How sustainability professionals can thrive in a tough job market

Lingering economic uncertainty combined with corporate backpedaling on ESG priorities have many sustainability professionals worried about job security, especially as corporations of every size brace for a potential recession in the second half of 2025. 

“I’m definitely getting more resumes and more calls than normal,” said Ellen Weinreb, CEO of Weinreb Group Sustainability Recruiting, “and we’re definitely in an interesting time of uncertainty. I’d say the biggest stressor is that we just don’t know how long this is going to last.”

The net result: Companies are more cautious about filling open positions — and more thoroughly screening candidates before making offers. 

“Sustainability practitioners have regularly been reaching out to me with news that they’ve lost their jobs and asking for my help and support,” said Sephora Director of Sustainability Desta Raines in a late May post on LinkedIn. “At first it was just a few, then as the months have gone by I’ve heard of more and more job losses. Suddenly last month it was me. My role at Sephora was eliminated, too.”

Be selective about your employer 

Companies are trying to fill more sustainability related positions than you might expect — albeit fewer CSO-level roles — but Raines is focusing her search on companies that hold senior leaders accountable for their ESG agenda through key performance indicators and metrics that cascade throughout the workforce. “So many people find themselves in positions where that is not necessarily the case,” Raines said.

Sustainability career experts and job seekers say landing a new job in the current economy — or making yourself more valuable to your current employer — comes down to one big thing. It’s the same quality that sustainability professionals have been talking up for years: The ability to link emissions reductions and other environmental initiatives to business value creation.

“Now more than ever, chief sustainability officers and sustainability professionals need to link their work to the strategic objectives of the organization,” said Nicole Darnall, the Arlene R. and Robert P. Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair in Sustainability at American University, for both the Kogod School of Business and the School of Public Affairs. “The ability to demonstrate business value is much more imperative,”

Taking the time to understand how a given company’s leadership views sustainability within its decision-making hierarchy is especially crucial for finding and keeping a job in this economy, said Trish Kenlon, founder of Sustainable Career Pathways, who’s also a Trellis columnist. She pointed to research on the six archetypes that typically shape how corporations govern ESG and sustainability. 

“You need to make sure the business value you’re creating is in alignment with what your stakeholders are looking for,” Kenlon said. “You could be following the perfect playbook but you need to be attuned to what the organization is really looking for. Make sure you understand the assignment.” 

Focus on what’s financially and strategically material

For every anecdote or example about companies dialing back on climate commitments, as PepsiCo did in late May, there’s a counter-narrative about one sticking to its strategy, such as Microsoft’s proclamation one week later.

But one thing is true at every well-managed company, and it isn’t particular to corporate sustainability: Any initiative that isn’t business-critical or material is vulnerable to cost-cutting. Thus, insiders stressed, sustainability professionals should be proactive in reviewing their team’s work and anchoring its priorities in what’s core to revenue generation. 

“Position ESG as a strategic enabler, not a compliance function,” said Pamela Gill-Alabaster, who left her position this month as global head of ESG and sustainability for Tylenol maker Kenvue. “Embed sustainability into cross-functional teams from supply chain to marketing to R&D so your role is seen as mission-critical to delivering future business performance.” 

The person leading sustainability at Kenvue, for example, is part of the company’s research and development organization. (Gill-Alabaster, who is hunting for her next position, teaches a graduate-level course in ESG corporate strategy at Columbia University.)

If your team is driving cost savings, now is the time to call that out loudly, said J.R. Siegel, vice president of sustainability for software company Worldly, in response to my LinkedIn post seeking feedback on this topic.

“Does the sustainability team pay for itself through the cost-savings initiatives the team has identified, led or operationalized?” he asked. “De-risking is equally important, but it’s harder to put a financial number on that work. Finally, has the team done anything that’s led to new business growth drivers? In the end, the ability to save money or generate revenue in a way that other teams don’t see is a great way to stay relevant during a recession. Sustainability provides a unique lens on a business.”

Empower other business leaders

The trend of embedding accountability for sustainability into an operational line of business is a goal that has often been equated with a maturing of the profession.

“The more you can empower functions like finance, operations, human resources and brand teams to own ESG outcomes, the more embedded and indispensable your role becomes,” said Gill-Alabaster.

That shift is being accelerated by the emergence of artificial intelligence, noted Darnall, and sustainability pros can stand out by anticipating this and helping business leaders across their organization translate this into specific projects. “This is exploding, and we are just beginning to understand the impacts,” she said. 

If you and your team have been obsessed with preparing for reporting regulations, it’s time to shift that mentality, said author Matthew Sekol, a Microsoft “sustainability black belt” who helps advise the company’s customers, in response to my LinkedIn post.

“Nothing is recession or future-proof, but if you’re working on disclosures only or non-material or non-stakeholder issues, you are cooked,” he said. “Sustainability professionals just spent the past few years understanding every minute detail of the business to repurpose that data for reporting. Don’t squander the opportunity for improvements and innovations that you are sitting on. You’ve done way more than you think!”

