More companies retired carbon credits in the five months since the U.S. presidential election than during the same period a year ago. This indicates that carbon credit buyers are continuing to work toward their long-term climate targets, executing on strategies that stretch beyond any presidential term, according to a report published today by Patch, a carbon credit purchasing platform. 

While total active buyers grew, carbon credit retirement volume declined compared to the same five-month period from the end of 2023 through the first quarter of 2024. That shift may be due to recent guidance from standards setters, rather than political shifts, according to the report. 

“There is no credible path to net zero without carbon removal,” said Brennan Spellacy, Patch CEO, in an interview. As a result, “we’re beginning to see folks … building up their carbon removal inventory or capacity.” That action today will set carbon buyers up to accomplish their climate targets in 2030 and beyond.

“Ramping up [carbon removal purchasing] incrementally is realistic and pragmatic,” said Louis Mark, senior manager of sustainable operations and ESG at Autodesk, which has set a 10-year, science-aligned decarbonization target to reduce its emissions and has been purchasing carbon removal and avoidance credits since 2021.

Source: Patch

Carbon market activity signals broader climate strategy

The voluntary carbon market is a “canary in the coal mine” for corporate climate action, according to the new analysis from Patch. Since credits are transferred digitally, buyers can stop purchasing at any moment, making market demand highly responsive to changes in buyer strategy. 

The fact that companies are carrying on with their carbon credit strategies signals that they’re not only committed to their climate targets, but acting on time scales that stretch beyond presidential terms. “Enterprises think in 5- or 10-year operating plans … that’s longer than any administration,” according to Spellacy. 

The Patch report isn’t the first to show evidence that carbon market activity is a hallmark of companies investing more broadly in their climate strategies. Material users of carbon credits are more than twice as likely as companies not active in the voluntary carbon market to achieve other signals of credibility in their climate targets, according to a report published last fall by MSCI’s carbon markets research team. 

Drivers of the decrease

Several factors are likely driving the recent dip in credit retirements. 

One factor may be an overall shift away from offsetting and carbon neutral claims, according to the report.

Over the past 18 months, new guidance documents from well-known standard setting bodies, including the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity Initiative (VCMI) and The Climate Label, have advised companies to retire carbon credits as contributions to global climate action, but not to make claims about offsetting or neutralizing ongoing greenhouse gas emissions. Companies following these guidelines can focus more on opportunities for impact and less on meeting volume thresholds for their carbon credit purchases. 

Another explanation of the dip is that companies active in the voluntary carbon market are gradually ramping up their carbon credit purchasing and retirements in preparation of achieving 2030 targets, rather than having to put on muscle all at once in the future. 

The data also shows increasing interest in carbon offtake agreements, another sign that companies active in the voluntary carbon market today are thinking about securing credit supply for the future. 

Source: Patch

Buyers are looking for removals

Carbon credits from projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere are very popular. Nearly half of post-election purchase requests seen by Patch have been for removals-only portfolios. Of the 20 most requested project types during that period, 14 were removals.

Biochar carbon removal has been the most requested carbon project type in Patch portfolios, followed by reforestation, afforestation and improved forest management — all projects based on nature’s ability to pull carbon out of the atmosphere.

Source: Patch

A hidden supply crunch

Buyers are unable to consistently purchase enough carbon removal credits from the specific project types they’re requesting. For example, though one in four buyers ask for some reforestation credits, it makes up just 12 percent of projects sold because not enough supply meets buyer’s ratings and pricing requirements. 

Buyers are turning to third party verification

To prioritize project quality, buyers are turning to third party ratings to make the search more straightforward. 

Some 80 percent of companies were looking for projects with a BBB+ rating from BeZero, or Tier 2 and above from Sylvera. 

Nearly 40 percent of buyers active on the Patch platform in the past five months are also looking for credits from projects using methodologies that have received a Core Carbon Principles label from the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, an independent governance body that has established public standards for quality in carbon project methodologies.

Climate progress over policy chaos

The continued growth in companies funding global climate action via carbon markets is an encouraging sign that corporate climate strategies are aligning more closely with the goal of limiting disastrous warming than with policies from Washington. 

“There’s a sense that if there’s someone else doing it, you can do it too,” said Mark, of Autodesk. “That is a catalyst that should not be forgotten about this decade, and it’s going to be even more essential as we move forward to 2050.” 

[Connect with more than 3,500 professionals decarbonizing and future-proofing their organizations and supply chains through climate technologies at VERGE, Oct. 28-30, San Jose.]

