Microsoft adjusts climate agenda as emissions leap

Microsoft’s emissions jumped 25 percent in its 2025 fiscal year, reflecting the company’s scramble to build new data centers and secure electricity to run its expanding artificial intelligence and cloud services portfolio.

Google and Amazon likewise reported double-digit emissions increases in their 2025 environmental sustainability updates released in late June and early July, respectively. Google disclosed an 18 percent year-over-year bump, while Amazon posted a 16 percent rise in its footprint, which also includes its massive e-commerce network  

Microsoft pledged to honor its long-time climate commitments anyway, arguing that its emissions would have been much higher without the work it has done so far. 

“We do not see these dynamics as a reason to step back,” said Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith and Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa in the foreword to the company’s 2026 environmental sustainability report, published July 9. “We see them as a mandate to lead differently.”

The speed of the AI buildout requires “greater operational rigor, stronger integration across our sustainability priorities and a sharper focus on durable outcomes for the local communities where we work and the global value chains that make our work possible,” they said.

At the center of that shift is the company’s Community-First AI Infrastructure approach, its strategy for proactively countering backlash against proposed data center projects and taking a more responsible approach to development. 

Microsoft is also becoming more transparent about metrics such as site-level water withdrawals and electricity use, which it disclosed for the first time in the data tables accompanying the report.

“This report is a candid take about where progress is advancing, where it’s difficult and where new approaches are needed,” Nakagawa told Trellis. 

Portfolio approach to electricity

One striking data point in Microsoft’s report was the big leap in electricity-related emissions, which accounted for 13 percent of the company’s total footprint in 2025, up from 2 percent in 2024. That increase was, in part, due to the company’s decision to stop using non-additional unbundled renewable electricity certificates in Scope 2 accounting.   

Still, Microsoft consumed 37 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity in 2025, up 24 percent from 2024 and enough energy to run 3.4 million U.S. homes for a year. North America accounted for 56 percent of the total. 

The company’s total water withdrawals were 13 million cubic liters; Microsoft “replenished” 14 million liters as part of a deeper focus to manage water amid heightened community scrutiny.

Microsoft for the first time disclosed power consumption and water withdrawal by location in the data tables accompanying the 2025 environmental sustainability report. Its Boydton, Virginia, data center was the biggest power consumer at more than 3 million MWh. 

While Microsoft has been a long-time corporate supporter of solar and wind projects — it has contracts for up to 40 gigawatts of renewables, 19 of which are operational — the company has turned to new natural gas generators for several proposed projects.

“Meeting future demand responsibly is going to require and continues to require making long-term investments in energy systems that are going to support those future capacity needs,” Nakagawa said, when asked about that tension.

For example, Microsoft is simulating how it could potentially automate the distribution of AI workloads between modular data centers that run directly on renewable energy. It is redirecting power loads in existing data centers to improve efficiency, and its backing emerging technologies, such as superconducting cables from startup Veir that can deliver more power to more compact data centers.  

Microsoft has also refined its strategy for matching Scope 2 emissions with so-called “carbon-free” sources; it will seek more opportunities to use nuclear power, including next-generation fusion energy, as well as geothermal energy from startups including Eavor Technologies, another company backed by Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund.

Microsoft is also scaling up investments in smaller clean energy projects near existing or proposed data center locations, with new contracts for 1.5 gigawatts in 100 communities across 20 states. 

Carbon removal work continues

Microsoft, by far the largest corporate buyer of carbon removal credits, signed contracts for 29 long-term projects in 2025, enough to contribute more than 45 million metric tons of emissions reductions to its carbon goal over the next 30 years.

Nakagawa downplayed recent reports that the company is pausing investments, and said there has been “no change” to its interest in technologies and opportunities that can deliver emissions reductions over multiple decades.

Aside from the many headline-making deals the company has inked in the past three years, Microsoft is backing pilot projects for early-stage approaches including enhanced rock weathering, direct air capture and ocean alkalinity enhancement.

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McDonald’s reassigns its chief sustainability officer to beef strategy

McDonald’s Chief Sustainability and Social Impact Officer Beth Hart is returning to her roots in supply chain sustainability and sourcing as the fast food company’s new vice president, global category head of beef.

Hart’s new role combines responsibility for quality control, supply chain management and responsible sourcing, skills she previously put to use in supply chain executive roles for the U.K. division of McDonald’s and for supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, where she worked on sustainable sourcing, product development and brand management.

Hart was in the CSO position for slightly more than two years; she joined McDonald’s close to eight years ago. 

“Our team and partners around the world have shown what’s possible when purpose and partnership come together, and that’s something I’ll always carry with me,” Hart said in a LinkedIn post revealing her new role.

Hart’s responsibilities are being picked up by Suheily Natal Davis, an attorney who’s been focused on diversity, equity and inclusion programs at McDonald’s since January 2021. Davis, who’s been with McDonald’s for a decade, will start her new job as chief sustainability, social impact and inclusion officer after a summer sabbatical. 

“I’m proud to be entrusted with bringing these three areas of work together under one team as we continue to drive progress and meaningful impact across our people, our planet, and the markets and communities we serve,” Davis said on LinkedIn.

Like many other companies that made science-based emissions reductions pledges in the first half of the decade, McDonald’s is reviewing those targets. 