Create a ‘brand’ book for yourself

Keeping a detailed, metrics-laden record of completed projects is a useful resource both as a proof point during career discussions with your current employer or to ground your resume if you’ve been laid off, said Ashley Fahey, former senior manager of global product sustainability at Kohler, who left the company in May.

“Every time you complete a project, deliver something on time or support a business win, take note of it and make sure your leadership team knows about it,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn.”

Fahey, who has also worked at Steelcase and Goodyear — and was part of the 2019 Trellis 30 Under 30 cohort of rising sustainability leaders — is using the “brand book” she’s kept throughout her career for her own job search. 

“Especially if you lose your position, a brand book can help in finding your next position,” she said. “Seeing evidence of other people commenting on your work is so much more powerful than you just telling someone that you would be an asset to their team.”

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The power of storytelling to boost resale and reuse

On the path to creating a circular economy, an important element is often missing: storytelling.

We tend to focus on materials, chemicals and compliance. We speak in certifications and data points — important, yes, but emotionally distant. We often miss the opportunity to tell a good story. This is strange when you stop to think about it, because great brands are really, at their core, great at storytelling. They craft compelling narratives that align with our values and aspirations.

Humans love stories. Stories build emotion and meaning. They shape our reasoning and inspire our actions. For generations, stories have passed down communal wisdom and hard-earned lessons, helping people learn from, and sometimes avoid, the mistakes of the past.

They’re also financially valuable. Apple’s brand is worth billions because it drives consumer preference. The departments that steward the brand get listening time with senior management and bigger budgets.  

Which is why, about 10 months ago, Trove founder Andy Ruben and I set out to find a way to reframe the circularity lifecycle as an emotional journey — and how it could be mapped onto the classic three-act structure of storytelling. (We presented a version of our framework at Circularity 25).  

The power of three

The three-act structure is a time-tested narrative form, dating back to the ancient Greeks. Here’s how it works:

Act 1: Set the scene — introduce characters, context, motivation and the environment.

Act 2: Raise the stakes — pose a challenge or obstacle to overcome.

Act 3: Bring resolution — culminate in transformation and meaning.

Much of the work focused on developing and selling circular products is detached from the brand. But by attaching the brand to meaning, and meaning to the brand, the lifecycle of a product is faster than the lifecycle of a brand. It also helps brands elevate products and the story at the same time. This perspective provides a powerful lens to examine how circularity initiatives impact not just materials but brand equity — and how stories can help bridge that gap.

Act 1: Beginning

Act 1 is where the product story begins, filled with excitement and potential. A car drives through wide open landscapes. A jacket is worn by brave people on windswept mountain peaks. A runner charges forward, bold and empowered, in perfect trainers. 

Brands often excel at Act 1 because they know how to tap into aspiration, potential and identity. For example, with Patagonia, Act 1 historically started as a product-oriented ambition — to make climbing tools stronger, lighter, simpler and more functional. In recent years, the company vision matured to a wider, more universal goal of “We’re in business to save our home planet.”

That goal now gets represented through storytelling. On their website is the invitation to take action about climate change. Next to the purchase of a product is the mending of another. They tell the story of consequences in Act 1. They tell that story as a consumer and producer partnership through gritty and honest realism. 

Lesson: Does your first act inspire a longer, more authentic relationship? Does your Act 1 talk in a shameful way about nature damage? Or do you talk about action, engagement and partnership to solve a crisis? 

Act 2: Usage

In product terms, customers might experience Act 2 like this in everyday terms: the car is stuck in traffic. The high-performance jacket is worn to the office. The running shoes sit in a gym bag, used for a 2K jog on a treadmill. Too often, this part of the story is abandoned by the brand. The consumer is left alone with the product and their dashed hopes. 

But this act holds enormous emotional potential — if we choose to engage. Patagonia engaged with Worn Wear by celebrating real people and real usage stories. They created space for a community to emerge — one that loves, repairs and shares stories about their products. Patagonia didn’t show up just to sell another thing. They provided the space to celebrate the people that use their products and then stepped back to watch people revel in their own experiences. 

Lesson: Is your presence in usage just to make another sale? Or does it provide a meaningful space to bond relationships, either with the brand or people that build the brand? If your brand is not in Act 2, it can’t get to Act 3, where the circle closes. 

Act 3: The end

“This product is made from recycled plastic.” That’s how we often end product experiences — in a cold, emotionless, sometimes patronizing tone. And yet, the end is a place of enormous emotion and meaning. What begins in Act 1 as a rich, emotional brand story often fades into data, guilt and legislative expectations — “our company recycles thousands of shoes” and “failure to compile with state law can result in fines.”

