The top sustainability developments of 2025, according to practitioners

While this year brought plenty of setbacks for sustainability, new research shows what developments nearly 400 global sustainability experts thought had the most positive impact on the sustainability agenda in 2025.

According to a survey from Trellis data partner GlobeScan and ERM, legislation remains the most significant driver of progress, cited by 18 percent of experts, although its perceived importance has declined compared to 2024, when it was cited by 33 percent of experts. Regulatory action continues to set the pace for change, creating frameworks that drive accountability and progress.

Experts also point to renewables and low-carbon technologies (14 percent) and climate and nature-based solutions (13 percent) as critical forces accelerating momentum. Sustainability disclosure standards, in contrast, have seen a notable decline in influence compared to last year (down to 12 percent compared to 19 percent in 2024), signaling a shift toward implementation and tangible outcomes. 

What this means

The sustainability transition is still underway, even amid backlash. While it’s slowed somewhat, legislative momentum continues to shape priorities, making it critical for organizations to integrate policy trends into strategy. Renewable energy and low-carbon technologies are creating cost advantages and accelerating decarbonization, while nature-based solutions are no longer peripheral but now essential for climate resilience and carbon removal. These are key levers of progress as companies strive to make sustainability a core driver of business and focus on tangible actions and impact.

Based on a survey of 391 sustainability experts across 57 countries conducted between August-October 2025.

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Circularity is stuck in a cycle of shame. Let’s get to guilt, instead

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

The modern consumer journey begins with emotional sophistication. Every day, people encounter powerful messages promising not just products, but personal transformation: You’ll feel better, become more capable and move closer to self-actualization if you buy this. These polished messages make consumers feel empowered and supported.

In contrast to many marketing schemes, the sustainability movement has drifted from clarity and moral conviction toward science-heavy explanations, legal framing and, ultimately, fearful global statements consumers find hard to influence or relate to. These complicated framings risk pushing consumers away. And what should be motivating, when it comes to the end of a consumer journey, instead ends up feeling like shaming.

Shame vs. guilt: A crucial distinction

Circularity demands behaviour change. Yet to change behaviour, we must adjust our approach — even if the first step is merely shifting from shame to guilt. 

Shame is paralyzing because it accuses in generalist terms and lacks actionable specifics: “I am bad because I can’t stop climate change.” It grows in ambiguity: “What did I do? When did it happen? How am I the problem?” By contrast, guilt can be productive because it focuses on an event or action: “I should offset that flight.” And it provides specifics: “I did this and it had this impact. I can correct it next time.” It locates the error in the action — not the error in the person. As Professor Brené Brown states, “Shame is a focus on self. Guilt is a focus on behaviour.”

For many customers, the emotional turning point with a product arrives at the end of the consumer lifecycle. A once-cherished item becomes redundant. It shifts from being something that improved life to something that must now be disposed of. The partnership between consumer and provider ends and a new relationship between consumer and the waste management process begins. 

What began as celebratory, encouraging messaging at the time of purchase (“You look great in that new dress!”) becomes impersonal, statistical and isolating in the waste management process: “This item is 75 percent polyester” or ”602 million tonnes of plastic may enter the ocean by 2030.” This language is ambiguous to many people because it references specialist chemistry and distant places. The narrative voice changes, too, from branded coherent company ethos to one of cold and lonely governmental instruction.

Many brands promote the 5Rs — Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle — as a sustainability strategy. At first glance, they appear empowering and actionable. In practice, they’re often a polite form of abandonment. The responsibility is transferred entirely to the consumer with no collaboration, no structure and no shared accountability. Without clear support and shared ownership, the 5Rs become just one more burden — an additional layer of shame that the individual must manage alone.

Comparing approaches

Corrective campaigns often fail when they rely on abstract, large-scale threats and expect individuals to translate them into personal action.

We see this with managing consumer technology waste, one of the most complex types of waste for consumers to navigate. Products are made up from intricate materials, heavy metals and plastics — and often hold personal data. The consumer needs support and direction at this point. Yet, in the EU as part of its Waste From Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive, they’re presented with a simple symbol of a wheelie bin with a cross through it. The symbol says to the consumer: “Don’t throw it in the bin.” 

This isn’t actionable because you can’t do a don’t. So what does the consumer do? They hoard, instead of resolve. One UK study found that in London, people hoard 13 old gadgets on average – including two mobile phones, two tablets and two laptops. 

Yet, a more engaging and simple message can be seen in a consumer behavior classic. 

The iconic Crying Indian in a 1971 advertisement for Keep America Beautiful delivered a powerful message focused on littering. Litter is actionable for the audience because it’s visible right outside their door and is light enough to pick up. The campaign spoke directly to an everyday behavior everyone recognized as a witness or culprit, connecting the problem to the immediate surroundings. 

