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

A couple years ago, when Van and his colleague presented before Microsoft’s Sustainability Connected Community, they weren’t delivering a typical corporate presentation. Instead, they were educating fellow employees about how their company’s membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was actively undermining the climate goals they cared about. After several months of a campaign explaining the Chamber’s history of fighting climate legislation, hundreds of Microsoft employees were ready to sign their “Escape the Chamber” petition, ultimately spurring the company to conduct a public audit of its trade association memberships.

Meanwhile, across Silicon Valley, Sam faced a different challenge at Alphabet. Despite working for one of the most forward-thinking companies in tech, he discovered that every single retirement investment option in their 401(k) included oil and gas stocks. His campaign to change this — complete with financial analysis, an employee petition, and stakeholder meetings — eventually led Alphabet to add its first fossil-fuel-free retirement option.

Collectively, we represent more than 15 years working in tech. And while neither of our day jobs involves sustainability, we’ve become seasoned advocates for climate action in our workplaces. Our experience reflects a growing movement of employee advocates pushing for change from within some of the world’s most influential companies.

The rise of workplace climate advocacy

Data confirms what we’ve witnessed: Employee climate engagement is surging. A 2024 survey of more than 1,700 professionals found that 77 percent of employees are unhappy about their employers’ lack of climate action. And according to Deloitte’s 2023 CxO Sustainability Report, 59 percent of leaders say employee activism caused them to increase sustainability efforts, with nearly a quarter describing the impact as substantial. 

This represents a fundamental shift in how climate advocacy happens — from external pressure to internal organizing — despite significant headwinds facing ESG initiatives that have forced many companies to dial back public sustainability commitments. 

After years of campaigns, petitions and stakeholder meetings, we’ve learned that successful employee climate advocacy requires more nuance than most people expect. Specifically: 

Don’t assume the sustainability team will automatically be interested

This might be our most surprising lesson: Your company’s official sustainability team may not immediately embrace grassroots efforts. When Van’s group initially approached Microsoft’s sustainability department about their U.S. Chamber of Commerce campaign, they encountered unexpected resistance. The sustainability team was focused on hitting specific carbon reduction targets and worried that a public campaign against trade associations could complicate their relationships with key stakeholders. They weren’t being obstructionist because they had legitimate concerns about how an employee campaign might affect their ability to work with industry partners on carbon reduction initiatives. Thus, Van and his colleagues had to demonstrate that their approach would actually support their goals and not undermine them.

The lesson: Sustainability teams are juggling multiple priorities and stakeholder relationships. Employee advocates need to make a compelling business case showing how their initiative advances — rather than competes with — existing sustainability efforts.

Lean on outside experts and external resources

Both of our campaigns found breakthroughs came from partnering with established climate organizations. Sam’s fossil-free 401(k) campaign exemplifies this perfectly. Instead of building financial arguments from scratch, his team partnered with As You Sow, a nonprofit specializing in shareholder advocacy and sustainable investing.

As You Sow provided comprehensive research on fossil-fuel-free fund performance, analysis of fiduciary duty considerations, and template language for the internal business case. They also connected the Alphabet team with employees at other companies who had run similar campaigns.

Sam estimates they probably saved six months of research time by partnering externally. In addition, having a credible external partner gave the Alphabet campaign legitimacy. They weren’t seen as just passionate employees with an idea, but employees who were presenting research-backed recommendations from recognized experts.

The lesson: Finding credible outside experts and organizations to help boost your argument can go a long way, and save you time. 

Recognize that building community is harder than you think

Everyone knows building community is important, but few appreciate how challenging it becomes in the modern workplace. In an era of Slack overload and meeting fatigue, creating sustained engagement around any cause requires serious strategy.

Both of our successful campaigns recognized that people need multiple ways to engage at different commitment levels. Microsoft’s Sustainability Connected Community created what Van calls an engagement ladder — from email subscribers to active chapter leaders. New members might start by attending virtual presentations, then join working groups and eventually take on leadership roles.

Successful community building requires infrastructure, from dedicated Slack channels to regular programming to clear pathways for involvement. We’ve both learned to celebrate small wins and maintain momentum during setbacks. After all, creating change in a corporate environment is a marathon, not a sprint. And the community you do build is what sustains you through the long stretches where it feels like nothing is happening.

The lesson: Don’t assume passion translates into sustained participation. Just because people care about climate change doesn’t mean they’ll automatically show up to meetings and volunteer. 

