Young climate leaders are driving change at some of the world’s largest organizations internationally.
Every year, at the annual GreenFin sustainable finance and investing event, a roster of “30 under 30” chosen by the Trellis (formerly GreenBiz) editorial team highlights the rising stars of sustainability. These climate leaders are driving change, at scale, at some of the world’s largest organizations internationally.
The reasoning is pretty obvious: “younger adults are leading other generations in seeking purpose-driven work,” writes Elsa Wenzel of the Trellis editorial team. “A large majority of Gen Z (86%) and Millennial (89%) workers say that having a meaningful mission is important in their career, according to a Deloitte survey of 22,800 younger workers. They’ll even “climate quit” if their employers renege on sustainability commitments.”
What’s more, “they’re doing hard, difficult work that often goes unsung, like electrifying truck fleets and home appliances, embedding circularity into food and textiles, and installing renewable energy sources at companies that previously burned oil. It’s important work, and it’s just beginning.”
We agree. Here are four examples from GreenFin 24. For the full list, click here. – The editors.
Christy Zakarias’s job is to ensure that Barclays’ portfolio is aligned with a net zero future. “The sustainable transition requires capital, and it is critical that financial institutions are transformed from inside-out to facilitate this flow of capital,” she says. She collects data from more than 100 executives for the bank’s annual reports, assessing climate risk for $2.5 trillion in assets. Zakarias, 24, is the Indonesian delegate for the G20 Youth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Sneha Balasubramanian, 29, helps quantify Cisco’s Scope 3 supply chain emissions by gathering data from across the $186 billion company’s many divisions. Earlier, at carbon-market nonprofit Verra, she helped develop a plastic recovery and recycling program. That work drew from her previous experience with Tetra Pak, where she worked with waste pickers in India to keep Tetra Pak cartons out of landfill sites.
Michael Wong helped launch the faucet-and-pipe seller’s electric vehicle program. Ferguson’s first electric trucks in California have traveled 80,000 miles so far. Partnerships to establish charging-as-a-service and a hydrogen vehicle pilot are in progress. Wong, 28, also secured the company’s first Virtual Power Purchase Agreement for a wind farm that has generated 60,000 Megawatt-hours since December.
Jess Roberts, 28, leads efforts to incentivize investment in voluntary carbon markets and nature-based solutions at Sylvera, the carbon credit research and rating agency. A geographic information scientist, Roberts helped Sylvera develop its first rating framework for nature-based solutions in 2021. Under her leadership, the company has conducted 270 ratings and expanded the scope of the nature-based projects it assesses.
This article originally appeared on Trellis Group (formerly GreenBiz.com as part of our partnership with the media and events company that accelerates the just transition to a clean economy.
Featured photo: (clockwise) Christy Zakarias, Sneha Balasubramanian, Michael Wong, Jess Roberts. Source: Greenbiz, LinkedIn