The fast food goliath recently warned that it will miss its goal to halve the industrial and energy emissions from its supply chain and franchise network by 2030, citing issues outside the company’s control. It will invest $1 billion in supply chain resilience programs, including regenerative agriculture and grazing programs, over the next decade. In her new role, Hart will have direct influence over how some of that money is spent.

Beef and agricultural commodities such as soy, palm oil, coffee and fiber for food packaging, which fall under Scope 3 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s carbon accounting rules, make up the biggest share of McDonald’s footprint. The company has reduced related emissions by 3 percent since 2018.

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What’s your space strategy? Why organizations must determine what matters before markets do

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

“What’s our space strategy?” is a question most organizations can comfortably ignore. After all, space remains a niche concern for all but a handful of companies, and most executives have more immediate priorities than orbital infrastructure, satellite manufacturing or the commercialization of low-Earth orbit.

Yet the question reveals a broader shift already reshaping corporate decision-making.

Organizations are increasingly being forced to determine what’s going to matter before markets can determine what does matter. AI, carbon removal and quantum computing all became strategically relevant long before their commercial or technological pathways were demonstrated. The challenge was not predicting the future. It was recognizing relevance before the proof arrived.

Across our recent conversations with sustainability leaders, investors, founders and corporate executives, this dynamic appeared consistently. Regardless of industry or technology, many described feeling pressure to engage with emerging opportunities before traditional indicators provided confidence.

Space may simply be the next example.

The real question is not whether your organization needs a space strategy; it’s how leaders can determine what’s coming before they can show that it’s arrived.

Relevance before validation

Historically, organizations could afford to wait and see. Technologies emerged, markets matured and business models proved themselves before executives were forced to take action. Validation came first. Strategy followed.

That sequence has reversed, and the pace has increased dramatically.

Technologies now become strategically relevant before commercial pathways are established. Instead of waiting for markets to develop, organizations must decide whether to invest, partner, pilot, advocate, adopt or change course —  fateful choices that will shape their access to customers, capital, talent, policy influence and future market opportunities.

The result is a fundamental shift in how organizations make strategic decisions. Rather than responding to existing markets, they are increasingly reacting to emerging possibilities. The question is no longer simply whether a technology will succeed, but whether waiting for proof creates more risk than acting before it arrives.

Markets do not wait for certainty. While organizations seek proof, partnerships are formed, standards emerge, capital is deployed and adoption pathways begin to take shape. By the time a business case becomes obvious, many decisions shaping that opportunity will have been made. The organizations that engage early are not simply responding to emerging markets; they are helping shape them. 

Before markets take shape

This dynamic is not new for sustainability practitioners.

For decades, they have engaged with emerging solutions before markets could provide clear signals. Renewable energy, electric vehicles, sustainable aviation fuel and carbon removal all attracted corporate participation well before their pathways to scale were clear. Many sustainability leaders did not simply wait for these markets to mature. Through their collective actions, they helped shape the conditions that made scale possible. In reality, organizations often shape emerging markets even as they try to understand them.

In this rapidly shifting environment, validation has become a lagging indicator of strategic relevance. That lesson is becoming more important as the gap between technological emergence and strategic relevance continues to shrink, and markets increasingly deliver validation only after consequential positioning decisions have been made.

For sustainability practitioners, this changes the role validation plays in decision-making. The challenge has evolved from identifying proven solutions and scaling them to recognizing the strategic relevance of those solutions before definitive market validation arrives. 

Position before proof

That means that organizations need a different way to engage with emerging opportunities.

Positioning before proof does not require organizations to commit blindly to uncertain outcomes. It requires them to participate early enough to learn, build capabilities and preserve influence while markets are still taking shape. For sustainability practitioners, that means becoming involved early enough to understand nascent solutions, explore their potential and determine whether they deserve deeper engagement.

Organizations that engage early gain more than information. They influence the conditions that ultimately determine how markets develop. In a world where relevance increasingly arrives before validation, positioning before proof is becoming one of the most important ways organizations prepare for the future while helping shape it.

The conditions you’re waiting for

As organizations engage with emerging technologies earlier, their decisions increasingly become part of the environment that shapes new solutions. The optimal conditions for commercial deployment and market scale are not simply discovered. They emerge through the collective actions of the organizations participating in their development.

This does not mean every organization should move first or place outsized bets. It does suggest that waiting for validation may no longer be a neutral position. In a world where relevance increasingly arrives before proof, organizations are not simply deciding which future to prepare for. They’re also helping determine which futures become possible.

Perhaps the more important question is whether the conditions you’re waiting for are conditions you’re already helping create.

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How raising freezer temperatures by 3 degrees could avoid millions of tons of emissions 

Momentum is building behind a global effort to avoid millions of tons of emissions annually by slightly raising the temperature at which frozen food is distributed.

Under standard industry practice, shipments of frozen food are moved at -18 degrees Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit) or lower. Shifting to -15 C would have no impact on food safety — because microbial activity ceases below -12 C — and could avoid 18 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions annually, said Sandra Roling, managing director of the Move to -15 C Coalition.

The -18 C standard was “established almost at the time when frozen food was invented, around 100 years ago, and it’s sort of just been embedded in industry practice” since, noted Roling. “Nobody has really spent a lot of time questioning that.”

The shift would also bring financial benefits: Every 1 C increase in freezer temperatures cuts energy use by between 1.5 percent and 3.5 percent, said Roling.

