Forbes Sustainability Leaders
by Elisabeth Brier · ForbesFor the first time, Forbes is highlighting 50 superstar entrepreneurs, scientists, funders, policymakers and activists who are leading the charge to combat the climate crisis with real, tangible impact.
Edited By Elisabeth Brier and Alex Knapp
Reporting by Amy Feldman, Alan Ohnsman and Eduardo Garcia
The science is indisputable. Decades of research confirm Earth’s climate is warming. CO2 levels are unprecedented, catastrophic weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, and human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, are the primary driver of the warming observed in the past century.
The stakes are high, and the scientific consensus is clear: Without fast and significant action to address climate change, it will get worse—more extreme weather, food and water insecurity, mass displacement and public health crises.
The need for real, demonstrable action is urgent. Across the globe, leaders are taking bold steps and driving meaningful change. The climate crisis is a dire threat, but also an opportunity.
For the first time, Forbes is spotlighting the entrepreneurs, scientists, philanthropists, investors, politicians and activists leading global efforts to combat the climate crisis. The 50 honorees recognized as Forbes inaugural Sustainability Leaders span industries and disciplines while all demonstrating exceptional ambition, innovation, and recent, tangible impact that is both scalable and sustainable. No greenwashing allowed — we looked for people making a real difference in their field, whether that’s Forbes 30 Under 30 alumnus Gaurab Chakrabart, turning sustainable ingredients into chemicals as the CEO and cofounder of Solugen, or Nemonte Nenquimo, cofounder of the non-profit organization Amazon Frontlines, which defends indigenous rights to land, life, and cultural survival.
How We Created The Forbes Sustainability Leaders List
The innovators, game changers and free thinkers blazing a path forward.
Read Our Full Methodology
The list, which is presented alphabetically, is vetted by a panel of distinguished climate experts. This year’s: Sylvia Earle, Laurene Powell Jobs, Bill McKibben, Nnimmo Bassey and Tom Baruch.
As McKibben, decorated environmentalist, author, and activist who served as a 2024 judge, told Forbes: "The climate crisis is a test of whether the big brain was a useful adaptation—or, more precisely, whether it’s attached to a big enough heart to get the job done."
This first class of Sustainability Leaders highlights individuals driving real and lasting impact. We honor them for their vision and stewardship of our planet and to showcase the creative, inspiring solutions they are leading from the lab to the boardroom.
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Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr
Freetown Mayor, Sierra Leone
After taking office as mayor of Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown in 2018, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr adopted an inclusive, data-driven approach to addressing the climate crisis, with 19 concrete targets across 11 sectors. These included the planting and tracking of 1 million trees, building the country’s first ever wastewater treatment plant and advancing plans for a mass transit cable car system. Under her leadership, Freetown has committed to planting an additional four million trees by 2028 and establishing a sustainable finance mechanism using the voluntary carbon market and private investments to fund climate adaptation. Aki-Sawyerr is also pushing clean cooking by expanding use of local off-grid biogas electrification systems powered by organic waste. (For more, see “How The Mayors Of Quezon City And Freetown Are Fighting The Climate Crisis.”)
Roeland Baan
CEO and President, Topsoe, Denmark
Roeland Baan is the CEO and president of Topsoe, a Danish company developing technology to produce green hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuels. Between 2019 and 2023, Topsoe’s decarbonization technologies helped companies avoid 24.6 million tons of CO2 emissions. In 2023, Topsoe’s revenues topped $1.35 billion, thanks to work with customers such as ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies and World Energy. “Through proven technologies, we can help reduce carbon emissions from heavy industry and aviation, two areas that are lagging in the race to decarbonize rapidly. It is good business, and it is beneficial for the planet,” Baan told Forbes. In June 2024, Topsoe announced a collaboration with robotics firm ABB and construction company Fluor to build a $400-million electrolyzer factory in Virginia.
Ester Baiget
President and CEO, Novonesis, Denmark
Ester Baiget is the President and CEO of Novonesis, the newly merged entity that combined industrial biotech companies Novozymes and Chr. Hansen. Its focus is on developing biologically-based alternatives to industrial products and processes. It has customers across more than 30 industries, including food and beverages, animal health and nutrition, energy, fine chemicals, dietary supplements and plastics. Earlier this year, Novonesis partnered with Carbios, a company using enzymes to break down plastic, to begin development of a biological plastics recycling facility to help recycle 50,000 tons of PET waste per year. In 2023, Novonesis brought in $2.4 billion in revenue.
Donnel Baird
Founder and CEO, BlocPower, United States
Donniel Baird is the CEO of BlocPower, a startup he founded in 2014. The company teams up with contractors, utilities and housing developers as well as city, state and federal agencies to decarbonize buildings by doing things like adding insulation or installing improved, energy-efficient equipment. In 2022, the city of Ithaca, New York selected BlocPower as its preferred project manager to decarbonize the city’s entire building stock, totaling over 6,000 residential and commercial buildings. BlocPower has leveraged its machine learning platform, BlocMaps, to identify opportunities for and complete electrification projects in over 1,100 buildings in cities including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York. To date, BlocPower has raised $125 million in VC investment.