This approach fostered personal accountability and promoted a simple, action-oriented response. The message was clear: simple terminology that regular people understood. It was relevant: directly connected to local, visible behavior. And actionable: providing manageable steps the individual could execute (picking up litter). This model of clarity and visibility is what circularity efforts must replicate to move beyond shame and into guilt.

A more recent example, the Norwegian Deposit Return System, provides a near-perfect model for driving sustainable consumer behavior. The system achieved impressive return rates of nearly 93 percent for cans and 92 percent for plastic bottles in 2023. The key to this success lies in designing a compelling consumer experience that supports accountability without relying on abstract moral judgment. Instead of using shame, the system empowers the consumer with clear financial agency.

The Norwegian system is built on seamless integration and transparency. While complex industry components, such as tax incentives for participating companies and penalties for failure, underpin it, visible mechanisms work directly for the consumer. Deposits are placed on almost all beverages and are clearly itemized at checkout. And it’s convenient, with bottles and cans reclaimed via reverse vending machines (often located in stores), making the final action seamless.

Guilt, please

If we want guilt to be useful, we need clear causality — who did what — and a relatable sense of place and impact. That means circularity communication needs to be:

  • Clear: Use terminology that regular people understand. Avoid jargon and acronyms.
  • Relevant: Connect directly to the individual about their own impact. For example, say, “Your carbon footprint for this flight is …” not “Average emissions per passenger are …”
  • Located: Point to real, familiar places, such as “This item will be recycled in-state at our facility in Stockholm …”
  • Actionable: Provide manageable actions and ensure the business remains present as a partner, not an observer. Example: “We’re here with you to move through these steps; call us at any time.”
  • Bonded: As much as possible, continue the relationship between your customer and your brand. 

People genuinely want to do the right thing. But achieving widespread behavior change requires moving from shame-driven abandonment to guilt-supported collaboration — helping individuals feel that they can act, improve and succeed.

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Why 2025 was the Year of Greenhushing

I spoke this summer with a communications professional at a large U.S. company. The company operates a substantial fleet of electric vehicles and I wanted to profile its work. No chance, the employee said: “Trump hates EVs. We don’t want a target on our backs.”

This was the year of greenhushing. Yes, the phenomenon dates back to the beginning of the decade. But thanks to the new U.S. administration, courtroom defeats and new legal attacks, the silence is now broader and deeper. “The wider atmosphere is very chilly,” said Alison Taylor, a business school professor at New York University.

A few years ago, evidence for greenhushing was largely anecdotal. Now the data is growing. This September, for instance, a survey of 75 firms found that while 85 percent maintained or expanded sustainability programs, only 16 percent publicly reaffirmed doing so. The practice is so pronounced, the authors said, that observers have confused it for a lowering of ambitions. “What looks like retreat is widespread greenhushing taking root,” they concluded.

Legal defeats and threats 

Greenhushing’s spread — call it “strategic silence” if you prefer fancier language — has been powered in part by the same playbook used to brand diversity initiatives as woke or anti-capitalist. Legal action by Republican attorneys general is one tactic. This July, the Florida AG subpoenaed the Science Based Targets initiative and CDP, claiming the two nonprofits were part of a “climate cartel.” Two months later, 16 Republican states banded together to attack the use of renewable energy certificates by Google and other tech giants. (Ironically a criticism also made, but with very different motivations, by some environmental organizations.)

The AGs’ attacks may not result in court cases; intimidating the nonprofits and the companies that follow their guidelines could be the main goal. But a series of actual court cases, led by environmental groups and class action lawyers, has also deepened caution around sustainability communications. Ads describing the Apple Watch as “CO2 neutral” were this summer ruled as misleading and in violation of German competition law. And last month, the world’s two largest meat companies — Tyson and JBS — settled complaints by agreeing to tone down or eliminate “net zero” claims.

These factors have combined to drive levels of some sustainability comms to new lows. Earlier this year, Bloomberg Green looked for mentions of sustainability terms in earning calls for S&P 500 companies and found that the use of such language had fallen 76 percent in three years.

The costs of staying silent

Where does this leave sustainability professionals? There is no sign that the attacks from Republican leaders will lessen. But staying quiet limits their influence, even if sustainability programs continue. “If you’re not setting an ambition and communicating ambition, it’s very, very hard to get internal momentum,” said Taylor. The decision, then, is whether the costs of greenhushing outweigh the risks of going public.

There are certainly costs at the collective level. For better and worse, peer pressure is an important driver of climate action. If a company’s competitors have a science-based target, for instance, it’s easier to convince the CEO to follow suit. And the converse is true: When one company retreats, or even stays silent, the pressure on rivals lessens. The dynamic is one reason why two significant climate initiatives — the U.S. Plastics Pact and the Net Zero Banking Alliance — suffered waves of departures this year.