Cross-industry collaboration

The coalition was established in 2023 and aims to implement the findings of an academic report, published the same year, that found that a 3 C hike in storage temperatures would not compromise food safety. Three new members, including Wayne-Sanderson Farms, one of the largest poultry producers in the U.S., last month joined Maersk, DP World, IKEA and others as coalition members.

Implementing a -15 C standard requires a lot more than adjusting dials on freezers. Producers, logistics companies and retailers all expect freezers to be set at -18 C. The temperature is written into contracts and, in some regions, enshrined in regulation. 

The coalition is now running a series of pilot projects designed to build confidence around the shift. Earlier this year, U.K.-based coalition members used sensors to monitor the temperature of prepared meals being transported to a staff restaurant at -15 C. Monitoring the product rather than the freezer setting is critical because temperatures fluctuate during transport when freezer doors are opened, said Roling. She described the results as “really positive,” noting that food safety and quality were not impacted. Future tests include transport of chicken from Asia into the U.K.

Companies interested in exploring the benefits of -15 C should begin by checking the temperature at which they and their supply-chain partners move frozen food, added Roling. “One of the things we’ve learned is that quite often the industry practices are even lower than -18 C,” said Roling. That means companies can potentially make immediate emissions and costs savings without hitting contractual or regulatory constraints.

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How Coach and Amazon put an internal value on reuse and recycling

Sustainability strategists for Amazon and Coach use different internal messaging to sell the potential of reuse, recycling and other circular economy principles to business leaders. 

At Coach, roughly 80 percent of the sustainability team’s focus is on promoting circular design principles, such as constructing accessories so they can be taken apart easily for reuse or turning scrap leather and other materials into revenue-generating products that wouldn’t otherwise exist.

The message that resonates most loudly with Coach employees is that circular economy principles offer parent company Tapestry, which also owns Kate Spade, an opportunity to decouple revenue growth from environmental impacts.  

“That’s how I explain it within the organization,” said Kim Matsoukas, director of sustainability at Coach, during a session at Trellis Impact 26.  

The Coach (Re)Loved business, which sells repaired, restored, “upcrafted” and vintage styles, has provided a small, new source of revenue by appealing to Gen Z shoppers who prefer thrifting to buying new. The business has stayed steady in the face of uncertain U.S. import tariffs: Coach sold more than 13,800 units through the program in 2025. 

“We don’t have tariffs in resale so there’s some resilience there, and there is starting to be some recognition around that,” Matsoukas said.

Coachtopia, the company’s circular research lab, in fiscal 2025 launched the Alter/Ego Collection, which includes products made from production scraps from two of Coach’s most iconic bags. Alter/Ego items have a 59 percent lower carbon footprint than similar products.

While Coach doesn’t report on revenue generated through Coachtopia or (Re)Loved, it tracks this metric internally along with the percentage of recycled or scrap material used in its mainstream brands, she said.

Another new metric maps the effort it takes Coach employees to take apart a bag so that the materials can be reused (versus the value that can be recovered after that process); this will influence future design. 

“You want it to be greater than zero, because if it costs more to disassemble something than the output if valued at, you will never do it right,” Matsoukas said. “It will just be trash.”   

The Amazon logistics team is replacing disposable wooden pallets used to transport items internally with ones made from reusable plastic. Source: Amazon

Waste = defect at Amazon

Amazon’s approach to reuse and recovery is driven by its view that waste is an operational defect, said Priscilla Okyere, global head of circular solutions and waste reduction at Amazon, during the Trellis Impact session. 

“We want to eliminate defects, we want to reduce them, so we position waste as a defect and track different types of defects that they feel controllable,” she said.

Different KPIs are used across the company. One example: Amazon uses AI in its warehouses to detect damage in products before they are sent to customers, which reduces returns. In 2025, that effort cut the percentage of damaged items by 21 percent. 

Amazon routinely conducts waste stream audits to identify ways to eliminate single-use materials, Okyere said. 

One success story is a program suggested by the logistics team to replace disposable wooden pallets used to transport items internally with ones made from reusable plastic. The original material was more difficult to repair, and the reusable pallet design has reduced the need for protective, single-use plastic shrinkwrap.

The initiative helped Amazon avoid sourcing 85 million wood pallets during 2024 and another 35 million in 2025, as the system was converted to the reusable ones. It will also save money in the long term, which was the benefit Amazon’s circular solutions team highlighted. 

“It’s good for circularity, but because there’s also a cost benefit, we could start there,” Okyere said.

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How the beleaguered ski industry is moving grid policy forward

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

Record-low snow in the Rocky Mountains this year pushed many ski resorts even further onto the front lines of climate change. Many in the industry had seen it coming.

Ski resorts have for years been trying to combat rising winter temperatures by setting net-zero emissions targets, fine-tuning artificial snow production and working with policymakers on both sides of the aisle to boost clean energy and grid investment.

Now their policy priorities are coming into even sharper focus, as power-hungry AI data centers and manufacturing strain aging rural power grids and make it more difficult to buy clean energy and electrify buildings. As a result, the ski resorts and their primary trade association, the National Ski Areas Association, are emerging as surprising advocates for federal permitting and transmission reform. 

A unique model 

In some ways, ski areas are unique. The amount of power their operations use and the air pollution they create are low relative to other large business operations. However, they’re located in remote areas that lack adequate infrastructure. That makes their connection to the energy grid particularly vulnerable to extreme weather, piling on to their climate-related challenges.