The way forward

As employee climate advocacy continues growing, our experiences at Microsoft and Alphabet offer a template for others. The most successful efforts combine external expertise with internal community building, approach sustainability teams as potential allies rather than automatic supporters, and focus on concrete, achievable goals that align with broader business objectives.

As traditional ESG initiatives face headwinds, employee-driven climate action may represent the most sustainable path forward for corporate environmental progress. For employees ready to take action, our message is clear: Find your partners and don’t be discouraged if progress comes slowly. The most important climate work in corporate America may not be coming from the C-suite. Instead, it’s coming from passionate employees who refuse to wait for someone else to solve the problem.

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Cows, sheep and goats are culpable for most of fashion’s methane emissions, according to a new report. Leather, wool and cashmere produce 75 percent of the industry’s super-pollutant although they only make up 3.8 percent of its overall materials, the nonprofit Collective Fashion Justice has found.

There’s been scant focus on fashion’s methane footprint, as net-zero efforts mostly center on carbon dioxide. However, if the industry fails to slash methane by at least 30 percent, those emissions will be equivalent to the emissions of France in 20 years, warned the Sept. 15 report, “Now or never: A first methane footprint for the fashion industry.”

Although methane has caused 30 percent of the total rise in the planet’s temperature, cuts now can deliver faster near-term reductions. (Methane heats the atmosphere about 85 times as much as a ton of CO₂ does in their first two decades of their existence, but CO₂ is 30 times worse over a century.)

And as brands have churned out more fashions, faster, over the past half decade, the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions from raw materials leaped by 20 percent, according to the Textile Exchange’s 2025 Materials Market report released Sept. 18.

Collective Fashion Justice urges businesses to opt for recycled sources instead of new animal products. “When we look at a whole host of environmental factors, recycled wool, plant-based materials and other non-animal and non-fossil materials typically perform far better overall,” said Emma Håkansson, the group’s founder and director.

The fix?

The organization’s findings — and its call to halt the use of virgin materials — continue longstanding debates over the lifecycle impacts of raising animals for leather and textiles. They also raise the question of what brands can realistically achieve today, given the relative scarcity of lower-carbon materials.

The report also called for industry to support innovators in “next-generation” fibers based on plants, fungi and waste. However, these are mostly unavailable at scale now. Less than 1 percent of all fibers derive from textile-to-textile recycling.

Nor should companies favor fossil synthetics instead, Håkansson added. “This is not an either-or situation. We must move beyond our reliance on both of these unsustainable material sources,” she said.

Moreover, Håkansson says that even when brands use third-party certified, climate-friendly practices — standards from the Leather Working Group, Responsible Wool and Good Cashmere — very little is improved. With wool, for instance, they neither address the land footprint nor the methane from sheep exhaling and passing gas, in her estimation. The same applies to leather, which depending on one’s perspective is either an innocent byproduct or an enabling “co-product” of the beef industry.

On the other hand

Collective Fashion Justice, an Australian advocacy group with a longtime focus on animal welfare, engaged researchers from Cornell University and New York University on the methodology.

That said, some experts take issue with the report’s conclusions.

Methane is important but needs to be contextualized relative to the industry’s total greenhouse gas footprint, according to Joël Mertens, director of Higg Product tools at Cascale. The Oakland, California, nonprofit, formerly the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, counts large brands among its 300 member organizations.

“Within that context,” said Mertens, “the total greenhouse gas emissions of animal-derived raw materials (including sheep wool, cashmere and leather) account for a much smaller portion of industry emissions; just under 3.5 percent. By comparison, impacts relating to garment manufacturing are 8 percent, and textile dyeing and finishing are 55 percent.”

Lightening leather

Leather creates 54 percent of the industry’s methane, followed by 16.8 percent for wool and 4.3 percent for cashmere, according to Collective Fashion Justice.

Leather uses waste hides from the beef industry, which the United Nations says is responsible for 14 percent of global climate emissions. Most of its footprint comes from cattle raising, which drives deforestation. Tanning and finishing bring more pollution.

​​Fashion businesses addressing those impacts include Coach, part of the Tapestry group, and Dr Martens, by buying “wet blue” hides leftover from beef, from U.K. startup Gen Phoenix.

And numerous innovators are engineering new materials to mimic leather by using mycelium, apples and cacti, but still in small volumes.

Woolly impacts

Wool comprises .9 percent of fibers in fashion but spews disproportionate emissions and hurts biodiversity, according to the methane report.