The end of a story is where threads of meaning come together in a crescendo of philosophical truth. But in circularity and sustainability, we often confuse this emotional truth with scientific fact. We talk to consumers about carbon, high-density polyethylene, manufacturing standards or local regulation — failing to recognize that the story we tell at the end must resonate with the same human depth as the one we told at the beginning.

Lesson: Consider the language you use in Act 3. Is it similar to Act 1 and 2? Does the tone feel the same? Is it aspirational at the beginning and shaming at the end? If not, think about how you can improve the tone and align with what the brand. Bridge the aspirational emotion at the start and the practical feelings at the end.

To complete a compelling circularity narrative we need to create an experience for the consumer that feels the same beginning to end. The story of your product needs to be one of emotional experience. 

Circularity isn’t just a system shift — it’s a story shift. The three-act structure reminds us that every product journey is also a human one. When we match circular design with emotional storytelling, we create deeper engagement — and a stronger path to lasting change.

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The top 5 barriers to more sustainable fashion in Europe

Though more than 70 percent of Europeans want to make more sustainable fashion choices, significant barriers are holding them back.

Trellis data partner GlobeScan recently partnered with European fashion platform Zalando to conduct a comprehensive study of Gen Z and Millennial consumer attitudes, behaviors and expectations regarding fashion and sustainability across five European countries. The findings reveal a large aspiration-action gap:

  • 74 percent want to be more sustainable in the future by keeping clothing items for longer or extending their lifespan
  • 71 percent of consumers aspire to shop more sustainably
  • 66 percent of consumers say they’re making more sustainable fashion choices

And yet, persistent barriers temper consumer ambitions:

  • 41 percent said the price premium associated with sustainable fashion is a leading deterrent
  • 27 percent said it was difficult identifying sustainable items
  • 24 percent said they didn’t know where to find sustainable fashion choices
  • 21 percent said they had limited knowledge of sustainable fashion
  • 19 percent had skepticism toward sustainability claims

These information-related challenges are taking place in a shifting regulatory landscape where new anti-greenwashing rules aim to improve transparency but can also make it more complex for brands and retailers to communicate clearly about their sustainability efforts.

What this means

These findings, which were supplemented with interviews with industry experts, underscore the importance of bridging the gap between aspiration and action in sustainable fashion. There is significant untapped potential for more sustainable fashion behaviors, but only if key barriers are addressed.

Fashion brands and retailers have a crucial role to play, whether by tackling the price premium through product innovation or by emphasizing the added value that consumers are willing to pay more for, such as durability or quality. They can also harness the industry’s creative strengths to communicate sustainability more effectively and compellingly.

However, closing the aspiration-action gap requires more than retailer or brand-level initiatives. It demands coordinated efforts across the entire fashion ecosystem—from policymakers, regulators, social media platforms, influencers and society.

Based on a survey of more than 5,000 Gen Z and Millennial consumers in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the U.K. conducted in February 2025.

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The Global South: How Indonesia is shaping the future of climate finance

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

The Global South — home to most of the world’s population — is where most of the planet’s economic growth and greenhouse gas emission growth is taking place. In the runup to COP30 in Brazil later this year, we explore how a sample of these economies are shaping climate financing. 

In recent years, Indonesia — the world’s largest archipelago made up of more than 17,000 islands — has made deliberate strides in climate action by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving livelihoods.

It’s the world’s largest producer of palm oil, which generates about $23 billion of export revenue annually. Yet, due to palm oil’s negative climate and biodiversity impact, the government announced a moratorium on permits for new palm oil plantations in 2018.

Three years after halting palm oil plantation permits, the government also announced that it wouldn’t approve the construction of any new coal-fired power plants. The country’s official goal is to generate 100 gigawatts of clean power generation capacity by 2040, which requires about $235 billion in investment for mostly solar, wind and geothermal energy.

Indonesia is also leading on low-carbon transportation. It’s home to Southeast Asia’s only high-speed railway, the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Rail, completed in 2023.

Climate financing opportunities

The Indonesian Composite Price Index (IDX Composite) encompasses nearly 1,000 listed companies and features a collective market cap of over $880 billion. As listed by Carbon Collective, climate solutions companies in Indonesia include Pertamina Geothermal Energy, a pure-play developer of geothermal energy; PT Sky Energy Indonesia, a manufacturer of solar panels and solar equipment; and PT VKTR Teknologi Mobilitas, a manufacturer of electric buses, electric motorcycles and charging stations. Indonesian sustainable stock indices also support the market for climate-safe investing. For example, the Sri-Kehati Index tracks companies with strong ESG practices.

Overall, just over half of private climate finance in Indonesia is invested in renewable energy, especially in hydropower and geothermal energy; about 13 percent is dedicated to clean transportation and 14 percent to the land use sector. To incentivize climate-friendly investment, the government has put forth concrete measures for businesses. For example, companies can be granted a partial or full corporate income tax holiday depending on the amount of investment in geothermal, solar, wind and hydroenergy projects.