Still, NSAA and its members offer a model for other industries to follow, even ones that aren’t feeling the impacts of a warming planet quite so directly. Surging power demand, an aging grid and volatile fuel costs are putting companies across the economy in a bind. These risks threaten companies’ bottom lines and their ability to deploy more clean energy and meet internal targets for reducing climate pollution in their operations and supply chains.

The ski industry’s advocacy on Capitol Hill also shows other companies how it’s possible to keep talking about clean energy in a challenging political environment characterized by sharp divides in Congress.

Focus on the possible

NSAA and well-known resort operators, including Arapahoe Basin and Aspen One, have consistently joined other companies in advocating for clean energy with federal lawmakers. They were key partners with Ceres in making the case for — and later defending — the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits.

While the law has unfortunately been scaled back, that has not deterred the industry’s efforts on Capitol Hill.

The ski areas were out again in full force to join us for an advocacy day in D.C. this spring, where they talked extensively with lawmakers and staff about how grid constraints are a threat to their business. They made the case for a suite of commonsense reforms to the laws governing environmental permitting and transmission siting and cost allocation.

This tailored messaging is not only about what the industry needs to thrive, but is also grounded in a political moment when lawmakers from both parties see a path to modernizing environmental laws and the power grid. 

In the past, the ski industry’s motivations for policy advocacy were obvious: Climate change is a threat to its very existence. Ski areas remain committed to that message and to their clean energy goals, and they see an opportunity to show policymakers how an aging and constrained grid is creating challenges for businesses across the economy.

In the Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern region controlled by grid operator PJM, power prices have jumped more than 70 percent in recent months due to massive new energy demand from data centers.

Even companies that aren’t contributing directly to the demand boom — ski areas, retailers, hospitals — are feeling the squeeze from higher electricity prices. 

Permitting and transmission reforms that make it easier and less expensive to build the required power infrastructure — primarily clean energy — must be part of the solution.

Grid reforms

The ski industry’s focus on the grid is two-pronged. On one side, there’s climate change and the ski industry’s efforts to reduce emissions. On the other, there is new power demand and decrepit grid infrastructure that is currently raising costs for every business with an electricity bill.

Resort operators want permitting and transmission reform to help deploy clean energy, but it also solves for an operational risk. That’s one of the strongest arguments companies can make right now.

Leaders at Montana’s Bridger Bowl, a non-profit community ski area, are increasingly worried that the local utility will deploy more fossil fuels and increase power bills with the costs of upgrading the grid to accommodate data centers.

Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe in Nevada, which depends on an aging transmission line for all its electricity, weighs this factor when considering infrastructure upgrades, efficiency projects and adoption of new technologies.

Advocate for broad solutions 

These factors also apply to other businesses outside urban clusters and to the communities around them — a powerful point in a period when everyone is feeling the pinch of higher energy prices.

When NSAA, which represents more than 300 ski areas nationwide, wrote to lawmakers in April in support of a hearing on grid reliability, the group emphasized how grid upgrades can help the robust tourism industry that drives economic development in the communities where they operate.

“Ski areas are doing their part by investing in energy efficiency upgrades, on-site clean energy and infrastructure projects to help mitigate potential reliability concerns, including transformer upgrades, working with local utilities and metering and sub-metering,” wrote NSAA Director of Sustainability Courtney LaBrie. “Still, we need the macro-level support of federal legislation to increase transmission capacity and ensure grid reliability on a broader scale, especially in the mainly rural areas where we operate.”

Their pitch is about the bottom line: Policies that deploy low-cost clean energy and build a more resilient grid keep power affordable and ensure the energy system works equitably for businesses across the economy.

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Long-time 3M chief sustainability officer retires

3M Chief Sustainability Officer Gayle Schueller stepped down in early July after a 34-year career with the company. One of her team members, Amanda Yates, was promoted as her replacement.

Schueller, who was a senior vice president with 3M, announced her “graduation” in a LinkedIn post shortly before the U.S. holiday weekend. 

Schueller, with degrees are in physics and materials science, held numerous positions in research and development, design and commercial strategy before being named CSO in 2018.

“Two lessons stand out,” Schueller wrote in her farewell post: “At the end of the day it’s all about people. The greatest impact is when innovation, operational excellence, business performance and purpose come together.”

Under Schueller, 3M adopted a “sustainability value commitment” for every product released after 2019. For example, a product might contain materials substitutions or be manufactured differently to reduce a customer’s greenhouse gas emissions footprint.

“This was an intentional choice that shift investment in favor of greater sustainability, allowing us to transform our business by transforming our products,” she wrote.

Examples from 3M’s 2026 global impact report, published June 1, include new film technology that reduces the temperature of steel roofs in direct sunlight, saving on energy for cooling; and new optical models that cut the amount of energy needed by laptop computer displays.  

Schueller’s successor, Amanda Yates, joined 3M in April 2013 as a corporate brand strategist and was named senior director of global sustainability in August 2021. 

Her undergraduate degree was in environmental science, and her first job was as a specialist for SeaWorld Orlando. “I’m deeply grateful for the chance to continue this work in a role that feels both meaningful and humbling, at a company that believes in the power of science, innovation and long-term impact,” Yates said in a LinkedIn post about her promotion.