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Global economies are becoming less circular despite the increased use of recycled and other non-virgin materials, according to the 2025 Circularity Gap Report. It found a worldwide rate of 6.9 percent circularity, a drop from two 7.2 percent years earlier.

The Amsterdam consultancy Circular Economy and London-based Deloitte Global released the report May 13 at the World Circular Economy Forum in São Paulo.

The circularity metric represents the proportion of materials flowing through the global economy that are secondary — i.e., reused, resold or repaired — rather than new.

More materials recovered from waste are substituting for virgin sources in products, the report authors found. But mining, logging, farming and other activities are seizing ever more raw materials from nature.

Turning the tide

In the past half century, the total number of resources people extract from nature has tripled. By 2060, the report projected, that will jump by another 60 percent.

Even if that didn’t change, however, the report’s authors believe that the global circularity metric could soar to 25 percent if everything that could be recycled was, in fact, recycled.

Of course, that’s no simple tweak.

“By rethinking product design, investing in new business models and developing new capabilities, the private sector can accelerate the transition towards a circular economy,” said Ingka Group IKEA’s Global Circular Strategy Leader Hege Saebjørnsen, in a report statement.

The role for companies

The report authors urged businesses to adopt circularity frameworks, transition to circular economy models and collaborate across their value chains to innovate and optimize resources. They also voiced a call to action for organizations to:

• Stop virgin materials use from outpacing secondary materials use by promoting circular design ideas, making products last longer and establishing recycled materials as the standard.
• Slow harms to species, soil, air and water caused by the rising consumption of biomass by practicing regeneration while harvesting natural resources for food and fuel, returning nutrients to nature and employing low-emissions practices.
• Maximize the nearly two-fifths of global materials annually stored as”stock” in buildings, infrastructure and equipment by whenever possible reusing, refurbishing and renovating instead of building new, and recovering more materials during building and demolition.
• Curb the growing use of fossil fuels, which feed 78 percent of climate emissions, through the use of alternative renewable energy sources and enhanced technologies that reduce the need for virgin materials.
• Counter the more than one-fifth of recyclable materials that are wasted by managing materials wisely across supply chains, designing goods for circularity and supporting waste management infrastructure.

A protocol on the horizon

The Science-Based Targets initiative’s net zero standards have become de rigueur for corporate sustainability work. However, global standards for materials circularity have been lacking. That may change, the authors noted, as the Global Circularity Protocol emerges.

“Circular solutions are the only way for businesses to meet both their growth ambitions and global sustainability targets,” said Quentin Drewell, senior director of circular products and materials at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The Geneva organization has been instrumental in developing the circularity protocol, which is likely to become integrated into future corporate sustainability reports.

The report aligns with the protocol, Drewell added, and it “plays a crucial role in guiding business leaders toward measurable and transformative actions to ensure businesses can generate long-term value and build up resilience.”

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Think about the number of physical assets you may touch in your daily work: Perhaps you need to replace a printer cartridge, drive a company car, repair a laptop, or troubleshoot a generator. Regardless of whether you work in an office or on a factory floor, keeping these assets in good condition and up and running is a huge part of business.

To the layperson, this all counts as maintenance. But companies are increasingly adopting a sophisticated and data-driven approach (sometimes called asset lifecycle management) that includes planning, acquisition, utilization maintenance and disposal — collectively focused on keeping each and every asset running smoothly for as long as it can. Like your plumbing at home, this end-to-end maintenance is unexciting but absolutely critical — and chief sustainability officers should consider it key to operationalizing sustainability.

Modern maintenance is about optimizing the performance of assets across their entire lifecycle, ensuring they operate at peak efficiency and last as long as possible. That’s good for business, but it’s also a key entry point for CSOs to drive tangible and tactical progress in their organizations.

How asset maintenance can boost sustainability

Imagine asset maintenance as a high-tech dashboard in a car. It may show the air pressure of each tire, the miles driven since the last oil change, whether the doors and trunk are properly closed and more. Even in this example, that sort of data-driven monitoring and maintenance helps ensure your car lasts as long as possible — with minimal time spent frustrated on the side of a road. Now apply that system to a major company, and you can quickly imagine how the cost-savings and environmental benefits can scale.

With an effective maintenance strategy, a business can significantly lower costs, minimize downtime and boost operational performance, while advancing their sustainability objectives. Owners who implement an end-to-end maintenance strategy can reduce the total cost of asset ownership by as much as 40 percent, according to an analysis of multiple reports. In short, asset maintenance offers businesses a direct path to improving both the bottom line and environmental impact.

While the precise role of asset maintenance depends on what a company does and its assets, but there are several general ways it can help advance sustainability goals.

