaders) and BU-specific guides that outline specific actions employees in different roles can undertake to help the company achieve its environmental and social impact goals.

At IBM, one way we did this was developing an AI-powered “Ask Sustainability” chatbot that can help fulfill bespoke data requests we get from clients. However, we didn’t stop there; we integrated the tool directly into an existing “Ask Sales” chatbot, so that this data was easily accessible to sellers through a channel they already use. In this way, my team wasn’t “asking” for anything; we were providing much-appreciated support to our colleagues.

This helped other teams start to see the value prop behind IBM’s sustainability initiatives, and by capturing data on the backend, we also began putting numbers to the “book of business” for which sustainability is a salient issue.

3. Build a beachhead of mindshare

Achieving complete sustainability mindfulness throughout an organization is a never-ending effort, but several tactics can help lock-in incremental progress. Well-crafted self-service tools (such as internal websites) are a great start, letting employees pursue their interest without any roadblocks. It’s imperative that such a site is written to offer help and support, not simply to inform or cajole.

Of course, other proactive tactics such as newsletters and annual activities can help, too. Sometimes external communications — a news story or op-ed — are more effective than traditional internal communications, particularly when those are shared among colleagues.

One of the most impressive examples of proactive tactics might be Patagonia’s Environmental Internship Program, which offers employees from any part of the company two months paid to spend with an environmental group of their choice and “bring back stories, inspiration, and a new commitment” to their mission.

At IBM, we’ve established a new Sustainable Innovation Prize, which awards teams whose work uncovers creative ways to drive and measure long-term value with an added benefit of the chance to ring the New York Stock Exchange closing bell. While the prize may or may not trigger new work, it absolutely incentivizes everyone in the company to consider how their work — in new innovations, product design, AI model development and more — also has a sustainability angle. That’s already an important win, and one I’m excited to reinforce annually.

As Climate Week conversations wrap up in New York, it’s worth reiterating that engaging employees is a key part of driving real change. By identifying and empowering internal allies, collaborating with the others in ways they appreciate and creating regular company-wide touchpoints, CSOs can turn employees into powerful partners in accelerating progress.

The post 3 ways CSOs can engage employees appeared first on Trellis.

Shein’s rise and polyester’s surge threaten certified cotton, report says

Certified cotton that wastes less water and requires fewer chemicals than conventional agricultural practices is better for the planet and farmers.

“However, if short-term financial and reporting goals encourage brands to expand their use of synthetics, even recycled synthetics, then sustainable cotton’s potential will be smothered in its cot,” said Tamar Hoek, senior director of sustainable fashion at Solidaridad Network, in its 2025 Cotton Ranking report.

The report, released Sept. 23 by Solidaridad of the Netherlands and Good On You of Australia, urged brands to use their influence to tilt the market in favor of cotton that’s relatively low emissions or even “climate-positive.”

Fashion brands source a trifling amount of cotton with third-party labeled organic or regenerative practices. Worse, many barely buy cotton at all, instead selecting cheaper synthetics from the murky supply chains of the fossil fuel industry.

By every count, synthetics are encroaching upon cotton’s share of clothing. Polyester and other fabrics make up 59 percent of the fiber mix globally, according to the annual Materials Market report by Textile Exchange, published Sept. 18. In addition, cotton fell to a 19 percent share of overall fibers from 20 percent a year earlier.

The number of brands favoring natural fibers is not enough to offset the fast rise of synthetic-centric brands such as Shein, which has a bigger market share than H&M and Zara combined, noted the Cotton Ranking authors.

Nor are circular synthetics making a dent. Only five brands said that recycled polyester makes up more than one quarter of their overall mix of materials.

Transparency gaps

The report found that only 29 of 100 companies share how much cotton they use, and only 35 explained what certifications they use. Given those gaps, the researchers analyzed product SKUs to determine the fiber mix per brand.

Although 25 companies did report using recycled, certified cotton, it was in small amounts. 

“Our data reveals patterns invisible in traditional reporting,” stated Sandra Capponi, co-founder of Good on You. “For instance, how brands with the highest percentage of certified cotton often use the least cotton overall, or how synthetic reliance concentrates among the industry’s largest players.”

Brand examples

Adidas is probably one of the largest cotton buyers, buying certified cotton only, but that is only 12 percent of its overall fiber mix. Puma similarly reports 99 percent certified cotton, but the material accounts for only 10 percent of its total fibers.

Only 31 of the businesses say that cotton represents at least half of their fiber mix, and only 17 say that cotton is certified.

Brands with the biggest proportion of cotton in their fiber mix were Levi’s, G-Star RAW of Amsterdam, Ralph Lauren, Carter’s and Marc O’Polo of Stockholm.

By contrast, Brooks Sport, Speedo, Shein, Columbia, Lululemon and Adidas used a much higher proportion of synthetics.

Adidas, Amazon, H&M, Jack Wolfskin and C&A are among the brands using the most certified cotton. These include Better Cotton, organic or recycled sources.

The biggest user of cotton by tonnage was Inditex, whose brands include Zara and Massimo Dutti. Gildan, Nike Group, PVH Corp and Adidas followed, in that order.

What to do

Brands can invest in better cotton practices to uplift farmers and benefit the climate, according to the report authors, while synthetics have no such potential. Yet because sustainable cotton, or any cotton, fails to get a fair shake, the health of the soil and climate will suffer along with smallholder farmers, many of whom toil in poverty. The report offered the following recommendations for brands:

Build relationships with farmers: Invest in sound practices and help them withstand future climate stressors.

Create targets for sustainable cotton use: Track these goals and report on progress.

Rely on preferred and natural fibers: Polyester, nylon and other petroleum-derived fibers already have a heavy climate footprint. Even when recycled, they shed microfiber plastics. Sportswear and outdoor brands should especially look for other materials.

Weigh your current materials and reconfigure: Change that ratio of natural-to-synthetic fibers.

Revisit purchasing practices: Take responsibility for sustainability across the value chain. Don’t just stop at inking a certified material supply.

To source sustainably, make pricing fair: Brand purchases often put the onus on suppliers to improve conditions, whatever it costs. However, procurement should bake in fair pricing.

The post Shein’s rise and polyester’s surge threaten certified cotton, report says appeared first on Trellis.