Shengyuan Su, whose position as Zendesk’s director of sustainability was eliminated as part of broad layoffs in February, has taken on a new role as director of sustainability disclosure for Western Digital.

Su reports to Jackie Jung, the computer storage company’s vice president of global operations and strategy, corporate sustainability and transformation. 

In a LinkedIn post, Su said her responsibilities include promoting Western Digital’s strategy and impacts, ensuring regulatory compliance and helping embed sustainability metrics and practices into all aspects of its business.

Western Digital, which reported revenue of $13 billion for its 2024 fiscal year, has committed to become net zero for its direct operational emissions and its purchased energy (Scope 1 and 2) by 2032. It aims to cut emissions for its direct materials by 20 percent by 2030, compared with a 2024 baseline.

As of its latest update, Western Digital reported an absolute reduction for Scope 1 and 2 of 36.3 percent.  

During her two-and-a-half years with Zendesk, Su established the company’s relationship with Frontier, the $1 billion carbon removal buyers initiative. She was also responsible for instituting a Zendesk procurement policy requiring suppliers to set science-based targets for emissions reductions by 2027.

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

As a professor and author focused on corporate sustainability, there’s one question I’m asked more than any other: Which companies are getting it right? 

I wish I could tick off a list of role models or whip out a cheat sheet of organizations that are checking all the boxes. But I can’t — and won’t — because not only is asking that question missing the point, but it’s also actively dangerous.

Our obsession with performance

While the intention behind the question is positive, the outcome is a quagmire of confusion, in which we obsess over being perfect at the expense of making progress. Our obsession with sustainability poster children illustrates how much we confuse context with performance. It also stops us learning from practices that actually work, many of which are forged by companies in the most controversial and troubled sectors that wrestle daily with the thorny side effects of simply doing business.

The trouble with our performance obsession became clear to me when Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard handed over ownership of the firm to a nature-based charity in 2022. After a few hours of social media celebration, commentators began to note that the structure would facilitate tax avoidance, that the business still relied on synthetic fabric and that employees hadn’t been given a stake. 

This dilemma is also featured in Trellis’ Chasing Net Zero series, which documents the progress that companies are making toward their climate progress — and how they stack up against their peers.

If handing over a profoundly successful operation to a philanthropic cause will do nothing to keep the critics at bay, then it’s time to ask what our hunt for sustainable companies is actually achieving. Are we trying to drive innovation, or raise the bar just slightly? Should we prioritize deep change in a few areas or broad, superficial gestures everywhere, such that the strategy winds up as “everything is material”?

If you were to rely on sustainability conferences and media reporting, you’d get a warped impression of which sectors have the most advanced approaches on any particular issue. For example, there are frequent press exposes of horrific practices in the supply chains of apparel and food companies. And child labor and deforestation in the cocoa supply chain in West Africa and sexual abuse on sugar plantations in India. You’d get the impression that these sectors have the most appalling, neglectful supply chain oversight out there. Is there considerable truth to this? Yes. Does it mean that practices are better in other sectors, particularly those with less scrutiny? Absolutely not. 

The reality is that if you want to find the most advanced thinking on supply chain oversight, this will also be found in the food and apparel sectors. Because we care greatly about what we eat and what we wear, these sectors are most exposed to stakeholder scrutiny. So it’s in apparel and food companies that you’ll find leading practices on traceability, transparency, living wage efforts, smart decarbonization, supply chain finance and more. The ultimate paradox in responsible business is that best and worst practices are often found side-by-side in the same industry. Sometimes even in the same factory.

Reputational risk can be a funhouse mirror

If you’re looking to campaign against companies that negatively affect human rights, a great place to start is in the mining and social media sectors. Mine operators can subject local communities to noise, pollution, relocation, unpredictable job prospects and the potential for life-threatening operational disasters. 

Meanwhile, social media companies undermine our mental health, polarize us and encourage screen addiction, to say nothing of online exposure to torture and hate speech, and the impact on those tasked with keeping this content from the public eye. 

Does this mean such companies lack expertise on human rights? Not at all. In fact, if I want to find the most advanced thinking on business and human rights issues, the first place I’d look is in these sectors. Because of the scale of friction these companies face, at least some of them must hire experts to help them manage and calibrate these risks. That’s why you’ll find mining companies leading on collective decision-making in communities, just as others trample on community rights every day. And you’ll find substantive and thoughtful efforts within some social media companies to tackle online discourse alongside profound carelessness. Both best and worst practice, in the same sector.