First, maintenance can extend the lifespan of assets. One of the coolest examples we’ve worked on at IBM is the Great Belt project in Denmark, which includes one of the longest suspension bridges in the world with a central span of over 5,000 feet. For this project, maintenance includes a combination of drone photography, AI analysis and 3D modeling that has collectively reduced operational expenses 2 percent year over year. In terms of specific sustainability outcomes, the improved monitoring and maintenance is projected to double the lifespan of the bridge — while also avoiding 750,000 tons of CO₂ emissions.

Second, maintenance systems can help with efficiency. In its own efforts, IBM’s real estate organization tapped a new AI-powered module to analyze the description of a maintenance work order and automatically generate a service code. That sounds simple, but it reduced work orders labeled “Other” — the least helpful category — by 84 percent, allowing problems to be more quickly understood, parts to be ordered and useful maintenance trips to be made. The result is an estimated savings of 10,000 people hours. That’s time that was spent on working through unnecessary confusion — time that we can bid “good riddance.” Now, it can be instead spent on proactively ordering replacement parts, checking up on equipment and systems most in need, and other useful things.

Finally, asset maintenance can help maximize uptime. This is just the other side of the efficiency coin, but it’s worth reiterating on its own. Every company relies on numerous systems or machines to get its work done. At a renewable power plant, key assets might be turbines, solar panels or grid infrastructure. Every second they’re offline means less renewable energy in the grid. That might mean a factory lies dormant somewhere, food is spoiling in a powerless refrigerator or that a more expensive and dirtier back-up option is used instead. All that waste, cost and emissions can be potentially avoided with more predictive and proactive maintenance.

Expanding what corporate sustainability looks like

For CSOs looking to drive progress on sustainability, maintenance is not a bad place to start. Imagining a technician typing on an iPad or wielding a socket wrench may not connote the same idea of sustainability as someone choosing between trash and recycling, but it should. Moreover, these examples show that smart maintenance can avoid waste, lower costs and reduce emissions.

Maintenance is yet another area where sustainability leaders can leverage data, to figure out where “hot spots” are and then operationalize a roadmap of action. The heavy industry sector already knows this, but it applies to every sector. At IBM, we do this with data from our facilities management platform, which is integrated into our reporting tool to create a single, auditable system of record that allows for site-specific inquiries and informed decision-making.

There are already strong technological tailwinds behind asset maintenance as low-cost sensors proliferate, data becomes more available, and AI is increasingly used to drive insights and action. But it’s time for the full C-suite to recognize the broad range of benefits it brings — and CSOs can play a mission critical role for driving that recognition.

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Inter IKEA Group, which makes the wide range of home goods sold in IKEA stores, has officially named the former head of its textile supply chain strategy as its new chief sustainability officer.

Lena Julle, who has been with IKEA for more than 30 years, had been acting CSO since September 2024, when Pär Stenmark stepped aside to prepare for a new, as-yet-undeclared, role within the company. 

Julle’s permanent appointment became effective on May 1, after nearly two years of her being groomed for the position. Most recently, as the sustainability manager for IKEA Range, maker of the company’s stoves and ovens, Julle was involved in shaping the division’s burgeoning circular economy practices. Prior to that, she managed supply chain operations for the textiles division for six years.  

“With her leadership and deep knowledge of IKEA, Lena has continued our journey to be more sustainable in everything we do, said Inter IKEA CEO Jon Abrahamsson Ring. “As Acting Chief Sustainability Officer, she’s already made strong contributions in our journey towards net zero and further developed the overall IKEA sustainability agenda.”

IKEA’s science-based targets include a goal to cut its climate footprint in half across all three emissions scopes by 2030, based on a 2016 baseline. The company reported a cumulative reduction of 28 percent as of the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31, 2024.

One of the thorniest challenges in delivering that 2030 commitment is reducing the impact of raw materials and extraction, which accounted for 52 percent of IKEA’s footprint in 2024. Textiles and “comfort materials” such as foam used to stuff sofas are the third biggest chunk in that category after metals and wood. Julle’s experience with that supply chain will be invaluable in finding alternative sources and increasing the percentage of recycled content used in IKEA manufacturing.

“Creating smart, well-designed, functional products for everyday use at home, based on our life-at-home expertise, while making steady progress on our sustainability agenda, presents a tremendous opportunity,” she said.

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When you think of the biggest polluters of greenhouse gas emissions, health care may not be top of mind. But the health care system is responsible for 8.5 percent of GHGs in the U.S. and about 5 percent globally. 