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Earning Leadership status with SBTi could cost companies billions 

Starting next year, companies can gain recognition from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for taking responsibility for ongoing emissions. The move, one of several significant changes in the initiative’s updated Corporate Net-Zero Standard, is a departure for the organization, which until now has focused on guidelines for target setting and emissions reductions. 

To estimate what it will cost leading companies to achieve one of the SBTi’s three recognition tiers, Trellis used a calculator developed for the purpose by Supercritical, a carbon removal marketplace. Here’s what we discovered.

How recognition is awarded

Version 2 of the SBTi’s net-zero standard details three tiers of recognition that companies can shoot for:

  • Engaged companies purchase carbon credits equivalent to 1 percent of their total annual emissions or apply an internal carbon price to the same quantity of emissions, and use the proceeds to support climate solutions.
  • Advanced businesses must cover all Scope 1 and 2 emissions, together with additional Scope 3 emissions such that the total comes to at least 10 percent of the company’s footprint. Organizations can address the emissions using credits or a carbon price approach; if they opt for the latter, it must be set at $20 per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) or more.
  • Leadership status goes to large companies that apply a carbon price of at least $80/tCO2e to 100 percent of their emissions. The funds generated must be used to buy enough credits to match the company’s footprint. Any remaining money can be used on additional credits or other climate solutions. 

To gauge the cost of achieving these tiers, Supercritical’s calculator starts with a company’s current emissions data for Scopes 1, 2 and 3. It then calculates the emissions that would be expected between now and 2035 if the company were to follow one of the net-zero decarbonization pathways used by SBTi. Finally, the model estimates the cost of using the carbon price approach to achieve each of the recognition levels. (SBTi does not specify a price for the engaged level, but recommends a minimum of $20/tCO2e. Trellis used this price.)

What it will cost companies

Heavy emitters seeking Leadership status will face costs that Mai Bui, Supercritical’s director of climate science and policy, described as “eye watering.” Trellis ran the numbers on a sample of major companies to illustrate her point.

Annual cost of achieving recognition tiers

Company Annual emissions (tCO2e) Engaged Advanced Leadership
Rio Tinto 607,000,000 $57m $570m $23bn
Ford 338,000,000 $32m $320m $13bn
Amazon 80,800,000 $7.6m $76m $3bn
Nestlé 69,100,000 $6.5m $65m $2.6bn
Unilever 47,700,000 $4.5m $45m $1.8bn
Microsoft 15,500,000 $1.4m $15m $580m
Disney 13,900,000 $1.3m $13m $510m
Starbucks 13,500,000 $1.3m $13m $500m
Autodesk 155,000 $15,000 $150,000 $5.9m
All emissions numbers are 2025 data, aside from Microsoft and Disney, for which 2024 data was the most recent available. Sources: Company reports and Supercritical calculator.

Which companies will seek the higher tiers?

Leadership status is off the table for Rio Tinto and Ford, the two heaviest emitters in our sample: The investment required is greater than recent profits. Aside from that, however, many of the companies could conceivably afford recognition at the higher tiers. One question for sustainability leaders will be when it makes sense to invest in climate solutions outside their company’s value chain rather than prioritizing work in house and with partners.

Current spending provides some clues as to when that might be the case. Large tech companies boast relatively high profits-to-emissions ratios, making substantial investments in beyond-value-chain projects more attractive. But even for this group, an Advanced label may be more realistic than Leadership.

Microsoft, for example, is committed to becoming carbon negative by 2030 and has been stockpiling credits at the date nears. If it meets that pledge — a live question given the additional emissions caused by its data center investments — the tech giant would likely pass the carbon credits criteria for Leadership. But it may not pass the other test, because the company’s internal carbon price of $100/tCO2e only applies to business travel emissions; other emissions sources are subject to a $15/tCO2e fee. (Microsoft would also have to re-enter the SBTi process; its net-zero commitment expired in 2024.) 

Several other companies, including Swiss Re and Etsy, also use levies in excess of the $80/tCO2e threshold for Leadership, but again the fees apply to a subset of emissions. A list of internal carbon prices compiled by the Carbon Capital Lab, a sustainability consultancy, includes just two businesses — Planet A, a VC fund, and Mentimeter, a software firm — with fees that meet the Leadership criteria.  

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What’s next: Key climate and nature standards in 2026

Welcome to the Trellis timeline of updates and public consultations regarding voluntary net zero, carbon accounting, nature and circular economy standards — both established guidance and emerging frameworks.

This roundup was updated July 2 with information about a new chemical recycling standard from SCS Standards and Assurance Systems; the Global Reporting Initiative Pollution Project; updates about several Greenhouse Gas Protocol workstreams; a new wave of freshwater pilots by the Science Based Targets Network; and the new net-zero methodologies from the Science Based Targets initiative and the International Organization for Standardization.

Jump directly to your category of interest for details. The featured categories:

This list is not comprehensive. It is updated periodically as new drafts are published, new standards take effect or public consultations are opened — so bookmark this page. If you’d like to suggest an addition or update, email [email protected]. 