John Roberts, managing director of Woolmark in Australia, begs to differ. “Wool is a natural, renewable, biodegradable and recyclable fiber,” he said. Producers are exploring feed additives such as algae, as well as sheep breeding and farm efficiencies to cut emissions.

The beef industry is, too. However, wool differs from chemically intensive leather making.

“Wool itself is composed of 50 percent organic carbon by weight, which is naturally sequestered from the atmosphere by the plants that sheep eat,” said Nica Rabinowitz, the Climate Beneficial Verified and supply chain development manager of Fibershed, which helps farmers adopt regenerative practices.

Recycled wool slashes CO₂ by 94 percent compared with virgin fiber, according to Patagonia. The brand, alongside VF Corporation’s Smartwool and Icebreaker, is also among the larger buyers of Responsible Wool Standard wool.

In other second-life wool practices, Eileen Fisher patches and reworks marred sweaters and sources recycled material from ReVerso in Italy, which also sells to Patagonia, Gucci and Stella McCartney.

Cutting cashmere

Cashmere is only found in .02 percent of materials in fashion, according to the Textile Exchange. However, the fiber has a far greater methane intensity per kilogram than leather and wool, the report found.

Among brands tackling its footprint: Los Angeles-area company Reformation eliminated virgin cashmere entirely from its collections. It sources deadstock for sweaters and trims.

And one more thing

Beyond the materials, Collective Fashion Justice demanded for companies to tackle the 20 percent of fashion’s methane, which comes from material processing and fabrication in supply chains that rely heavily on coal and gas. 

“Brands must also switch to renewables across their value chains and support manufacturing partners to do so,” Håkansson said.

Efforts in progress include the Future Supplier Initiative by the Fashion Pact and the Apparel Impact Institute, which have signed on H&M, Group, Gap and others to directly fund suppliers’ renewable energy transitions.

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The climate crisis isn’t just playing out in the atmosphere — it’s streaming, too. From near-future dystopias to family-friendly docuseries, the small screen offers a surprisingly rich medium for exploring the human stakes of environmental change. 

We’ve rounded up a list of shows that sustainability professionals will appreciate — or at the very least, appreciate debating in Slack threads. Are we suggesting you turn your next team meeting into a watch party? Not exactly. But if you do, we’ll bring the popcorn.

Families Like Ours (2024)

Netflix 

In a crisis underlined by facts and figures, Families Like Ours takes the personal route. Set in a not-so-distant-future Denmark, the series follows ordinary people as they face a climate disaster that forces them from their homes and their routines. Schools shut down, grocery stores go out of business, and neighbors pack their bags. Lauded as “grimly prophetic” by Stephanie Bunbury in her Deadline review, Families Like Ours asks audiences to imagine a world where “climate refugee” doesn’t just describe “them.” but all of us. 

Snowpiercer (2020-24)

Apple TV

Trellis readers may already be familiar with this one, as its film “parent” graced our 9 Meaningful Movie Nights for the Sustainability Minded list. The series expands on Bong Joon-Ho’s masterfully crafted world of social and economic stratification. In a dystopian (near) future, the cast of Snowpiercer travels the world on a perpetually moving train. Each car acts as a class divider: “trailies” relegated to the back, with scarce resources and abysmal conditions, riders in the front living in luxury. Inevitably, in a claustrophobic setting that houses privilege and scarcity, a rebellion arises. If the train is a metaphor, the message is clear: When disaster strikes, inequality is magnified. 

Silo (2023)

Apple TV

Based on a trilogy of books by Hugh Howey, this series takes us deep underground, to where a group of survivors seeks shelter from a world poisoned by nanobot outfall. Though  they’ve managed to create a self-sustaining community, there are, of course, cracks beneath the surface (literally). Silo asks relevant questions about the aftermath of disaster: Who controls information after things go awry? How far should authority go to protect us? Does the drive for self-preservation clear the way for fascism?  

Extrapolations (2023)

Apple TV

This eight-part anthology imagines a future reshaped by rising seas, global pandemics, and accelerating tech. Each episode of Extrapolations stands alone while threading into a larger story arc and timeline, reminding us that every individual action ripples outward. The cast is stacked — Meryl Streep, Edward Norton, Sienna Miller, Kit Harington — but the most memorable presence is the climate-changed world itself: disturbingly plausible and uncomfortably close.