Risks to a collective or even the climate itself are unlikely to sway executive opinion at this moment, but there are also potential costs of greenhushing at the business level. Investors haven’t stopped considering the potential impact of emissions, particularly as carbon pricing schemes proliferate internationally. Consumers care, too, and so do employees. Staying quiet means ceding status, lowering short-term risk at the potential expense of long-term gains. “For investors, customers and potential partners,” wrote the authors of the 75-firm study, “silence erodes the very trust that fuels long-term value creation.”

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Advice from 7 leaders on thriving during sustainability’s ‘reckoning point’

Understand your company’s business as well as its best salesperson. Position sustainability as an “enabling function.” Plan for the long haul.

If corporate sustainability leaders want to thrive as business priorities shift and geopolitics downplay the urgency of greenhouse gas emissions reductions, these are among the best ways not just to remain relevant but to create new corporate value, according to seven leaders interviewed as part of a special Climate Pioneers project during Trellis Impact 25.

The executives represent companies from a range of industries — Apollo Global Management, Bristol Myers Squibb, HSBC, LA28, Mars, Visa and Workday.

They’re confident. “I firmly believe we are smarter than the problems we’re trying to solve,” said Kevin Rabinovitch, global vice president of sustainability and chief climate officer for food and candy company Mars, which is on track to meet its 2030 emissions reduction targets. Rabinovitch’s latest innovation is a procurement strategy that will triple its renewable electricity purchases.

They’re also realistic. “I don’t think it’s a luxury anymore that you can’t understand your business as well as your colleagues in sales, in the business, on the front line,” said Kelly Fisher, head of corporate sustainability for the Americas at financial services firm HSBC. She continues to see opportunity, for example, in financing technologies that will contribute to a low-carbon economy.

Their words of wisdom are featured in the video compilation below.

Other takeaways from the session:

‘Demonstrate business value’

“I think we’re at a reckoning point for all sustainability professionals that we need to demonstrate business value, and if we can’t do that, I don’t think we’re going to survive.” — Fisher, HSBC

‘Pace yourself’

“We’re all quite young intellectually, compared to a lot of problems that we’ve worked on as humanity, so there’s still lots of room for new and better ideas.” — Rabinovitch, Mars

‘Chase progress relentlessly’

“We know what good looks like. Let’s chase that. Don’t get paralyzed by trying to do the perfect commitment.” — Erik Hansen, chief sustainability officer and enterprise software developer at software purveyor Workday

‘Make sure you’re connected’

“If you are being seen as a pillar or a function that is outside of the organization and as a bolt-on, then you’re not going to be really able to effect the change and create the impact that you want.” — Jennifer Evans, executive director for sustainability and social impact at pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb

‘Train everybody you touch’

“Literally learn as much as you can about every business lever in your company.” — Dave Stangis, partner at the investment firm Apollo Global Management

‘Find your champions’

“That gives you proof points that you can then take to a more general audience, maybe even your skeptics.” — Becky Dale, vice president of sustainability for the LA28 Olympics

‘Lean on your peers’

“They’re still doing the work, and they’re convincing me that I can still get the work done.” — Rob Whittier, head of climate and sustainability for payments processor Visa

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Hiking boot brand Keen enlists climate scientist Ann Radil

Hiking boot maker Keen has snagged a former NASA climate scientist to head up sustainability, philanthropy and advocacy. Ann Radil is the new senior director of the Keen Effect, the company’s impact program, where she is leading climate action, circular economy programs and attempts to ramp up green chemistry.

The Portland, Oregon-based footwear company was an early mover in phasing out “forever chemicals” such as poly- and per-fluoroalkyls (PFAS), used in water- and stain-resistance. Radil quietly started on Sept. 27 as the brand debuted during Paris Fashion Week. She reports to CEO and President Rory Fuerst.

“Though I’m just getting started, it’s clear that Keen is doing something unique,” Radil wrote in a post on LinkedIn, garnering more than 50 positive comments. “For over 20 years, the company has given away millions of dollars to important causes, pioneered solutions to daunting challenges like plastic pollution and built meaningful partnerships across the industry that amplify their mission.”

Radil brings to Keen, a private company of 800 employees, learnings from the decarbonization strategies she helped execute at larger corporations.

“There’s a lot of opportunity when it comes to the work around decarbonization that we’re really excited about,” Radil said. “There’s this steady drumbeat that you will hear at Keen, which is that we want to be the most trusted footwear brand in the world. In order to do that, we recognize that there are places where we want to continue to really lead, and there are also all these steps on that path that are just table stakes.”

Among the latter: Radil anticipates validation for its 2033 emissions goals with the Science-Based Targets initiative. The aim is to slash climate emissions by 55 percent for Scopes 1 and 2 against the 2021 base year, and by 62 percent per 1,000 pairs for Scope 3.