Emissions accounting (The Greenhouse Gas Protocol)

Actions and Market Instruments
Status: A first public consultation of one potential component — consequential accounting for electricity — ended Jan. 31, and a white paper covers what to expect.
Key dates: The draft standard will be circulated for feedback in Q3. 
What: GHG Protocol is proposing new rules for accounting for the benefits of climate actions that go beyond companies’ direct operations. Investments in supply chains and other areas, sometimes known as insets or value-chain interventions, are not covered by existing reporting frameworks.
Updated 7/2/26

Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard
Status: An overhaul is under review by the organization’s independent standards board.
Key dates: First draft was due for public consultation in Q2; it is still pending.
What: The Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, first published by the GHG Protocol in 2001, one of the first methodologies developed to help companies create comprehensive greenhouse gas inventories; the suite of standards includes amendments for Scope 2 (related to electricity) and Scope 3 (value chain emissions).
Added 7/2/26

Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard
Status: Draft for public consultation is due in the second half of 2026.
Key dates: The working group took up its final topic of discussion — how to manage circularity — in April. 
What: The standard, first released in 2011, measures emissions from 15 categories of upstream and downstream activities outside a company’s direct control, such as purchased goods and services. The revision may change those groupings. It’s expected to offer guidance for how to report on sustainable aviation fuel as well as other contracts that companies use to avoid emissions.
Updated 4/16/26

Land Sector and Removals Standard 
Status: Published Feb. 2 and due to take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
Key dates: Practical details for how to approach the standard were published June 30 in a guidance document.
What: Land Sector and Removals Standard, a new GHG Protocol methodology for reporting on nature-based and engineered carbon removal projects, was five years in the making. It offers comprehensive guidance for calculating emissions generation and removal and accommodates the use of “mass balance,” which lets companies mix low-carbon and conventional crops.
Updated 7/2/26

Scope 2 Guidance
Status: The GHG Protocol closed a consultation on a major and controversial revision of its rules for reporting renewable energy contracts and transactions on Jan. 31.
Key dates: Feedback will be collected on a second draft later in 2026, with a final draft anticipated by 2027.
What: The methodology, first published in 2015, is widely used by companies to report on renewable energy transactions, including power purchase agreements for solar and wind power.
Updated 2/12/26

Net-zero and impact targets

B Lab Standards (a.k.a B Corp Certification) (B Lab Global)
Status: Version 7 of the certification took effect March 11. 
What: B Lab’s certification standards require companies to meet minimum performance thresholds in seven environmental, social and governance topics and commit to continuous improvement. The changes, after four years of public consultation, were made as more large companies seek certification. 
Added 3/17/26

Corporate Net Zero (Science Based Targets initiative)
Status: Public consultations on the first draft closed in December.
Key dates: The updated standard, incorporating feedback, was published June 11. A final version is planned for the fourth quarter.
What: SBTi is shepherding a major revision of the Corporate Net Zero Standard, version 2.0, that anticipates the organization finalizing in 2026 to take effect on Jan. 1, 2028. Approximately 2,220 companies have validated SBTi pledges to become net zero by 2050, while another 2,800 are setting them.  
Updated 7/2/26

ISO Net Zero (International Organization of Standardization)
Status: ISO is reviewing the draft of its first standard for “net-zero aligned organizations.”
Key dates: Consultation draft published June 17; ISO’s member organizations will collect feedback for 12 weeks.
What: The methodology originated as a guidelines document, but ISO decided to turn it into a full-blown standard at the urging of companies and other stakeholders frustrated with the rigidity of other net-zero frameworks.   
Updated 7/2/26

Power Sector Net-Zero Standard (SBTi)
Status: Developed in collaboration with 120 experts, a final version of the rules is due in Q4. 
Key dates: Pilot testing for the guidance launched after Q1.
What: The SBTi’s net-zero guidance for electric utilities, which dovetails with the organization’s Corporate Net Zero Standard, was circulated for industry consultation in late 2025.
Added 3/17/26

Circularity

Certification Standard for Responsible Chemical Recycling (SCS Standards and Assurance Systems)
Status: Published June 16.
What: Billed as the first independent standard for organizations using pyrolysis, depolymerization and other chemical and molecular approaches to recycle plastics. It covers management systems, disclosures, how a facility approaches social and environmental issues, water stewardship, waste management, among other processes.
Added 7/2/26

Global Circularity Protocol for Business (World Business Council for Sustainable Development)
Status: Version 1.0 published in November 2025.
What: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development and One Planet Network consulted more than 150 experts to develop what’s being described at the GHG Protocol for the circular economy. The 236-page playbook offers guidance for how to identify priority materials for reuse or recycling, and how to measure the impact of using recovered materials versus virgin ones.
Added 2/12/26

Reusable Packaging Systems Design Standard (PR3: The Global Alliance to Advance Reuse and CSA Group)
Status: Design requirements for refillable containers appropriate for the food and beverage industry, published Feb. 25.
What: Standards organizations PR3: The Global Alliance to Advance Reuse, and CSA Group are collaborating to write six standards that dictate how companies use reusable packaging for various applications in the U.S. and Canada. This is the second framework to be released, covering issues such as how many washes a container must be able to withstand and which chemicals are inappropriate.
Added 3/17/26  

Biodiversity and nature

Corporate Guidance for Assessing Water Scopes 1-3 in Value Chains (CEO Water Mandate, SCS Global Services, World Resources Institute, World Wildlife Fund)
Status: Project launched April 30.
Key dates: A draft of the guidance will be circulated for public comment in mid-2027.
What: Four well-known environmental organizations are collaborating to standardize how corporations calculate water risks and impacts not only from their own operations but from electricity contracts and supply chains, too. Their goal is a model akin to the “scope” system for greenhouse gas emissions that GHG Protocol uses to define carbon footprint accounting.
Added 5/12/26