At the same time, health care systems are increasingly affected by the climate change impacts of those outsized emissions. This ranges from facilities being hit with extreme weather and volatile energy prices to patients experiencing heat-related ailments or new illnesses brought on by changing disease vectors from a warming climate. Health systems are also chronically underfunded, and the current administration’s reduction of health care funding will exacerbate the problem. 

Fortunately, there are opportunities for health care players of all sizes and stages to reduce their costs through decarbonization – and also contribute to reducing the negative societal and health impacts of emissions.

Decarbonization creates value for health care systems in many ways. The NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business (CSB) conducted a Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI) analysis to understand the financial value drivers of decarbonization strategies in health care. Working with the Commonwealth Fund, Health Care Without Harm and the National Association of Medicine’s Health Care Supply Chain Working Group, we cataloged and prioritized decarbonization strategies that can drive financial improvement for health care delivery systems. These key strategies include energy management, transportation optimization, building design and maintenance, sustainable sourcing, food service optimization, low-emissions clinical care, waste reduction and responsible investments. The examples below illustrate how these strategies can drive value for the health care industry.

Building design and energy management

CSB examined the decarbonization of building facilities for a Midwest hospital system and found that an energy retrofit approach of existing facilities would net $1 per square foot. A net-zero building design for new construction would net the building $2 per square foot—helping defray the cost of investment and providing savings over time. 

Transportation optimization

When CSB explored last-mile delivery optimization for a health care solutions company, it discovered that by maximizing pharmaceutical deliveries for a single route within a region, the company could reduce fuel emissions and save $254,000 annually. Anecdotally, the firm also discovered staffing efficiencies by consolidating incoming deliveries.

In another example, Kaiser Permanente’s Richmond Medical Center implemented a microgrid that connects renewable energy and battery storage to a pre-existing, diesel-fueled backup power system. It has the potential to save as much as $394,000 per year.

Waste reduction through circularity

Medical facilities generate significant waste through reliance on single-use, disposable products. CSB explored the benefits of applying a circular approach in a hospital system, designing a program to incorporate reprocessed medical devices into their procurement process. An initial cost of half a million dollars led to $3.5 million in annual savings. 

The University of Minnesota Medical Center reformulated operating room (OR) kits to reduce disposable products deemed unnecessary as part of individual kits. Across two campuses, reformulation of OR kits diverted 10,553 pounds of waste per year, saving $116,215 annually on purchasing unnecessary products and paying for waste disposal.

Another added benefit to circularity in hospitals is that it can insulate the hospital and their suppliers from tariffs, because they will need fewer imported parts and materials.

Lower-emissions clinical care 

With 80 percent of health care emissions coming from Scope 3, decarbonization in the supply chain is especially important. For the pharmaceutical industry, we found that reformulating a product using a green chemistry approach reduced water, chemicals, energy and waste by approximately 80 percent across the board for one company, with a cost savings of approximately $1.5 million per 100 metric tons of product. 

Category	Savings per 100 metric tonne
Avoided carbon emission fees ($5/ton)	$240,000
Reduced water use	$766,000
Reduced industrial waste disposal	$364,000
Reduced electricity cost	$177,000
Total savings	$1,547,000

In addition, our landscape analysis of direct emissions for health care delivery systems found anesthetics to be a significant contributor to hospital GHG footprints, with estimates of up to 40 percent. Mitigating the use of certain volatile anesthetic gases such as desflurane and nitrous oxide in favor of lower-emitting options resulted in a 78 percent reduction in emissions and $2.4 million in savings annually for one Providence-based provider.

5 steps to take

Hospitals early in their decarbonization journey may wonder where to start. Some decarbonization steps, such as energy-efficiency projects, can be taken with a relatively short payback period and lower initial investment. The savings from these projects can then support funding for other more intensive projects. To begin, companies can: 

• Benchmark Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions using the Greenhouse Gas Protocol or other standardized tools.
• Identify the greatest area of GHG reduction, likely strategies to reduce emissions and low-hanging fruit from a financial perspective. Energy efficiency through conservation, management, circularity and waste reduction should be the first step, followed by renewable energy sourcing.
• Create a roadmap for investment: choose an initial project, perhaps a lower investment and quicker payback one like energy management to complete first.
• Track financial returns and leverage benefits from the completed project to build buy-in and use savings to finance higher impact, longer term, or more intensive sustainability strategies.
• Rinse and repeat.

Decarbonization in health care is good for the planet, patients, and the bottom line. By prioritizing decarbonization and other sustainability initiatives, professionals can help the health care system be more resilient in the face of political, economic and climate shocks.

[Connect with more than 3,500 professionals decarbonizing and future-proofing their organizations and supply chains through climate technologies at VERGE, Oct. 28-30, San Jose.]

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