Keen’s Kentucky plant produces a third of its footwear. With that level of supply-chain control, the brand could theoretically install onsite solar power or explore other decarbonization tactics that would be harder to achieve with a contracted site, she said. Keen already uses renewable energy certificates (RECs).

Radil’s path

Radil’s two decades in sustainability includes consulting with Nike, JP Morgan Chase and Yeti through firms including Watershed, Slalom Consulting, Parametrix and Ecova. 

Last year, the World Resources Institute picked her to join the technical working group updating the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard.

In October, Radil left a senior sustainability advisor role at Watershed, where she had spent two years assisting such clients as Walmart and General Mills. “At Watershed, I had the privilege of working alongside exceptionally talented people to break down the toughest barriers to corporate decarbonization,” wrote Radil, who led regulatory and compliance strategy, counseled executives and helped to develop partnerships.

Prior to Watershed, the self-described “change agent” served as a strategic advisor at Neutral, a “climate-neutral” milk maker advancing low-methane dairy farming.

For four years Radil oversaw Nike’s global circular economy programs, leaving in 2017. While she was director of program management, the sneaker brand eliminated 16,000 megatons of CO2 equivalent, according to Radil.

At Ecova, she helped Coca-Cola and IBM with climate disclosures and led the Oregon wine industry in a carbon neutrality challenge. Through Slalom Consulting, Radil helped to lead decarbonization for Portland General Electric. At Parametrix, she made climate policy frameworks and emissions models for the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation.

Radil earned her master’s degree in climate science at the University of Montana, where she worked for several years on projects including on NASA’s Earth Observing System Project. Her advisor was Steven Running, who won a Nobel Prize with Al Gore for his work on the board of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

Radil also holds a bachelor’s in environmental geography and geology from Colgate University.

“What feels really unique and excites me about this role at Keen is there’s just a different conversation that’s happening at privately held companies that have a clear value of sustainability,” she said.

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Rethinking corporate citizenship in 2026 as globalization wanes

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

The post-World War II architecture of international cooperation is eroding. Multilateral institutions have weakened, nationalist sentiment is surging and superpowers are wielding markets as geopolitical weapons. The world has moved from bi/unipolar dominance to a massively splintered multipolar world. For multinational corporations, this creates a fundamental challenge: How do you execute coherent ESG and DEI strategies when the global frameworks that supported them are fragmenting?

The traditional global sustainability playbook assumed relatively stable international norms, such as aligned carbon accounting standards, converging labor protections and coordinated trade rules. That assumption no longer holds. Instead of navigating a coherent global framework, businesses face contradictory requirements across dozens of jurisdictions, diverging stakeholder expectations and the absence of clear international standards to point to as validation.

This fragmentation demands strategic adaptation. The question isn’t whether to maintain ESG and DEI commitments (the business case remains compelling), but how to execute them effectively when the connective tissue of international cooperation has frayed. What worked in a multilateral world won’t work in a fragmented one.

5 strategic shifts for a fragmented world

1. From compliance arbitrage to principled consistency

Fragmentation creates tempting opportunities: comply minimally in each jurisdiction, exploit regulatory gaps and play governments against each other. To be sure, some companies will take this approach, but this short-term opportunism is strategically foolish.

The smarter approach is principled consistency: choosing high standards and applying them globally, even where not legally required. For example, one company we worked with used Principle 10 (anti-corruption) of the United Nations Global Compact to justify why it couldn’t pay “facilitation payments” to local officials, reducing costs and risk without offending those with the power to limit market access.

2. From rule-taker to rule-shaper

Traditionally, businesses were largely rule-takers — complying with standards set by governments and multilateral bodies. While many private entities sought to influence policy, and still do, governments set the rules. However, as many governments increasingly ignore scientific and stakeholder consensus, businesses — the most trusted social actor in much of the world — are becoming de facto standard-setters.

This shift creates responsibility and opportunity. The responsibility: Recognize that your standards shape stakeholder and market expectations, whether you intend them to or not. The opportunity: Participate actively in industry-led standard-setting rather than waiting for governmental guidelines that may never come.

Strategic action means joining or forming industry consortia that maintain common standards even as governments diverge. It means investing in sector-specific standards organizations and recognizing that business has moved from the sidelines to the playing field in global governance.

3. From stakeholder management to stakeholder navigation

The multilateral era offered a simplifying assumption: Stakeholder expectations would gradually converge around international norms. European standards would influence global practice. Labor protections would harmonize upward. ESG frameworks would align.

Fragmentation destroys this assumption. Now firms face stakeholders with fundamentally contradictory expectations: investors demanding ESG commitments versus politicians attacking “woke capitalism”; European customers expecting aggressive climate action versus American jurisdictions penalizing fossil-fuel divestment; human rights advocates demanding supply-chain transparency versus governments restricting data flows.