Our Planet II (2023)

Netflix

This follow-up to the acclaimed Our Planet, and again narrated by Sir David Attenborough, zeroes in on animal migrations in a warming world. From African elephants to Alaskan crabs, Our Planet II captures the way creatures adapt — or don’t — when climate change disrupts ancient patterns. As you’d expect, the visuals are breathtaking, even if they are of ecosystems falling apart, which makes watching equal parts awe-inspiring and sobering.

The Swarm (2023) 

Hulu and European platforms

What happens when Mother Nature has finally had enough? The Swarm offers one answer: a world in which marine life coordinates deadly attacks on humans. Whales sink boats, crustaceans overtake beaches and mysterious entities threaten to end life as they know it for city residents. Adapted from Frank Schätzing’s global bestseller, the edge-of-your-seat eco-horror is a plea to reconsider humanity’s arrogance towards nature before it’s too late. 

Down to Earth with Zac Efron (2020 – 2022)

Netflix

Yes, Zac Efron, but beneath the celebrity gloss is a surprisingly earnest exploration of sustainability in action. From permaculture farming in Costa Rica to renewable energy in Iceland, Down to Earth With Zac Efron pairs globe-trotting adventure with digestible lessons in environmental best practice. Full disclosure: the critics were mixed. But, trust us, it’s breezy and watchable and way more informative than you might expect. 

Japan Sinks: 2020 (2020)

Netflix

Based on Sakyo Komatsu’s novel, this animated series starts off with a bang — or more specifically, an earthquake. What begins as a survival story focused on the Mutou family quickly unfolds into a broader exploration of grief, identity and resilience. Japan Sinks: 2020 pulls audiences in as much with sweeping landscapes and brave stunts as with heartwarming displays of humanity. Although met with contempt from Japanese audiences for its criticism of the country, the series was nominated for two Crunchyroll Anime awards and won the 2021 Annecy Jury Prize for a Television Series.

The Commons (2019-20)

Apple TV and Prime Video

Set in a near-future Sydney scorched by heatwaves, The Commons is a smartly drawn drama that centers on a single woman’s struggle with fertility amid ecological collapse and creeping authoritarianism. As personal and political crises collide, she finds herself grappling with questions of increasing urgency: Should we bring new generations into such a damaged world? Where is the line between protection and overreach? 

Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990-96)

Apple TV and Prime Video

Before “climate anxiety” was even a term, this Saturday morning cartoon was teaching kids about pollution, deforestation and renewable energy. With its gloriously ‘90s aesthetic, Captain Planet and the Planeteers follows a team of teens as they summon our green-mulleted eco-hero to battle corporate polluters and toxic villains. Like its successor Wild Kratts, the series targets younger viewers, but revisiting it now offers both a dose of camp and a reminder to start environmental education early. 

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Companies that do business in Europe face new regulations poised to dramatically reshape the fashion industry. 

As of Oct. 1 — in the middle of Paris Fashion Week — many brands in France will have to publish an “eco-score” of their products’ contributions to the climate crisis.

Meanwhile, on Sept. 5, the European Union passed a directive requiring textile companies to bear the responsibility for what happens to their goods after use. It’s the biggest extended producer responsibility (EPR) law for fashion, following California’s similar Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024.

All of this adds increased pressure to the sustainability and supply chain teams of apparel and footwear businesses in Europe. For example, the 130 signatories to the UN Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action agreed to halve their emissions by 2030. However, the sector has only achieved 8.6 percent of that goal, a short-term step toward net zero by 2050, according to the Apparel Impact Institute.

EPR in the EU

The European Parliament’s directive aims to slash the nearly 7 million metric tons of textile trash generated annually, most of it mixed into household waste.

It will require brands and retailers to pay third parties to handle the clothes, shoes, accessories, blankets and curtains they have sold. That will fund producer responsibility organizations (PRO) that collect, sort, reuse or recycle the materials on the ground.

With this law in place, producers will essentially be paying for merchandise to flow through takeback collection infrastructure that the EU began requiring in January under its 2018 Waste Framework Directive.

Fees are supposed to be higher for products that are harder to reuse or recycle, and lower for circular items that include durability, repairability, recyclability and safer materials.

This leaves businesses that sell or ship fashion to Europe with a new checklist: audit product portfolios, engage PROs, design for circularity, prepare compliance systems and budget accordingly.

However, the new rules don’t go into effect immediately. Member nations have 30 months to adapt the directive to meet their individual concerns and requirements. This could take years, leaving businesses with runway to plan.

