Sustainability Professionals Raise Their Voices for Climate Policy

Are you a current or former sustainability professional, member of a sustainability focused employee resource group, or someone working with companies to advance sustainability and address the climate crisis?

Join Patrick Flynn, Brian Janous, Joel Makower, Paul Polman, Auden Schendler, Kathrin Winkler, Andrew Winston, and hundreds of others in speaking out for climate policy!

Sign the “LEAD” Statement

The LEAD Statement

Sustainability Professionals’ Joint Statement

Time for Business to LEAD on Climate Policy

As sustainability professionals dedicating our careers to combating climate change, we believe that all companies must leverage their power and influence to accelerate climate policy progress. We believe that it is time for companies to back policy action at the speed and scale required to meet our global goals and avert the worst outcomes.

We are united in our concern, our commitment and our confidence in the power of corporate leadership.

Specifically, it’s time for all companies to LEAD:

  • Leave obstructing trade associations;
  • Elevate climate policy as a company priority;
  • Advocate publicly for effective binding climate policies; and
  • Demonstrate real commitment to the collective action needed to achieve the just and equitable transition from fossil fuels agreed on at COP28.

Together, we and our companies can meet this moment.

Signed,

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The 66 people listed below signed the LEAD Statement before it was unveiled at GreenBiz 24. View the full list of 761 public signatories.
affiliations are for identification purposes only, and do not imply endorsement by the companies or organizations named

Rob Aldrich

Barton Alexander

Principal, Alexander & Associates LLC; former Global Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer, Molson Coors

Jamie Alexander

former Founding Director, Drawdown Labs at Project Drawdown

Lindsay Baker

CEO, International Living Future Institute

Bill Baue

Senior Director, r3.0 (Redesign for Resilience & Regeneration)

James F. Boyle

CEO & Chairman, Sustainability Roundtable Inc.; Co-Founder, former CEO, The Alliance for Business Leadership

Sasha Calder

Head Of Impact, Geno

Lynelle P. Cameron

former VP, Autodesk Sustainability; CEO, Cameron Advisory

Shaandiin Cedar

Investor, Powerhouse Ventures

Jay Coen Gilbert

Co-Founder of B-Lab; Executive Chair of Imperative 21

Hans Cole

Vice President of Environmental Activism, Patagonia

Chris Coulter

CEO, GlobeScan

Matt Dwyer

Senior Director of Product Impact and Innovation, Patagonia

John Elkington

Founder & Chief Pollinator, Volans; Co-Founder, SustainAbility

Howard Fischer

Chief Evangelist, Gratitude Railroad

Patrick Flynn

Advisor and Investor working for Planet Earth; former Head of Sustainability, Salesforce

Gil Philip Friend

CEO Natural Logic Inc; Managing Director Critical Path Capital; Trimtab4Trimtabs; former CSO, City of Palo Alto

John Fullerton

President, Capital Institute

Chris Gaither

former Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives Director at Apple; Co-Founder of Regenerous

Ryan Gellert

CEO, Patagonia

Jennifer Gerholdt

former Director of Corporate Engagement, We Mean Business; former Senior Director of Sustainability and Circular Economy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation; CI and WWF alum; Director, Market Strategy & Engagement at Native, A Public Benefit Corporation

Dimitry Gershenson

CEO, Enduring Planet

CAPT James C. Goudreau, SC, USN (Ret)

former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Energy); former Head of Climate at Novartis; former VP of ESG at CVS Health

Elliot Hoffman

Partner, Solar Synergies; previously CEO and Co-founder of Just Desserts; pioneer in sustainable business

Jeffrey Hollender

Adjunct Professor, New York University, Stern Business School and Co-Founder and former CEO, Seventh Generation

Alyssa Holt

ex-Facebook

Bryan Jacob

Founder, Climate Coach International

Brian Janous

former VP of Energy, Microsoft

Cecily Joseph

former VP Corporate Responsibility, Symantec Corporation; Advisor & Adjunct Professor, Presidio Graduate School

Kati Kallins

former Sustainability Manager at Google, Meta & BSR; current Lead for Sustainability at Adobe