Indonesia has also led the way on several corporate sustainability regulations that offer the transparency and accountability needed to attract investors. Indonesian financial institutions and publicly listed companies must measure and disclose and disclose their ESG performance.

Nevertheless, one loophole in Indonesia’s green taxonomy regulation has deferred progress: companies are allowed to build and operate captive coal plants if they cut emissions after launch and shut them down by 2050. Many companies in Indonesia’s critical minerals industry that includes nickel and copper, which are important to the renewable energy transition, have thus built new coal plants with the backing of investors. In this way, Indonesia’s green taxonomy suffers from the same detrimental fate as the European Union’s green taxonomy by including fossil fuels.

Cultural and religious elements at play

One of the most innovative aspects of Indonesia’s sustainable investing scene is anchored in it being home to the largest Muslim population in the world. Indonesians have pioneered investment at the intersection of Islamic finance and climate finance.

The Green Sukuk initiative, for example, issues a certificate of ownership in a climate and clean energy-focused government project. Green Sukuk is innovative because Islamic financing prohibits the use of interest. Instead of purchasing financial instruments such as bonds or interest-bearing loans, retail and institutional investors can purchase Green Sukuk, which provide similar returns as debt instruments while being Islamic finance compliant. In other words, a potential barrier to green finance has been lifted by this model. Billions have been raised ($3.25 billion in 2024 alone) via Green Sukuk. The profit rates range from 5.10 percent to 5.50 percent depending on the duration.

In addition, Indonesia has a global diaspora (Indonesian) of more than 2 million Indonesian citizens living overseas and up to 9 million otherwise Indonesia-connected individuals. In 2024, the government announced a dual citizenship plan to entice Indonesians abroad to return, build and invest. An analysis by the Climate Policy Initiative shows that annually, Indonesia benefits from about $1.6 billion in foreign debt and $700 million in foreign equity for climate mitigation.

There’s a significant opportunity to increase foreign direct investments into Indonesia by leveraging both the diaspora and others who are made aware of its enormous potential. The GREEN Program is one example of an organization focused on this potential by organizing climate finance specific study tours to Indonesia.

Looking ahead

Like Jamaica, most of Indonesia’s energy supply still emanates from fossil fuels. PLN, the state-owned electric utility in Indonesia, has been slow to adopt solar and wind assets, especially those of independent power producers. “What would help accelerate renewable energy adoption in Indonesia is a concrete policy tool such as a renewable energy auction process,” notes Derek Campbell of FS Impact Finance, an investor in renewable energy.

Indonesia has many islands to service and these islands don’t yet share an electrical grid, making transmission between sources and optimization not yet possible. Enabling connectivity would cost approximately $20 billion and presents an attractive market for climate financing. Policy reforms, such as allowing for power wheeling, would support the investment in transmission and distribution across Indonesia’s islands.

In many ways, Indonesia has mimicked China in its ability to drastically decrease poverty levels in a short amount of time (from 40 perc%ent in 1970 to 9 perc%ent in 2024). The Archipelago’s potential to make similar significant strides for climate action is present. Retail and institutional investors would be wise to add Indonesia’s climate opportunities to their portfolio.

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Amazon, Mastercard and others eye new carbon credit to retire coal power

A cross-industry group of around 20 companies is helping develop plans for a new type of carbon credit to fund the retirement of coal-powered power plants in emerging economies. 

The Kinetic Coalition, the organization overseeing the initiative, is aiming to aggregate demand from the companies and launch an advance market commitment. The group includes Amazon, Mastercard, Morgan Stanley and Tiffany & Co.

The coalition is targeting a major source of emissions that is challenging to decarbonize. Close to a third of global carbon emissions come from coal power plants and almost 80 percent of those emissions come from emerging economies, according to the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the organizations involved in the project. 

Many of these facilities are relatively new. If the plants are retired, owners and investors need to be compensated and the facilities replaced with renewables. The coalition aims to channel money from companies in wealthier nations towards those ends, generating carbon credits for the backers in the process.

“This is both a great way to accelerate climate finance into an area that’s so valuable and so needed, and a way of helping companies meet their climate commitments,” said Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, the non-profit that coordinates the coalition.

Pilot projects

Keohane and team are currently evaluating three pilot projects that could form the basis for future credits. In the Philippines, where coal generates close to 80 percent of the country’s electricity, the coalition is looking to fund the early replacement of one plant with clean energy and storage. Projects in Chile and the Dominican Republic are focused on improvements to modernize the countries’ grids and integrate more renewables.

Credits generated by the projects could be used in multiple ways. Schneider Electric, another participant in the coalition, is considering using them to offset company emissions or, as part of its sustainability consulting work, to sell on to clients, said Mathilde Mignot, a group director at Schneider subsidiary EcoAct and the company’s liaison to the coalition. 