GRI101: Biodiversity (Global Reporting Initiative)
Status: The latest revision is now in effect for reporting after Jan. 1.
What: GRI published a major revision to GRI101: Biodiversity, for disclosing corporate impacts on nature, in January 2024 to align with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. 
Added 2/12/26

International Water Stewardship Standard Version 3.0 (Alliance for Water Stewardship)
Status: Major revision released March 18.
What: Version 3.0, which corporations use to assess their water impacts and make disclosures, was adopted in December 2025 by the Alliance for Water Stewardship after two years of development and more than 3,000 public comments. Changes include clearer minimum requirements, more context about the alignment between water and climate goals, and tighter alignment with the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. 
Added 3/18/26

Science-based Targets for Nature (Science Based Targets Network)
Key dates: A major technical update is due in late 2026, with a focus on land, freshwater and ocean commitments. 
What: The Science Based Target Network was formed to create guidance that covers science-based commitments related to freshwater, land, biodiversity, ocean and climate. The first part of its methodology was published in May 2023; so far, 10 companies have had targets validated including GSK, Holcim and Kering. A new cohort of companies including Adidas, Danone, General Mills and H&M Group is testing SBTN’s freshwater guidance from June to September.
Added 7/2/26

Reporting frameworks

GRI Pollution Project (GRI)
Status: Drafts for public comment published in late March.
Key dates: Final standard scheduled for publication in 2027.
What: GRI is revising existing disclosure frames for ozone-depleting substances, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and other significant air emissions. The organization wants companies to report in more detail about the impact of their emissions on air, soil and water. It also expects more data on how they handle pollution crises.
Added 7/2/26

SASB Standards Exposure Draft (International Sustainability Standards Board) 
Key dates: Feedback sought by July 24.  
What: ISSB is part of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation, which manages frameworks that companies use for disclosures to investors. The SASB Standards — used to report on sustainability-related risks —are all being updated to align better with ISSB’s other frameworks. The draft covers the remaining three methods that need an update: agricultural products; meat, poultry and dairy; and electricity utilities and power generators.  
Added 4/16/26

Environmental management

ISO 14001 (International Organization of Standardization)
Status: The 2026 edition of the standard was published April 15.
What: More than 670,000 organizations use ISO 14001, the world’s most widely adopted environmental management systems standard, to certify their operational practices for resource use, waste and pollution. The update includes adjustments that reflect shifting priorities, including new practices related to nature and biodiversity.
Added 4/16/26

Plus, methodologies to watch

Advanced and Indirect Mitigation (AIM) Platform (The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Center for Green Market Activation and Gold Standard)
Status: Version 1 of the guidance document published on April 14.
What: Guidelines for measuring and reporting the impact associated within “insetting” projects meant to reduce the emissions in corporate supply chains. The standard was piloted by H&M, Netflix, Patagonia and 30 other companies. Patagonia, for example, is monitoring how a transition away from gas-fired boilers can cut the footprint associated with fabric dyeing.
Updated 4/16/26

Book & Claim standard (ISO)
Status: Published Jan. 22.
What: A system from ISO for claiming emissions reduction credits related to corporate procurement of green steel, low-carbon cement, sustainable aviation fuel, clean hydrogen and other emerging technologies that have lower carbon footprints than traditional options.
Added 2/12/26

Carbon Measures 
Status: Reached 26 members, including Bank of America and Toyota. Added 23 advisors, including experts from BASF, Dow, Microsoft and RMI.
Key dates: The group’s first report is due this summer. 
What: The controversial initiative, co-founded by ExxonMobil, seeks to create an emissions accounting system focused on products not broad categories. It’s linked to E-liabilities, which advocates a methodology that measures the carbon footprint of products and then assigns part of the carbon “liability” to customers.   
Added 4/16/26

Climate Contribution Framework (Sweep and Mirova Research Center)
Status: Launched in November 2025, the approach is being piloted by utility EDF, Renault and Schneider Electric.
Key dates: Scores from companies tested the framework are due in June.
What: A system that measures the potential emissions reductions or other climate mitigation potential of a company’s investments in low-carbon technologies. It considers actions including products sold by the company and the financing it puts toward solutions beyond its value chain, such as carbon credits.
Added 5/28/26

Mitigation Action Accounting and Reporting Guidance (Task Force for Corporate Action Transparency, or TCAT)
Status: Feedback from pilots by Etsy, PepsiCo and REI published in early February.
Key dates: Public consultation planned for April to July 2026, with deeper revisions anticipated in the fall.
What: One of two new frameworks developed by TCAT, formed two years ago by former practitioners from Netflix, Amazon and other well-known companies. The rules outline ways to report on emissions reduction initiatives that don’t fit neatly into existing GHG Protocol rules.
Updated 3/17/26

NEW: Scope 3 Standard (S3S) Program (Verra)
Status: Under development.
Key dates: Version 1 anticipated in the third quarter of 2026.
What: Verra, which manages the world’s most widely used standard for voluntary carbon credits, is preparing to introduce a methodology that will enable companies to report on the impact of projects within their value chain, sometimes known as insetting. The framework will align with other emerging and established frameworks, including the AIM Platform (see above) and Version 2 of the Science Based Targets initiative’s Corporate Net Zero Standard. 
Added 4/16/26

Target Accounting and Reporting Guidance (TCAT)
Status: Feedback from pilots by Etsy, PepsiCo and REI published in early February.
Key dates: Public consultation planned for April to July 2026, with deeper revisions anticipated in the fall.
What: The second of two methodologies being tested by TCAT, the framework is meant to provide a way for companies a standardized way of reporting on progress toward voluntary emissions reduction goals. 
Updated 3/17/26

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What would it take to build a sustainable data center? A roomful of rivals tried to find out

The numbers forecast for data center investment are the kind that stop a conversation before it starts. Capital spending on AI infrastructure is on track to surpass $1 trillion as soon as 2027 — the largest infrastructure buildout in U.S. history as a share of GDP since the Louisiana Purchase — and now exceeds annual investment in upstream oil and gas.