The truth is most discussions of corporate responsibility implicitly assume that absence of controversy affirms good performance. But the reality is that the company most likely isn’t highly exposed to the issue or stakeholder group in question. Reputational risk is held as a linear accountability mechanism, when in reality it is a funhouse mirror. If you doubt this, a recent OECD report on ESG metrics found that only 2 percent of all ESG metrics account for the external context — the degree of exposure to an issue.

The wrong poster children

No company manages all stakeholders with the same level of intensity and effort, and companies simply don’t develop expertise in the absence of friction. But rather than acknowledging this, and learning from those at the forefront of a particular challenge, we’ve encouraged generic messaging around “commitments to stakeholders,” PR-driven goals set in a vacuum, and an exhausting cycle of promotional activity and activist teardowns. 

Our favorite poster children may not be those making the best effort to tackle a particular issue, but companies that can create attractive business upside from an issue, or even use their promotional efforts to distract attention from more fundamental externalities become sustainability darlings. For example, it’s common for chief sustainability officers at big technology companies to solely focus on on renewable energy data centers, and strenuously avoid talking about the policy influence their employer wields globally in an effort to stop any regulation of their core externality — their impact on individual and group human cognition.

Good-faith efforts

We’ve spent far too long in a fraught and arcane quest to score good versus bad, and it’s getting us nowhere. We’ve tried reducing corporations to a single ESG score, only to find it’s not so easy to put the trade-offs between negative and positive externalities into a metaphorical ledger. We’ve tried highlighting examples of “good practices,” only to wind up cherry-picking the most convenient, least messy examples — ones that flatter our desire for neat, happy stories rather than the real, difficult work of transformation.

What if the primary question that matters is whether a company is making a good faith effort to tackle the negative impacts that are core to how it makes money? What if progress over time is a far better way to evaluate corporations than whether it can be considered “green” or “inclusive” overall? What if we valued progress over time — real, demonstrable, progress — over snapshot judgments about which companies are “role models”? And what if, in our rush to make business “good,” we’ve forgotten that the best any business can do is to make itself better — day after day, step by step, in a world full of contradictions, trade-offs and hard choices?

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The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and CDP have been subpoenaed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier as part of what his office described as an antitrust and consumer protection investigation into a “climate cartel.”

A statement announcing the subpoenas, issued July 28, was light on details but contained language suggesting CDP’s Reporter Services program may be one target of the investigation. The program allows participating companies to pay CDP for feedback on their disclosures, including details on how previous disclosures were scored.

The attorney general’s statement accuses both CDP and SBTi of “selling services to obtain better scores and public endorsements” and “creating incentives for corporations to pay in exchange for favorable treatment.”

Uthmeier also alleges that SBTi “sells companies validation of their climate goals — then directs them back to CDP to report their progress, creating what appears to be a profit-driven feedback loop.” The SBTi’s near-term and net-zero standards both recommend CDP as a disclosure option but do not require companies to disclose emissions via a specific platform.

The investigation will also dig into potential antitrust violations, focusing on whether “coordination” between CDP, financial institutions and investment services amounts to market manipulation. 

Under scrutiny: Antitrust concerns

Cynthia Hanawalt, a researcher at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, noted that the allegations are hard to assess because a complaint has not yet been filed in court. But she added that this is the latest of several attempts by Republican attorneys general to use allegations of antitrust violations to investigate climate nonprofits. At least a dozen states have also sued investment firms over alleged anti-competitive behavior related to ESG investing practices.

“Previous anti-ESG investigations have had a chilling effect on financial institutions who had been participating in groups focused on setting net zero standards,” said Hanawalt. “Perhaps that is the goal again here.”

Uthmeier’s approach and the decision to announce it publicly differ from previous investigations in that it casts a notably wide net, said Roy Prather, principal at law firm Beveridge & Diamond. It’s not unreasonable to suspect that any information gathered from CDP or SBTi would be used to target other companies, particularly financial institutions. “This is a targeted campaign to gather as much information as possible and figure out other targets,” Prather said. 

“Despite the many anti-ESG investigations launched so far, only one complaint has ever been filed,” added Hanawalt. “And the court has not reached a decision in that case.” The case pits a group of Republican states, led by Texas, against asset managers BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street.

The SBTi declined to comment on the announcement, and CDP did not immediately return a request for comment.

Article updated on July 30, 2025, to include comments from Cynthia Hanawalt.

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

What’s the connection between creativity and sustainability?