The coalition is also investigating the possibility of using the credits to reduce Scope 3 emissions, a process known as insetting. Companies that buy from suppliers in the Philippines, for example, will likely have emissions from coal power in their Scope 3 accounts. Using the credits as insets would allow them to reduce that category of emissions. Keohane said the coalition is working to align its thinking in this area with ideas being developed by the Advanced and Indirect Mitigation Platform, a non-profit that’s developing standards for this kind of value-chain intervention.

There is little precedent for assessing the integrity of the credits that the coalition will generate, but Keohane said the goal is to align with leading carbon credit standard-setters, including the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market and the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation. Specific projects could follow a methodology for early retirement of coal plants, released in May by Verra, or guidelines for sector-level intervention being developed by the non-profits Gold Standard and Environmental Resources Trust.

‘The demand will be there’

The sums required will be considerable. Keohone said it was too early to discuss funding for specific projects but estimated that interventions on this scale could run to hundreds of millions of dollars. That would constitute a significant chunk of the entire market for carbon credits, which the finance intelligence service MSCI pegged at $1.4 billion in 2024. 

The credits may have distinctive qualities, however. Investing in projects close to value chains could appeal to the internal company stakeholders that allocate credit investment, said Mignot. They may also be competitive: Keohane said prices between $30 and $60 per ton of avoided CO2 have been discussed for early retirement of coal power in the Philippines. That would make the credits more expensive than many forest projects, roughly on par with biochar and significantly cheaper than direct air capture.

Since upfront capital would be required to retire and replace the plants, the coalition is considering aggregating demand from participating companies in the form of an advance market commitment, a funding mechanism that’s been deployed to generate other credit types. Keohone said he hoped to make an announcement at the COP30 negotiations in November.

“If we can demonstrate that these credits are high integrity — we’re confident about that — and that there’s a business case to help companies meet their commitments, we think the demand will be there,” he said.

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Meta geothermal deal highlights growing interest in renewable alternatives

Meta is contracting with a little-known next-generation geothermal startup, XGS Energy, to counteract emissions from a data center campus in New Mexico that’s being expanded to accommodate artificial intelligence.

Under the deal announced June 12, Meta will support XGS’s development of a two-phased, 150-megawatt installation that will begin feeding electricity to the local grid by 2030. 

This is not a power purchase agreement, at least not yet. It’s part of a broad portfolio of 13 renewable electricity and energy storage projects that Meta is supporting through a special service contract with PNM, the largest electricity provider in New Mexico. The project developers seek to use a state geothermal tax credit approved in 2024. 

XGS, founded in 2008, has raised close to $60 million to develop a geothermal production method differentiated by use of almost no water and its applicability in a variety of geological conditions. Meta is its first publicly declared customer.

Enhanced geothermal technologies work by fracturing hot rock and circulating water to generate electricity. Advanced geothermal systems use a closed-loop design that doesn’t inject the fluid into the rock and are often sited at end-of-life oil and gas wells. XGS is considered a hybrid between these two approaches.

There’s only one geothermal installation in New Mexico, but state-sponsored research suggests there could be 160 gigawatts of geothermal capacity available for development. “New Mexico is not only the second largest oil and gas producer in the U.S., but also one of the nation’s leading sources of clean energy,” said New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham. Colorado, North Dakota and California also support state-level initiatives.

This is Meta’s second geothermal partnership. It announced a relationship with Sage Geosystems in August 2024 with the goal of bringing 150 megawatts of electricity online in an unspecified location east of the Rocky Mountains by 2027. 

Google and Microsoft support geothermal, too

Geothermal power accounts for less than 1 percent of the current U.S. electricity mix, but anticipated energy demand for data centers and bipartisan policy support for development is spurring corporate interest. 

Startups working on enhanced or advanced geothermal systems have raised more than $1.3 billion from a range of investors including oil majors such as Chevron and Baker Hughes, according to research firm Wood Mackenzie. 

Wood Mackenzie estimates the Great Basin region including Nevada, Utah and parts of California, Oregon and Wyoming could support at least 135 gigawatts of capacity, or roughly 10 percent of the U.S. power supply.

Fervo Energy, an enhanced geothermal company that has inked a high-profile deal with Google for a 118 megawatt project in Nevada, disclosed an additional $206 million in project financing on June 11 that will help advance its Cape Station project in Utah, the first phase of which is slated to become operational in 2026. 

Microsoft’s biggest bet on geothermal for data centers, so far, is outside the U.S. in Kenya, where it’s investing $1 billion in an AI facility with G42, a development company from Dubai.  

Positive project pipeline

Data centers are a rapidly growing business in the U.S., and corporate power purchase agreements will be critical for securing more projects, according to Wood Mackenzie analysis. Geothermal is one of the rare renewables receiving bipartisan support: As of this writing, it appeared federal tax credits would be spared in the budget winding its way through the U.S. Senate. 