Spending of this magnitude locks in assets for 20, 30, even 50 years. The window to shape these assets is narrow and closing.

That was the premise behind the Sustainable AI Infrastructure Forum, a half-day, invitation-only working session we hosted at Trellis Impact 26. We convened a group of 65 hyperscalers, utilities, developers, financiers, certification bodies, investors and community-engagement specialists — stakeholders that run on very different operating systems and don’t typically come together — to ask a deceptively simple question: What does a sustainable data center look like, and what would it take to get there at scale?

The forum was conducted under the Chatham House Rule, meaning that content could be shared but not attributed to any individual or organization.

Bipartisan backlash

The backdrop is a backlash that has moved faster than almost anyone anticipated. Polling presented at the forum showed opposition to data center construction climbing sharply over the past year, and one speaker described it as among the most bipartisan issues in the country. Another cited roughly $156 billion in projects now stalled by community resistance — a figure that has more than doubled in just six months.

As one developer put it, data centers have become “a very good place to put all that hurt” — the physical manifestation of a broader, often inchoate anxiety about AI and technology.

Energy, water, land — and trust

Panelists at the event made clear that no single actor controls the outcome. For example:

  • A utility representative described an energy grid playing catch-up on infrastructure and procurement. The balancing act, as he framed it, is reliability, affordability and carbon-free energy — with reliability, in his view, outranking the others.
  • A developer walked through the hyperlocal reality of siting: setbacks, berms, landscaping, closed-loop cooling and the slow human work of community forums and landowner relationships.
  • A tech company sustainability leader offered a different lever entirely — a company that builds no data centers but uses contract language, including a clause tied to supplier sustainability terms, to push change through purchasing power.

Four “innovation sparks” widened the aperture:

  • A data center developer reframed land as opportunity, describing plans to restore a degraded former cattle-grazing site on Texas’s historic Blackland Prairie, using a fraction of operating capital for carbon sequestration, water capture and biodiversity.
  • An investor coalition presented an 11-point sustainability standard built around a “net positive” idea — that a data center could restore a watershed or lower a low-income community’s energy burden, rather than being merely neutral.
  • A community-engagement strategist with a background in oil, gas and mining argued that the playbooks for earning social license already exist, in the UN Guiding Principles and IFC Performance Standards.
  • And a climate investor described the Data Center Innovation Initiative, a partnership with Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft to pilot decarbonization technologies together rather than redundantly.

Striking consensus, persistent skepticism

The heart of the session put the room to work: Each table named up to three high-bar goals, three non-negotiables and the three biggest changes needed to propel data center sustainability. What struck us, reading the flipcharts afterward, was how much the eight tables converged without coordinating. Some key takeaways:

Non-negotiable, high-bar goals

  • Community agency and buy-in, early and often, with community benefit agreements
  • Clean energy, water positive
  • Common standards and transparency
  • Self-funded initiatives

What needs to change

  • Modernize the grid
  • Include sustainability in procurement conversations
  • Prove and articulate the benefits of AI
  • Rebuild trust

On goals, nearly every table reached for some version of 100 percent clean or renewable energy, zero-carbon facilities and net-positive impact — for both nature and community. Several pushed beyond aspiration to structure: One group laid out a tiered energy ladder from “bring your own energy” (the minimum) to “bring your own clean energy” (the medium bar) to “add to the community’s energy infrastructure” (the high bar). Another offered a more achievable near-term floor — 75 percent renewable through a mix of renewable energy credits and carbon-free energy — arguing that the non-negotiables should be things genuinely deliverable in the short term.

On non-negotiables, the words and phrases that recurred most were transparency, community buy-in before the build and do no harm. Groups called for community agency through a trusted local representative; measurable environmental commitments on water, carbon, noise and aesthetics; and net-benefit guarantees, with one table pointing to a Community Reinvestment Act–style mandate to reinvest in host communities.

On changes, the shared list included standards with third-party verification and public benchmarking; education for both industry and communities; accountability frameworks spanning regulation, tax and zoning; transition plans for the data center’s full lifecycle; and funding capacity for the local governments and authorities expected to navigate all of this for the first time.

Productive tensions, missing voices

A few productive tensions surfaced. Decarbonization messaging, several participants warned, “resonates not at all” in most host communities — some view solar as the threat to farmland. And the missing voices were named honestly: front-line communities, regulators and the disparate local authorities who issue the permits.

We left genuinely struck by the alignment on what “good” looks like — and equally skeptical that the industry will choose the right way over the fastest way. The mandate, as we see it, is to bend a trillion-dollar wave in the right direction while the window is still open. That starts, as it did in that room, with the next human-to-human conversation, and the one after that.

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