Strategic navigation requires several capabilities:

  • Understand stakeholder expectations geographically and ideologically: “Investors” aren’t a monolithic category — different groups have divergent ESG priorities that may be irreconcilable. Practice principled consistency. 
  • Communicate the business case relentlessly: In a politicized environment, framing ESG initiatives as business imperatives rather than social commitments provides insulation from ideological attacks. Lead with the advantages for talent acquisition, risk management, operational efficiency and market access.
  • Make strategic choices about which battles to fight: Not every stakeholder expectation can or should be met. Saying no remains one of the most difficult things to do in the ESG space, as it often means saying no to an issue or activity that’s important. Open and honest conversation about decision-making is key.
  • Build coalitions of aligned stakeholders: When expectations fragment, assembling employees, investors, customers and suppliers who share priorities creates a counterweight to opposing pressures.

4. From risk mitigation to resilience building

Traditional ESG strategy treated geopolitical fragmentation as a risk to be mitigated — something temporary that would eventually resolve. This was always optimistic. Now it’s strategic malpractice.

Fragmentation isn’t a temporary disruption to be weathered. It’s the operating environment for the foreseeable future. Strategy must shift from hoping governments restore rational policies to building resilience for operating effectively within a fragmented system. Adaptive companies will:

  • Diversify supply chains to account for regulatory divergence: The chain should account for both geographic and regulatory diversification — ensuring you can serve markets with contradictory requirements without rebuilding your entire operation.
  • Plan scenarios that treat fragmentation as a baseline: Most corporate scenario planning still treats multilateral cooperation as the central case with fragmentation as downside risk. Invert this. Plan for continued fragmentation with occasional coordination as an upside surprise.
  • Structure your organization to enable regional adaptation within global frameworks: Fragmentation makes the “think global, act local” challenge more acute. You need global standards (for efficiency and brand consistency) and regional flexibility (for regulatory compliance and stakeholder engagement).
  • Invest in knowledge infrastructure: Understanding diverging regulatory requirements, tracking contradictory stakeholder expectations and maintaining situational awareness across fragmented markets requires dedicated intelligence capabilities that many organizations lack.

5. From passive participation to active investment

Many business leaders are reluctant to accept this strategic truth: Global cooperation frameworks are public goods that businesses rely on but are currently underfunded.

Multilateral institutions, international standard-setting bodies, cross-border governance initiatives, trade frameworks — these create the predictability, stability and common language that enable global business. As governments retreat their funding and participation, these mechanisms weaken. And as they weaken, the operating environment for global business becomes more costly, complex and risky.

Strategic response requires active investment — with money, political capital and executive attention — in maintaining and rebuilding international cooperation mechanisms. The payoff isn’t immediate or easily measurable. But neither is investment in R&D, brand building or talent development. All are investments in capabilities that compound over time.

A framework for execution: Fit, commit, manage, connect

These five strategic shifts require systematic execution. IMPACT ROI’s framework, developed over a decade ago and recently updated, offers an effective approach for translating ESG strategy into operational reality.

Fit: Requires an honest assessment of where ESG initiatives align with core business strategy and competitive advantage. In a fragmented world, this becomes more complex, but the discipline remains essential: Not every company should pursue every initiative.

Commit: Embed priorities into performance management, capital allocation, risk frameworks and strategic planning. Without real commitment measured in dollars and executive action, initiatives remain peripheral — and fragmentation makes peripheral initiatives impossible to execute.

Manage: Build systems, metrics and accountability mechanisms with rigor. Fragmentation increases execution complexity, making disciplined management more important, not less.

Connect: Link internal and external stakeholders, break down silos and build partnerships. In a fragmenting world, connection becomes the countervailing force — the deliberate construction of collaboration where structural forces push toward isolation.

The organizations that adapt their ESG strategies for today’s fragmented reality will thrive. Those that cling to strategies designed for a multilateral world will find themselves increasingly unable to compete.

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Global decarbonization efforts are about to be reshaped by the EU

Next month sees the full implementation of climate legislation that is already reshaping global decarbonization efforts. But many sustainability professionals remain only dimly aware of its existence.

By deciding to charge a fee on the embodied carbon in imports from hard-to-abate sectors, the European Union has triggered new climate initiatives around the world. Companies in affected industries and beyond are scrambling to improve data gathering and looking for emission cuts. And multiple countries have implemented their own carbon-pricing schemes in a bid to lower costs for exporters. 

“This is a moment when carbon risk stops being a footnote in a sustainability report and really starts showing up in the profit and loss,” said David Linich, a sustainability partner at PwC.

Those in directly affected industries will likely be familiar with the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Companies that import products into the EU from industries covered by the law — cement, aluminum, electricity, hydrogen, fertilizers and iron and steel — already have to report the embodied carbon in their purchases. From January onwards, importers will also be subject to a fee for that carbon. The price will be pegged to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, where allowances currently trade for around $90 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent

Trellis spoke with consultants, trade organizations and sustainability professionals to understand how the impact of CBAM will ripple out beyond the sectors covered by the legislation. Here are three key points to consider.