By March 2028, however, they are supposed to have the EPR pieces in place and begin reporting on the volumes of goods collected. 

Smaller businesses selling less than $890,220 per year have an additional 12-month grace period.

As with all regulatory sausage making, particularly in Europe, the directive leaves many details TBD. Unknowns include the extent of fees and fines for failing to comply, 

The H&M Foundation has publicly endorsed EPR regulation, and other brands have exercised their support through involvement in collective groups advancing sustainability in the industry, including Global Fashion Agenda and Fashion for Good.

Backers hope the results will include accelerated investments in recycling, design for durability and secondhand markets.

However, the European Branded Clothing Alliance (EBCA) and Amfori trade association have argued against the rules, warning of the high costs of compliance and needless complexity.

What could EPR look like in practice in each country? France and Netherlands, which already have EPR laws in place, offer clues. 

France, which introduced its version in 2007 and updated it in 2020 for clothes, shoes and household linens, bans destroying unsold goods and requires labeling around recycled content and the potential presence of microplastics. 

Producers and distributors pay fees that help sorters and recyclers, but complaints about inadequate support forced France earlier this year to provide $58 million in aid.

One PRO, Refashion, helped collect 268,161 metric tons of some 833,000 tons sold on the market in 2023. That’s a 32 percent collection rate, which the law demands to reach 60 percent by 2028. 

Eco-cost rule in France

As part of the 2021 Climate and Resilience Law requiring environmental labeling, France on Sept. 4 shared the final text for its eco-score rule.  

It applies to any company manufacturing, distributing or importing clothes in and into the nation. Companies must consider a life cycle assessment that takes into account 16 environmental factors. These include the contributions to climate change as well as the acidification and eutrophication of the oceans, freshwater pollution and the use of fossil fuels. 

The result is a weighted score for the coût environnemental, or environmental cost for apparel with at least 80 percent textile materials. Shoes, leather accessories, personal protective equipment and used goods are exempt. 

The French government uses a calculator called Ecobalyse to estimate the impacts of products. Third parties such as Carbonfact offer benchmarking tools as well.

For the next year, it’s voluntary for brands to calculate and publish the scores. However, they’re forced to do so if they already publish their carbon footprints or other environmental metrics. 

Full enforcement follows in October 2026. At that time, a third party may impose its own eco-score upon the products of brands that fail to comply. Businesses that don’t cooperate face fines of 5 percent of annual revenue or could be forced to pause their sales. 

Meanwhile, France has been cracking down on hyper-fast fashion under the same Climate and Resilience Law. On June 10, the nation voted to essentially ban direct-to-consumer companies with practices like Shein’s and Temu’s from advertising if they encourage overconsumption. Designing for disposability is a no-no, and violators face fines or sanctions.

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Five years out from its 2030 deadline to meet ambitious sustainability targets, Bayer has overhauled its Sustainability Council, adding five new outside experts and parting ways with four members.

Created in 2020 and composed entirely of external individuals, the council advises management on climate, agriculture and health. An independent, non-governing body, it does not have formal decision-making power but meets several times a year with Bayer’s top executives to provide input and scrutiny.

The pharmaceutical and agriculture giant said the shake-up will help internal teams work more directly with outside specialists and “engage even more in specific projects” in the final stretch toward its goals.

“Our approach of working with such renowned experts as part of a Sustainability Council is quite unique in the industry,” said Matthias Berninger, Bayer’s executive vice president and head of public affairs, sustainability and safety. “We strongly believe that the diverse backgrounds and expertise from the different Council members provide tremendous value to help us achieve our ambitious sustainability targets, but also to continuously challenge us to see whether there is even more we can do to address climate change and the implications thereof.”

Sustainability is the strategy 

Bayer has tied its business strategy to sustainability. In 2020, it adopted the mission “Health for all, hunger for none,” pledging to support 100 million smallholder farmers, 100 million women in low- and middle-income countries with modern contraception and 100 million people in underserved communities through self-care by 2030.

It also committed to reduce its own greenhouse‑gas emissions (Scopes 1 and 2) by 42 percent by 2030, to cut its value‑chain emissions (Scope 3) by 25 percent by 2029 and to enable farmers to reduce the greenhouse‑gas footprint of crop production by 30 percent, also by 2030.