Even without those credits, the levelized cost of energy from next-generation geothermal projects such as Cape State is about $79 per megawatt-hour. 

“Tax credits should serve as a catalyst, not a crutch,” said Annick Adjei, senior research analyst with Wood Mackenzie. “They help build a competitive U.S. geothermal industry with global leadership potentially. Fortunately, [enhanced geothermal] projects are increasingly viable without them, and continued innovation is expected to drive costs down further.”

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4 leadership tips to start a sustainability career in 2025

If sustainability has gone the way of rom-com movies, my undergraduate students at New York University’s Stern School of Business haven’t gotten the memo. This spring, my sustainability strategy elective was significantly oversubscribed, and the class excelled — delivering thoughtful materiality assessments and strategic advice for 10 companies across diverse sectors, while continually questioning and improving the status quo. 

Yet, the job and internship markets remain challenging, and media headlines warn of entry-level roles for all fields vanishing into the jaws of artificial intelligence. Advising students to pursue sustainability reporting feels fraught amid political volatility, regulatory uncertainty and backsliding. Sustainability communication roles aren’t much easier, as companies anxiously comb disclosures for risky acronyms and loaded terms, worried about both greenwashing and greenhushing. 

It’s also not lost on me that most of my students in my class are women, surrounded on campus by peers aiming for the well-trodden paths of investment banking and consulting. I want to offer them a different vision of work and success — but one that doesn’t consign talented young people to being underpaid or sidelined. 

So, what exactly is my advice to the next generation?

Make sustainability an essential minor

The days of sustainability as a “standalone” capability are numbered, partly because there’s no consensus on its scope or reporting lines. Many firms created sustainability teams solely around ESG reporting, but that responsibility is shifting to chief financial officers or compliance heads. This shift inadvertently exposes companies that were only interested in box-checking and highlights those truly committed to business integration. The next phase of sustainability is all about embedding sustainability into core business decisions and processes, and that requires different thinking about everything, including careers.

The most effective CSOs are those with deep internal credibility and the ability to assemble teams with expertise tailored to their company’s material issues. In practice, this means all young people need a strong grasp of sustainability fundamentals, but can still pursue careers in finance, operations, marketing, strategy or procurement. As sustainability becomes more integrated across enterprises, it’s vital that everyone understands how it intersects with their discipline. The idea of a single “sustainability expert” was always flawed — no one can master every material topic in depth and breadth. 

Experiment for a decade

My students often worry about landing the perfect first job. But, as my yoga teacher reminds me, you’re not glued to where you land. I advise new graduates to treat their first 10 years as a period of experimentation: try different roles, discover what energizes you. Do you prefer structure or variety? Is travel or people management important? Do you thrive on conversation or prefer analytical, solitary work? It’s perfectly normal not to have these answers yet. But if you don’t explore, you risk waking up at 40 in a career you never chose, trapped by bill payments and commitments. Before you pigeonhole yourself, discover what excites you — and stay open to unexpected opportunities. In this sense, your first job doesn’t matter as much as how often you are prepared to pivot until you find a fit.

Here are avenues to explore, in the Trellis 30 Under 30 rising stars in climate in 2025.

Master power dynamics and organizational change

Many sustainability professionals feel ambivalent about their roles or organizations, often entering the field hoping to be society’s voice inside the company. That’s admirable, but real change comes from having influence. Sometimes, it’s smarter to start in mainstream investing before tackling ESG products, or to innovate on sustainability by beginning in R&D. You can’t address Scope 3 emissions or workforce issues without understanding procurement incentives. And you can’t communicate sustainability effectively without strategic oversight. 

Study how power operates and how decisions get made — then position yourself to be part of those decisions, using your insights to steer the organization toward the issues you care about. We need more responsible, ethical leaders, and we won’t achieve this if the most responsible, ethical people in society see power as a dirty word.

With this in mind, also be thoughtful about your own influence. Take social media seriously and understand you’re shaping a profile. Relentless curiosity and willingness to take on new challenges will get you a long way.

Find your fit in a wide ecosystem

Change requires a range of voices and perspectives. Some of us thrive as politically savvy insiders, shaping narratives and influencing leaders. Others excel as advocates, pushing for greater ambition through campaigns and critiques. Some work well bridging different disciplines: policy and business or NGOs and for-profits. Still others prefer the variety of consulting or the hands-on, operational nature of frontline roles. The point is that all these paths are valid. Try several. Which one feels most like home to you?

We are likely already past the high-water mark for the CSO as a defined position. Future roles will be more hybrid, more integrated, more senior and more dependent on internal credibility. Meanwhile, the core thinking and concepts on topics such as environmental responsibility, worker dignity and inclusion are seeping into organizations that need to attract and motivate a new generation of workers. All this means that you can take your time shaping a leadership journey that plays to your strengths and puts human judgment and skills at the center. That’s good news for us, and for the future of responsible, sustainable business. 