Corley Kenna

Vice President of Communications and Public Policy, Patagonia

Daniel Kreeger

Executive Director of the Association of Climate Change Officers

Ben MacAskill

SmugMug & Flickr

Joel Makower

Chairman and Co-Founder, GreenBiz Group

Alissa Matthies Tamasi

former Senior Manager of Sustainability at Target

Liz Maw

President of Presidio Graduate School; former CEO of Net Impact

Lyrica McTiernan

Lyrica Consults LLC

Mike Mielke

former Head of Public Policy, Silicon Valley Leadership Group; Principal, Environmental Leader, LLC.; Member, Climate Vine

Christopher Miller

Global Social Mission Director, Ben & Jerry’s

Scott Nadler

Nadler Strategy LLC

Tara Norton

concerned citizen; Senior Director at LRQA; long-time sustainability professional

Frank O'Brien-Bernini

former SVP and Chief Sustainability Officer, Owens Corning

Kate Ogden

Head of Advocacy, Seventh Generation

Ashley Orgain

Chief Impact Officer, Seventh Generation

Ben Packard

former VP, Global Responsibility of Starbucks; current Executive Director of EarthLab at UW

Chris Page

En-ROADS Climate Ambassador; former climate strategist for Amazon and Yahoo; Rocky Mountain Institute alum

Paul Polman

former CEO of Unilever and co-author of Net Positive

Ken Pucker

Professor of Practice, Tufts Fletcher School

Raj V. Rajan

VP, SOO Green HVDC Link; former VP Global Sustainability, Ecolab

Dave Rapaport

Vice President Global Grasslands at Native, a Public Benefit Corporation; formerly Social Mission Officer at Ben & Jerry's; Vice President of Earth & Community Care at Aveda; and Sr. Dir of Corporate Consciousness at Seventh Generation

Dawn Rittenhouse

formerly DuPont

Jonathan Rowe

Senior Manager, Arcadis Sustainability Advisory

Auden Schendler

SVP Sustainability, Aspen One

Jeff Seabright

Senior Advisor, SystemIQ

Sarah Severn

formerly Nike; now Clean and Prosperous Washington

Carl E. Smith

retired CEO, Call2Recycle, Inc.; retired Acting CEO, Global Electronics Council

Darrel Stickler

sustainability lead for 15 years at Fortune 100 technology company

Ben Thompson

Director, Sustainability Solutions, Autodesk

Trisa Thompson

former SVP and Chief Responsibility Officer, Dell Technologies

Natasha Tuck

Director of Sustainability & ESG at Dolby; former Director of Sustainability at VMware

Winston Vaughan

Head of Climate Policy, Clearloop

Bill Weihl

former climate and sustainability lead at Google and Facebook; Founder and Co-ED of ClimateVoice

Drew Wilkinson

Founder, Climate Leadership Collective; formerly Microsoft

Kathrin Winkler

former CSO EMC Corporation

Andrew Winston

sustainability strategist; co-author Net Positive

Bee Hui Yeh

Principal & Founder, The Power of We
View the full list of 761 public signatories

Watch Bill's Keynote @ GreenBiz '24

Why Sign?

Many companies are doing vital impactful work in their operations, their supply chains, and via their products to address the climate crisis. Yet global emissions continue to rise, and the crisis continues to worsen.

Companies can and should raise their ambition for voluntary action, but that alone won't cut emissions at the speed and scale required.

Sustainability professionals have a major role to play.

One of the biggest and highest leverage opportunities to reduce emissions at speed and scale is the adoption of strong binding public policy by governments at all levels – to create a baseline of performance to level the playing field, to better enable companies to meet their own voluntary climate goals, and to ensure the just and equitable transition from fossil fuels agreed on at COP28.

While each individual company has unique abilities to help mitigate climate change, every company has the ability to influence public policy. Indeed, fossil-fuel interests and large cross-sector trade associations continue to use their influence to inhibit progress on climate policy. This is why it is essential for employees and companies to speak up and step up on bold climate policy action, raise the bar on corporate leadership, and promote strong climate policy advocacy.

Sign the “LEAD” Statement

FAQs

Answers to frequently asked questions about the LEAD Statement

Resources

ClimateVoice Connect the Dots

Learn the basics of how and why companies influence policy making, how this connects to climate, best practices from leading businesses, and how you can personally make a difference.

GreenBiz Policy Voice Column

Columns on the corporate sector’s actions (or inactions) on climate policy.

ClimateVoice Policy Guide

Learn more about why policy is a critical lever for change, which investments are most effective, and how corporations can use their influence to address the climate crisis at scale.

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