CBAM’s impact is broad — and could get more so

The legislation only covers six industries at present, but many other sectors are or will be affected.

Take emissions data. Companies that import steel and other covered products into the EU are being asked by buyers to provide detailed greenhouse gas numbers. To gather that information, exporters are turning to their suppliers for data, who in turn are passing requests to their suppliers. “It resonates through the entire supply chain,” said Jennifer McIsaac, chief market intelligence officer at ClearBlue Markets, a consultancy.

That’s going to mean more work for some sustainability teams, but it also presents competitive opportunities. Tracking emissions data through complex supply chains requires cooperation from experts in procurement, sustainability, legal and other departments. “Those companies that break down those silos the fastest will, we believe, manage risk at the lowest cost,” said Linich.

CBAM’s direct impacts may also grow. At present, the regulation applies to raw materials. But that risks handing a competitive advantage to manufacturers outside the E.U., which can use the same materials without paying a carbon fee and then import their products into the region. Media reports suggest that the EU is considering countering that by expanding the legislation to some finished products, including car doors and stoves. The scheme is also designed to be expanded to other industries, with chemicals potentially coming next.

Get ready to compete on carbon

Solventum, a healthcare company spun off from 3M in 2024, is exposed to CBAM through aluminum and steel imported into Europe by its dental, filtration and purification businesses. After talking to suppliers and estimating the quantity of carbon involved, Sustainability Director Maria Watson decided it would be more efficient to use default emission values for the imported products rather than chasing down primary data. 

Now that she has those numbers — and the associated costs — she is educating other areas of the business about the impacts. “This gives us a way to encourage our R&D teams to consider alternative materials that would ensure patient safety and quality with lower embodied carbon,” she said.

These competitive forces will be felt across industries and even at the national level. Total costs in the steel sector, for instance, where the import fee on some products could reach 20 percent, are likely to be far higher than other industries, according to a report published this month by Fastmarket, a price-reporting agency. The impacts won’t be evenly distributed, however: Indian companies, for example, are expected to lose out to rivals in the U.S. that have done more to adopt lower-carbon production methods.

That could be good news for South Korea’s steel companies, which also have lower emissions. But the country might experience the opposite impact if CBAM is expanded to include semiconductors. Chip exporters could then face close to $590 million in CBAM costs between 2026 and 2034, according to a study released this month by the Institute For Energy Economics And Financial Analysis. 

“The sharp increase in CBAM costs may prompt European importers to switch their chip suppliers from high-emission-intensive producers to low-carbon providers to limit financial exposure,” the authors concluded.

Carbon pricing is going global

Exporters face reduced CBAM fees if they pay a domestic carbon fee, a feature of the legislation that has heightened global interest in emissions trading schemes. Brazil, India and Turkey have accelerated efforts in this area since CBAM went into force in 2023, according to a report issued this summer by the International Emissions Trading Association, a nonprofit that promotes carbon markets. At the start of this year, the report noted, 38 trading schemes were in force around the world, covering close to a fifth of global emissions, one-third of the population and 58 percent of GDP.

Exactly how the EU will allow domestic carbon fees to count against CBAM duties is still being worked out. One live issue is carbon credits. Some trading schemes allow companies to use limited types of credits to meet emission obligations. It’s not clear whether the EU would allow credits from other schemes to offset CBAM fees, or which types of credits would qualify. A likely candidate is durable carbon removals, technologies that lock away carbon for hundreds of thousands of years; the bloc is currently considering allowing such credits to be used in its emissions trading scheme.

Demand would likely rise for any credit type given the EU’s blessing, which would in turn affect prices of other kinds of credits, including those companies use to meet carbon-neutral commitments and other emissions claims. “The high tide is going to lift all the ships,” said McIsaac. “The voluntary market could get a boost from this, too.”

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Schneider, Marks & Spencer team up on supply chain decarbonization

Schneider Electric has been on a roll, entering into partnerships to help corporations rid supply chains of oil and natural gas. The latest is with Marks & Spencer, the 141-year-old London retailer.

The RE:Spark program, announced Nov. 19, involves aggregated clean-energy purchases paired with advisory services, regional support and tracking software.

Schneider teamed up with Levi’s on the similar LEAP program, announced Sept. 23. Schneider, based in a Paris suburb, has applied the model to other industries, including its Energize program for healthcare, Catalyze for the semiconductor industry and REnew with PepsiCo.

“By acting as a facilitator, we can help our suppliers build networks and resilience for the long term — sparking a movement of change across the industry and beyond,” stated Katharine Beacham, Marks & Spencer’s head of sustainability and materials in fashion, home and beauty.