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What a pioneering project means for ocean carbon removal

British Airways, Stripe and Shopify have purchased what backers say are the first independently verified credits from ocean carbon removal, a mechanism with huge sequestration potential.

“It’s a crucial proof point that this is possible,” said Stacy Kauk, chief science officer at Isometric, the registry that issued the credits.

The credits were generated by a project that added powdered alkaline minerals to cooling water discharged from a power plant into the Halifax, Canada, harbor. The minerals trigger chemical reactions that pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it away in bicarbonate ions, which remain stable for tens of thousands of years.

The total removed in this case was small — the three buyers will share 625 credits — but the mechanism has enormous opportunity to grow. The feedstock minerals are inexpensive and widely available in mine wastes and other sources. If scaled globally, a 2023 study concluded, ocean alkalinity enhancement conducted close to coastlines could remove gigatons of CO2. Around 10 Gt of removal will be required annually by 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the IPCC.

First movers

Stripe and Shopify are known for making catalytic investments designed to help scale early-stage removal technologies; both were founding members of Frontier, a buyers’ coalition set up for that purpose. British Airways is newer to this kind of investment. The airline made its purchase through CUR8, a London company that creates carbon removal portfolios for clients. In this case, the $12 million portfolio included future delivery of 7,000 credits from Planetary, the developer of the Halifax project. 

Credits in the portfolio, which includes biochar, direct air capture and other project types, cost an average of $335 per metric ton of carbon removed, said Marta Krupinska, CUR8’s CEO and co-founder. She noted that much of the current cost of an ocean alkalinity credit comes from the procedures needed to measure, report and verify the quantity of captured carbon. Krupinska expects the total cost to fall by more than 50 percent as project developers gain experience with these processes.

Buyer confidence

If ocean alkalinity credits are to reach a market beyond first-mover companies, project developers will have to win the trust of buyers. One issue will be reliably measuring the amount of carbon removed — a challenging task in an open system such as the ocean. 

For the Halifax project, Planetary took samples from the area around the discharge site and used models to estimate the captured carbon. The models included simulations of the harbor environment — calibrated using real-world measurements — and of interactions between the ocean and atmosphere.

“The ocean models used are well validated by years of measurements, and multiple simulations are run to identify what uncertainties exist across different simulations,” said Will Burt, Planetary’s chief ocean scientist. “Then, at the end, we tally all of the uncertainties across both measurements and models, and whatever that total accumulated uncertainty is, we subtract that number of credits from our total net removals. This means we are much more likely to be underestimating our removals rather than overestimating them.”

Buyers will also need to be convinced that the alkaline minerals do not damage the local environment. Isometric’s Kauk stressed that the geochemical processes involved are well understood and occur naturally. “What we’re doing is taking a natural process, then enhancing it and speeding it up,” she said. Planetary also conducted camera surveys of seabed organisms and monitored multiple metrics, including pH, to ensure that the minerals did not alter the composition of the ocean water beyond limits that had been agreed upon with scientific advisors.

Kauk said that Isometric was taking a conservative approach to help build trust and issue credits that buyers can rely on. “Then we repeat this again and again and again,” she said. “Our models are going to get better, and the market is going to start to trust marine based carbon removal as a source of very cost-effective climate benefits.

“And when those things start to be accepted by the market,” she added, “I think we’re going to hit massive scale.”

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SBTi got more than 850 comments on its new net-zero standard. Now what?

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is poring over feedback from more than 850 corporations, nonprofits, trade associations, academics and other stakeholders who submitted recommendations for the next version of the corporate net-zero framework.

SBTi published the 132-page outline for an expansive overhaul to its Corporate Net Zero Standard 2.0 on March 18 and gave interested parties until June 1 to suggest revisions. 

The organization, which plans to publish a summary of the comments sometime later this year, declined to release information about the suggestions prior to that. 

Meanwhile, SBTi’s technical teams are reviewing the comments, and whatever recommendations are accepted by SBTi staff and advisors will be incorporated into a draft that will be circulated for additional consultation. 

Emerging feedback themes

Predictably, many recommendations for SBTi shared with Trellis or published as open letters centered on how carbon removals and other environmental attribute certificates can or should be used in the process of becoming net zero. 

That’s partly by design: SBTi specifically requested input for suggested approaches related to carbon dioxide removals between 2030 and the company’s net-zero year to reduce “projected residual emissions” — including one that would require these investments. This issue was the subject of intense scrutiny and controversy last summer.   

The Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University, for example, came down on the side of letting corporations count high-quality carbon removal toward their emissions reduction goals, saying this would help grow the available market. 

“SBTi could incentivize companies to invest in high-quality, durable carbon dioxide removal to address their residual emissions, as they simultaneously work to reduce their emissions as much as possible by their net-zero target dates,” the institute said. The Institute cautions that claims related to those investments must be made judiciously, given current scrutiny of corporation climate commitments, and that clarity from SBTi would help.