Who’s at the table — and why

The revamped line-up brings experience from sustainable agriculture, public health, circular economics and corporate stewardship. The new faces include:

• Facundo Etchebehere, co-founder of NGO Ambition Loop and former head of Danone’s sustainability strategy
• Lisa Lange, an expert in circular economics and stewardship at Federated Hermes Limited
• Philipp Roesler, a physician and a former German vice-chancellor
• H.E. Toyin Saraki, founder of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa and advocate for maternal health
• Cori Wittman Stitt, a fifth-generation farmer and regenerative agriculture specialist

Although they’re uncommon in the pharmaceutical industry, similar expert advisory bodies have been adopted in other sectors. For example, Nestlé convenes a Creating Shared Value Council and Unilever has a Sustainability Advisory Council. Bayer positions its council as distinct because of its integration into its core business strategy.

Etchebehere sees his role as helping Bayer “contact allies, see opportunities and accelerate important transitions, all with the goal of feeding the world within the limits of the planet,” he said in an interview. 

For Wittman Stitt, the link between regenerative farming and corporate sustainability is personal. “On our farm, everything we do is evaluated through the lens of environmental sustainability — through the regeneration of soils and natural resources while producing increasingly healthy, nutrient‑dense food,” she said. “And I see parallels in the conversations and lenses being used at Bayer.”

That perspective is important because agriculture accounts for around a third of global greenhouse‑gas emissions, and Bayer is a major supplier of seeds and crop‑protection products. 

‘Genuine conversation’

To meet its target of cutting the greenhouse‑gas footprint of crop production for its customers by 30 percent, the company will need to work closely with farmers.  

Outside advisors can be a box-checking exercise for companies, Wittman Stitt acknowledged. “But that doesn’t seem to be the case at Bayer. There is genuine conversation, genuine curiosity, genuine requests for that honest, critical, constructive feedback. Not just to be a ‘yes’ council but to really pressure-test targets and ask if these things we’re doing pass the litmus test of these broader targets.”

“I’m confident it’s taken seriously,” said Roesler, who is also a former managing director at the World Economic Forum. “We had more than an hour talk with the CEO, and you could really see it’s not an add‑on like a charity or foundation. It’s a part of the business strategy at Bayer.”

The will may be there, but turning it into timely action is another challenge. “I’m worried that changes due to climate change in agriculture are happening way faster than technological solutions,” Roesler said. “We have to speed up all the processes and have a short line between those who are on the ground facing challenges and urgently need help and those who are trying to provide help.”

Contradictory signals

Meeting the 2030 targets will be daunting. The company must cut emissions across thousands of suppliers, invest $628.65 million in energy efficiency at its own plants, roll out digital tools and regenerative practices to farmers and expand access to contraception and self‑care in low- and middle-income countries.

The Science Based Targets initiative recently validated Bayer’s climate pathway, which aligns with keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. Bayer has also received an “A” rating from Carbon Disclosure Project for its climate and water management commitments. 

But the company’s carbon footprint remains vast: annual Scope 1 and 2 emissions were nearly 3 million metric tons at the last count, with Scope 3 just under 8 million. More than 70 percent of Scope 3 comes from purchased goods and services, and changing supplier behavior is notoriously difficult.

The company has launched a “Scope 3 Accelerator Program” to engage suppliers on renewable energy and efficiency, but the effects remain to be seen.

On the agricultural side, enabling farmers to cut emissions by 30 percent will require scaling regenerative practices, digital tools and climate-resilient crops. Yet these initiatives have drawn criticism. In 2023, for example, Spanish farmers accused Bayer of “a textbook example of greenwashing” after it promoted the weedkiller glyphosate under the banner of regenerative agriculture, Sustainable Views reported.

This April, Bayer reaffirmed its climate commitments but blocked shareholders from voting on its Climate Transition and Transformation Plan, citing “concerns around timing” amid an international ESG backlash, according to Responsible Investor. Bayer’s largest bloc of investors — representing 32 percent of stock — is in North America.

Coffee, not chocolate

Regardless whether Bayer hits every target, its Sustainability Council offers one model for embedding sustainability into corporate governance: independent yet integrated, drawing on expertise in areas from regenerative farming to global finance, and with direct access to the leaders in the company. 

“You can only have impact if sustainability is part of your business model, not just a nice to have when you have enough profit,” Roesler said. “It’s the coffee, not the chocolate topping. Every company should integrate sustainability into its core business.”

“The long‑term success of a company is only possible with a clear sustainability strategy,” Etchebehere said. “As a member of the Sustainability Council, I will work to integrate a proper conversation into the business, which means empowering the solutions but acknowledging what is wrong and what needs to change.”

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