Marks & Spencer holds a net zero goal for 2040, validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative, which hinges upon its thousands of global suppliers. All but 5 percent of its overall emissions stem from Scope 3, including purchased goods and services. The retailer in May reported 9 percent annual business growth and a 6 percent rise in emissions.

Steve Wilhite, executive vice president of Schneider Electric Advisory Services, in a statement called RE:Spark an example of “how collaboration can drive scalable, impactful change across global supply chains.”

Marks & Spencer has been working since 2023 with the nonprofit Apparel Impact Institute’s Carbon Leadership Program. It offers a toolkit for driving down emissions among 45 of the company’s mills. Last year the retailer sponsored 24 suppliers to engage in the nonprofit’s Carbon Target Monitoring project for additional support.

The RE:Spark initiative with Schneider indicates a deepened commitment by Marks & Spencer to supplier-level decarbonization. It enables companies to pool their demand for Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), giving smaller firms a chance to access renewable electricity that would otherwise be hard to obtain.

Help for smaller suppliers

Ceres’ Company Network Senior Director Mary Ann Ormond called the effort encouraging. “The most impactful approach to this work combines access to diverse renewable electricity options in key markets — especially for smaller suppliers — with investments in supplier success through favorable pricing and financing terms,” she said.

In addition, the partnership may be a template for other brands or retailers. “Companies are also leveraging collaboration with their sector peers to further accelerate uptake,” Ormond said.

The software for RE:Spark is based on Schneider’s Zeigo Hub, launched in July. Suppliers submit data there, enabling companies to set targets and track suppliers individually.

The involvement by a retailer to help numerous vendors phase out fossil fuels is unique. Some of the earliest efforts in this space are by brands, such as H&M Group’s heat battery initiative. 

Everlane, Reformation and Eileen Fisher are the latest latest brands to join with the Apparel Impact Institute to electrify their supply chains. The nonprofit asks brands to contribute $10 million toward its $250 million Fashion Climate Fund to help suppliers execute their low-carbon transitions.

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Apple’s sustainability chief Lisa Jackson to retire

Send news about sustainability leadership roles, promotions and departures to [email protected].

Apple’s lead environmental strategist, Lisa Jackson, is retiring in late January 2026 after 13 years on the job.

A direct replacement was not named. Instead, Jackson’s responsibilities as vice president for environment, policy and social initiatives will be split between two senior-level Apple executives after her departure. 

Jennifer Newstead, who will join Apple as general counsel in March after serving in a similar capacity at Meta, will take over Jackson’s policy work. Apple’s environmental and social initiatives will report to the company’s new chief operating officer, Sabih Khan, a mechanical engineer who has been closely involved with many of Apple’s green manufacturing and circular design initiatives. 

Both executives report to CEO Tim Cook, as does Jackson.

Respected legacy

Jackson, a chemical engineer by training, joined Apple in 2013 after four years as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama. 

Under her leadership, Apple has managed to reduce its emissions by more than 60 percent through deliberate investments in renewable energy in its supply chain and by transitioning to recycled and renewable options for 15 priority materials, such as aluminum, rare earths and lithium. 

“She has also been a critical strategic partner in engaging governments around the world, advocating for the best interests of our users on a myriad of topics, as well as advancing our values, from education and accessibility to privacy and security,” said Cook in a prepared statement.

For example, Jackson spearheaded the company’s Racial and Equity Justice Initiative, launched in 2020 and focused on investing $100 million in diverse entrepreneurs and in programs aimed at reducing pollution in low-income communities.

“I have been lucky to work with leaders who understand that reducing our environmental impact is not just good for the environment, but good for business, and that we can do well by doing good,” Jackson said in a prepared statement. “I have every confidence that Apple will continue to have a profoundly positive impact on the planet and its people.”

Strategic continuity

Khan, Apple’s new COO, has been directly involved in delivering on many of Jackson’s strategies for the company’s supply chain, including the materials-replacements initiatives that helped the company avoid 6.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in 2024 alone. 

Cook touted Khan’s work on advanced manufacturing technologies that have reduced emissions when he announced his promotion in July. 

Khan joined Apple in 1995 as a member of the procurement team, after working as an engineer with GE Plastics.

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The green manufacturing boom is happening. Just not here

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

Manufacturing is in the headlines, both as a major goal of current U.S. policy and a point of competitive tension with China. It’s a surreal moment, which could be summarized as the world’s biggest consumer picking a fight with the world’s biggest producer. 

In 2024, America exported $140 billion of goods to China, while China exported $440 billion of goods to the U.S. One doesn’t sensibly pick a fight with their biggest customer. Instead of counterpunching, China has worked to address any structural weaknesses it could find to minimize the damage if its relationship to its biggest customer were to change. 

While the current U.S. policy direction suggests that green technologies are a scam that force more expensive and unproven technology into the market, China is demonstrating that green technology is a huge boost to economic growth. This is evidenced by its dominance in solar, battery and EV technology in global markets — a point that became clear during COP30 in Brazil earlier this month. 