That’s the topic of a conversation I had with my co-host, communications consultant Solitaire Townsend, in our latest episode of our Two Steps Forward podcast. It’s also the first episode we’ve recorded that’s just the two of us in conversation, with no special guest, a format we’ll be repeating from time to time.

Both Soli and I consider ourselves to be creative spirits — me, as a writer, of course, but also as a lifelong musician (piano and vocals) — and Soli as a gifted storyteller, both nonfiction and fiction (her first novel will publish early next year). Individually and together, we’ve discovered that creativity — whether through music, storytelling, art, poetry or humor — is deeply interwoven with optimism and the ability to envision a different, more sustainable future.

This is not just our opinions or experience. A global survey conducted by BEworks, a behavioral economics consultancy, found a strong correlation between creativity and climate optimism. Creative individuals were more likely to believe in humanity’s ability to address the climate crisis and felt more personally motivated to engage in sustainable behaviors.

In our conversation, Soli and I discussed this further, not just the research but also our personal experiences and observations.

Piano, punning and problem-solving

To be clear, this isn’t just about those who can play an instrument, tell a story or paint a picture. Indeed, we challenged the popular notions of people as “creatives”or “influentials,” since these labels segment people unnecessarily. Instead, we emphasize that creativity is universal: from crafting bedtime stories to everyday problem-solving in supply chains. Even repetitive jobs can involve improvisation, lateral thinking, negotiation and imaginative work behind the scenes.

Also important, we discussed, is the role of humor and levity. For example, wordplay and punning can be a useful way of processing ideas and connecting — also creative elements that make sustainability work more enjoyable and less depressing at times.

Communal creativity

Soli and I envisioned how sustainability events and conferences could better harness communal creativity—perhaps beginning a session via a group singalong, community dancing, or other creative pursuits — to break down the isolation and build cohesion among attendees. This could help shift events from fragmented compliance-focused gatherings into immersive, experiential creative communities.

While everyone has creative potential, we concluded that expressing it takes practice and persistence, and doing so in community can make it more accessible. We reflected on how the community fosters optimism, and that creativity plus optimism equals forward momentum for sustainability.

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

The post Why creative people make better sustainability professionals appeared first on Trellis.

Each year, companies churn out about three pairs of shoes for each person on the planet. The textiles, rubbers, leathers, plastics and glues in those 24 billion pairs are mostly a waste: Brands fail to design for longevity, material reuse or recycling, so consumers dump some 300 million worn-out pairs in the trash each year.

Shoe production involves more than 200 processes and 60 components on average, contributing to .45 percent of the world’s climate footprint, according to the 2025 Footwear Carbon Report, released in May by the Footwear Innovation Foundation.

“Footwear is one of the most challenging products for a circular economy,” said Alexandra Sherlock, founder of the Footwear Research Network and a fashion lecturer at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. “Due to the complexity of construction, multiple materials, scale of production and the need for durability, footwear could be described as the hardest nut to crack. But if done successfully, it could lead the way for other product categories.”

Footwear makers’ numerous attempts at circularity have mostly focused on materials, like Puma’s compostable Re:Suede kicks or Allbirds’ recent limited run of a “net zero carbon shoe.” (Soon I’ll mail back my year-old loaner pair of Asics Nimbus Mirai so they can be ripped apart and recycled.) But if On Running’s sneaker subscription service offers a rare circular business model, other industry players are amping up their efforts.

Seven circular samples

Some of the latest designs for circularity involve 3D printing, next-gen materials free of virgin fossil fuels and compostability. Here’s a sampling of styles, most available for purchase now.

3D-printed Adidas ClimaCool slip-ons

Adidas’ ClimaCool sneakers have maximized mesh and vents since 2002. On May 2, the Bavarian brand globally released a 3D-printed version that takes breathability further with a lattice design that’s airy all sides, even the sole. The $140 laceless kicks are reminiscent of jellies from the 1980s, but instead of injection-molded polyvinyl chloride they use a single piece of polyurethane. Adidas collaborated with 3D printing startup Carbon of Redwood City, California on these. A lace-up version becomes available July 15.

In theory, 3D printing could make shoes sustainable, partly because the single material construction simplifies recycling. On-demand production would also cut industrial waste. Despite the innovation potential, however, Adidas does not advertise a takeback program or recycling options for the fossil fuel-based shoes.

The small Brooklyn brand Zellerfeld, by contrast, makes takeback a centerpiece for its $149-and-up 3D-printed footwear. Zellerfeld also collaborated with Nike on its AirMax 1000 3D-printed concept, shown off in November.