RMI, which coordinated a response from more than a dozen organizations that advocate carbon removal, calls for corporate investments in high-durability carbon removal methods to be required starting in 2030. Like the Policy Institute, the think tank suggests purchases meet a minimum threshold for durability and traceability, and that they be chosen to “counterbalance” the lifetime of the corporation’s actual emissions.  

Other stakeholders are pushing SBTi to clarify how the new standard will recognize the use of emerging methods of indirect Scope 3 mitigation in their supply chains — such as the book and claim systems that companies use to report emissions reductions related to investments in emerging technologies like low-carbon fuels for aviation or maritime shipping. These systems enable companies to support an alternative to purchasing carbon credits or unbundled renewable energy certificates.

“Patagonia views indirect mitigation — reducing greenhouse gas emissions in our supply chain — as a necessary component of strategy to achieve net zero by 2040,” said Kim Drenner, director of supply chain environmental impact at the apparel company, in a statement coordinated by the Zero Emissions Maritime Buyers Alliance.

The Alliance represents companies that are claiming reductions related to their investments in zero-emissions maritime fuel, even if their goods aren’t actually on the ships using it. According to the statement: “Indirect mitigation supports collective action, encourages policy development and enables us to channel investments directly into our supply chain by supporting technologies such as e-fuels in transportation and transitioning textile mills to renewable energy.”

More than 1,500 companies have validated corporate net-zero targets, with another 3,000 committed to doing so. Even companies that aren’t among that number, however, have offered feedback. Microsoft, for example, which has near-term reduction targets validated by SBTi but doesn’t yet have a net-zero plan that fits SBTi’s methodology, remains actively engaged.

“As the CNZS continues to mature, we are thoughtfully evaluating how its evolving requirements align with our broader decarbonization strategy,” the company said in a statement emailed to Trellis. “Some elements of the current standard, including the 90% absolute emissions reduction threshold, the absence of recognition for environmental attribute credits (EACs), and constraints on carbon removals, are areas we continue to assess. These considerations reflect broader operational and market dynamics that many corporates are navigating today.”

Pilot testers sought

SBTi’s next revision is widely expected to be published in the fourth quarter of 2025. Meanwhile, SBTi is seeking companies willing to participate in a pilot test of the methodology.  

“After seeing an impressive level of engagement across the ecosystem in the public consultation on the first draft Corporate Net-Zero Standard version 2, pilot testing is the next stage, where we will gather more practical, first-hand insights,” said Alberto Carrillo Pineda, chief technical officer at SBTi.

That test consists of two phases:

  • An additional survey focused on corporate practitioners, which must be completed before Aug. 15. (SBTi says it will take an average of two hours to finish.)
  • A hands-on trial in the third quarter in which companies use real-world data to test “near-final” versions of the draft. SBTi is looking to identify implementation challenges and validate methodological assumptions that underpin the standard.   

Participants must complete the survey in order to be considered for the hands-on test. SBTi doesn’t say how many companies will be included, but it’s seeking to represent a diversity of sizes, industry sectors, regions, emissions profiles and business models. 

Transition timeline

While all this is going on, companies can still set science-based emissions reduction targets this year and during 2026 using the existing Corporate Net Zero and Near-Term Criteria methodologies. Goals set in those years will be valid for either five years or until the end of 2030, whichever is earlier. 

Companies must start using Corporate Net Zero Standard 2.0 to set emissions reduction strategies starting in 2027. The finalized methodology is due by the end of 2026.

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How the latest proposed revisions to the CSRD further weakens it

The European Council’s chief negotiator has recommended edits for the Omnibus package, this winter’s revision to the European Union’s Green Deal, which mandates businesses to file corporate disclosure reports to member states. And Jörgen Warborn’s proposed iteration relaxes even more of the original mandates regarding the Corporate Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).

The justification behind that original proposal, released in February, was efficiency — specifically, that streamlining some of the more onerous and cash-intensive CSRD and CSDDD requirements would help businesses that would otherwise struggle to comply. Warborn’s draft takes that idea even further, watering down some of the main regulations in the name of cutting red tape.

“I’m entering this process with a clear ambition — to cut costs for businesses and go further than the Commission on simplification,” Warborn said in a post accompanying the release, “Less red tape and fewer burdens for businesses. That’s how we strengthen Europe’s economy.”

His recommendations include:

  • Voluntary disclosures in place of mandatory climate transition plans
  • Scope threshold of 3,000 employees and a $517 million net turnover
  • Preventing member states from making national rules stricter than the EU’s
  • Limiting value chain due diligence oversight

These measures are a substantial step back from the Omnibus’ proposals, which themselves weakened the original Green Deal’s requirements. For example, increasing the threshold to 3,000 employees frees hundreds of corporations from having to report; the Omnibus proposed a 1,000-employee threshold.

Members have until June 27 to comment on all proposed amendments.

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