Automaker BYD, for example, is building an EV plant larger than the entire city of San Francisco and seven times larger than the biggest Tesla gigafactory. Green manufacturing isn’t a dead end; it’s a huge economic boom. But it’s not happening here.

How we got here

The economic order since the fall of the Berlin wall has been one of ever-expanding international trade and rising prominence of multinational corporations. Military conflicts have been more regional (as opposed to global), and most international competition moved into the economic sphere. While any system has room for critique, the economic efficiencies that came from global production both provided cheaper goods and a reason for ongoing international cooperation. 

This approach was very good for business, and generally good for world peace. What it was less good at was guaranteeing jobs in any specific country, as global trade also meant the ability to offshore labor at lower costs. Some industries and national policies advanced their manufacturing with technology, which drove more productivity and sustained living wages even at the higher cost of living in industrialized nations.

Still, over the past two decades, domestic manufacturers have steadily ceded market share to imports: U.S. producers now supply roughly two-thirds of the home market for manufactured goods, down from more than three-quarters in the early 2000s, a shift worth on the order of $600 billion–$750 billion in annual sales now captured by factories overseas. At the same time, a growing reshoring push and “make it here” industrial policies show just how eager voters, workers and local leaders are to bring more of that production back onto domestic ground.

My venture firm invests in deep tech for productivity improvements to the industrial sector that also bring along massive ecological improvements — so I have a front row seat to the effort to “bring back manufacturing” to America. We’ve set up several new manufacturing facilities in the U.S. in the past five years and for a time, those production lines were humming. But now, thanks to recent policies, the U.S. is one of the worst places to manufacture in the world. 

Tariffs have crippled U.S. manufacturing

Tariffs aren’t categorically a bad thing. When used wisely, along with thoughtful investments in education, infrastructure and cultural incentives, they can bring valuable industries back into domestic production. But there’s a bad way to implement them and the worst way to use tariffs, which is what’s happening now: to have them be unstable, large and arbitrary. 

The instability actively punishes folks setting up manufacturing domestically because they cannot predict input costs, nor the cost of production equipment. If your team was waiting on best-in-class equipment to arrive from Germany or Japan the same week that a 50 percent tariff is imposed broadly on those nations, then you may have just accidentally bankrupted the effort, as capital expenditure costs are huge project budget line items. 

Almost no country except China has the luxury of sourcing its entire supply chain within their borders. So when tariffs are imposed on inputs, the cost of domestic production can go up to the point where it is no longer workable. 

When tariffs are unstable, they don’t encourage investment, because bold moves that set up new production could accidentally kill your business. 

When tariffs are large, they create expensive discoordination arising from having to halt production or re-route sourcing to new vendors in other geographies to get you back to gross margin positive while you incur costs from supply chain delays and production uncertainty. 

When tariffs are arbitrary, one cannot predict whether your government is wanting to support your industry or abandon it. This makes life harder for investors, business leaders and entrepreneurs that are the main personnel that establish domestic production.

Getting back on track

If you live in a higher-income nation, the operating band for labor costs will be higher than labor costs in lower-income ones. Given this, the labor cost disadvantage either needs to be made up for via higher individual productivity, which lowers labor cost fraction per unit, or you need to make higher-quality goods that command enough margin to justify the higher labor costs. 

In either case, you need a highly skilled workforce appropriately trained for better productivity or exceptional craft that improves product quality. 

To get here, a thoughtful approach for governments would be to lower the cost and improve the quality of educational options — from advanced degrees and four-year universities to trade schools and support of regional craft guilds and maker communities. The people, places and tools that enable mass-upskilling need to be well-resourced and respected. 

In other words, you’ll need to pay teachers more. (Which, if you’re counting, would be another source of meaningful work.) While these adjustments may sound expensive and time-consuming, in countries where they have been applied, the efforts have shown fantastic ROI. Beyond education and re-skilling, infrastructure investments in roads, bridges and ports, lower-cost energy, and clear labor laws that simplify bringing the best talent are all huge boosts to establishing robust industry.

Tariffs can positively contribute to this effort if they are stable, low and principled. 

A 5 to 10 percent tariff that is stable for 10 years provides enough time for new manufacturing to be established. It also signals to the workforce that those industries will likely be growing and that engaging in re-skilling into that industry is a worthwhile career investment. 

When tariffs are low, it also means that when they eventually expire, the country maintains an industrial base that can still produce near the globally competitive costs. This greatly strengthens the likelihood of strong export markets making use of that newly developed production capacity.

The good news is that we know where to put our attention and investment, if the intent is more manufacturing skill: education, infrastructure, social respect and low-intensity, time-stable tariffs (if needed). The countries that do this well will pull ahead in the coming decades and become net drivers and suppliers of the waves of economic transformation to come.

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