Crocheted Converse Chuck Taylors

Each pair of these $120 high-tops ships in surprise color combinations. These crochet-centric shoes returned to market in the past year after an initial debut in 2019. Upcycled crochet blankets comprise the upper part of the high-tops, but Nike’s Converse doesn’t specify if the material is secondhand, overstock or custom-made.

Beyond the vintage vibe, the rest of the shoe reflects typical construction: polyurethane foam lining, standard rubber vulcanized sole and metal eyelets that don’t break apart easily for recycling.

Cinnamon-sole Stella McCartney S-Wave Sport sneakers

A cinnamon scent wafts from the soles of these $780 shoes, which use waste from the spice tree. British designer Stella McCartney advertises “our most sustainable sneakers ever.” The Piñayarn uppers come from unused pineapple leaves. Israeli startup Balena crafted the “biobased, compostable” sole from its BioCir material, which includes castor oil.

However, an industrial composting facility is required for end-of-use circularity. The recycled polyamide and polyester in the lining and outer upper parts of the sneaker would presumably need to be removed before composting.

Methods modular shoe

If one part of this shoe tears or a color feels stale, just swap out old parts for new ones. Methods’ modular design features five components: recyclable thermoplastic rubber sole, cork and upcycled shoe waste insole, biodegradable Tencel upper, vegetable-tanned leather wrap and cotton laces. Choose from either a sand or pine-colored shell to contrast a flame or clay accent. The $252 sneakers are made in Portugal.

However, the company doesn’t share on its website how to take these apart and extend their use.

Thousand Fell

These $159 recycled and recyclable sneakers have been around since 2019. They’re made in Brazil with both a recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic and rubber insole. Other parts feature coconut, sugarcane and palm, while aloe vera coats the mesh liner. What’s new as of the end of 2024 is a retail drop-off recycling option. Customers can mail back old pairs to UPS stores using prepaid labels in exchange for a 20 percent credit. TerraCycle and SuperCircle handle the processing and logistics.

The fibers, foams, rubber and other materials are mostly downcycled into things like insulation or flooring, but the companies are investing in their aspiration to enable sneaker-to-sneaker recycling.

Nike ISPA Link Axis

Thousand Fell isn’t the only company seeking to streamline recycling for consumers. Since the early 1990s, the Nike Grind program has downcycled pairs it collects from its Reuse-a-shoe program. The sneaker leader’s latest circularity-centric designs are its glue-free ISPA Link Axis. The $300 pair was re-introduced in April 2024 after an initial drop in 2022. With Gap veteran Alice Hartley newly leading circularity at Nike, there’s likely to be more to come.

The four components of the ISPA Link Axis — outsole, midsole, upper and the “link system” holding the shoe together without glue — are built for ease of disassembly. Everything is recycled already, including Flyknit material on the outsole from recycled polyester and a thermoplastic polyurethane midsole deriving from recycled airbags. That said, the shoe is petroleum-centric.

Concept Korvaa Shoe

Nobody can buy these concept sneakers, which debuted at the Future Fashion Expo in June in London. Yet the Korvaa Shoe marries several innovations, including 3D printing and fermentation. Three companies collaborated on the it: Mushroom-packaging veteran Ecovative of New York grew the mycelium sole in a week. Through microbial fermentation, Modern Synthesis of London created the bacterial nanocellulose upper. Transfoam’s Ourobio of Seattle used bio-based polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) polyesters for the midsole and structural scaffold.

How easily the shoes could be recycled, if they do materialize on the market, is another matter.

What’s next

“If you’re working in this space, start educating yourself on circular design and advocating for less materials, more recyclable materials and the ability to take shoes apart more easily,” said Cynthia Power, a fashion consultant and co-host of the Untangling Circularity podcast.

Aside from individual companies’ innovations, 14 brands including Brooks and Crocs have joined with the Footwear Collective to move such innovations forward. The group, which emerged in February from the Amsterdam nonprofit Fashion for Good, met in June to advance non-competitive collaboration in the industry.

“A circular system around shoes is more important than the design of the shoes themselves,” said Yuly Fuentes-Medel, founder and executive director of the Footwear Collective. “Designers need the right kitchen, recipe and ingredients in order to build circular products that can create new revenue loops. Build a durable shoe, and the product can live many lives. Build a shorter-use shoe with the right recipe, and we can bring the materials back into the footwear supply chain.”

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