Christophe Beck
Chairman and CEO, Ecolab, United States
Last year, Ecolab, a multinational water management company run by Christophe Beck, helped customers conserve more than 226 billion gallons of water. Based in Minneapolis, Ecolab employs 48,000 people worldwide and made $15 billion in revenue last year. Beck has spearheaded Ecolab’s involvement in the United Nations’ Water Resilience Coalition (WRC), which comprises 37 companies that help 100 water-stressed basins provide water for over 3 billion people. Last year he helped launch WRC’s California Water Resilience Initiative, which is helping conserve water in the Golden State through public-private partnerships. Under Beck, Ecolab has invested in WaterEquity, a fund that has raised $150 million to improve water and sanitation in the Global South.
Ryan Begin
Cofounder and CEO, Divert, United States
Ryan Begin is CEO and cofounder of Divert, a company using AI to help retailers reduce food waste. The Massachusetts-based company has raised approximately $300 million to date and counts Kroger, Target, and CVS among its over 6,600 customers. Divert’s 13 U.S. facilities processed over 384 million pounds of waste in 2023 and it is on track to build 30 more plants by 2031. Begin oversaw a $1 billion infrastructure agreement with Enbridge in 2023 for facilities to turn organic waste into renewable energy. Its collaboration with supermarket chain Safeway earlier this year boosted food donations 20% in just three months. “Sustainability is more than just a vision; it's the practical application of real, impactful solutions that transform our environment,” Begin told Forbes.
Joy Belmonte
Mayor, Quezon City, Philippines
In 2019, shortly after Joy Belmonte took office as mayor, Quezon City, the most populous city in the Philippines, became first in the country to declare a climate emergency. That move allowed Belmonte to allocate 13% of the city’s budget (which has since increased) to climate initiatives to reach its stated goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030 and reaching net-zero by 2050. Her initiatives run the gamut: doubling the city’s bike path network to 217 miles, electrifying its free bus service, adding solar panels to public buildings, banning plastic bags and single-use utensils, introducing a “trash-to-cashback” program and creating refilling stations for liquid detergent and other common household products. (For more, see “How The Mayors Of Quezon City And Freetown Are Fighting The Climate Crisis.”)
Sam Bencheghib
Cofounder, Sungai Watch, Indonesia
Sam Bencheghib, a 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia alum, founded Sungai Watch in 2020 with his two siblings, Gary and Kelly in order to clean up rivers in Indonesia, which annually dump an estimated over 1 million metric tons of trash into the ocean. Sungai Watch has installed 300 floating barriers in those rivers that have removed 5.2 million pounds of trash, mostly plastic waste. The non-profit organization has created 10 facilities that sort the collected trash for potential recycling. Sungai Watch now employs 150 people and plans to expand to rivers in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. It is also in talks with government officials and non-profits to expand into the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Colombia and Kenya.
Arlene Blum
Executive Director, Green Science Policy Institute, United States
Chemist Arlene Blum discovered a toxic chemical in children’s pajamas in the 1970s, which helped lead to its removal. After she learned the same toxic material was being used in furniture and baby products, in 2008, Blum, also a research associate in cell and molecular biology at UC Berkeley, founded the Green Science Policy Institute. Its goal is to rid the world of toxic chemicals, including PFAS, known as "forever chemicals." The EPA and state regulators have increasingly focused on harms from PFAS, and her research has helped reduce their use in food packaging, personal care products, and textiles. The Institute has raised $10 million from 10 foundations and 300 private donors. “Stopping the use of harmful chemicals in our products is like climbing a high Himalayan mountain,” Blum, a longtime mountaineer, told Forbes by email. “You find a worthy objective, select a team, pick up heavy loads, and persevere through deep snow, storms, avalanches and an occasional Yeti to reach the summit of a healthier world.”
Jason Buechel
CEO, Whole Foods Market, United States
Since becoming CEO in 2022, Jason Buechel has led efforts to improve Whole Foods Market's environmental practices by sourcing more sustainably grown products and tackling food waste—a key source of the greenhouse gas methane. Whole Foods Market diverted 87,000 tons of unsold food and food scraps from landfills in 2023, and donated nearly 17,000 tons of food to redistribution programs. The company also adopted a policy requiring produce and floral suppliers to use biological pest controls instead of chemicals. Through its foundations, Whole Foods Market provided $9 million in grants and loans in 2023 to assist marginalized farmers and support projects to improve biodiversity and soil health. Last year it offered 41,000 organic products across its stores, a 9% increase from 2022.
Tadeu Carneiro
Chairman and CEO, Boston Metal, United States
Steel is responsible for around 8% of global CO2 emissions. Boston Metal’s electrolysis process, developed by researchers at MIT, enables steel manufacturing with no emissions of CO2 or other pollutants. Tadeu Carneiro, former CEO of Brazilian metals giant CBMM, joined the startup as CEO to commercialize the process. The company has raised more than $350 million in venture funding and developed a pilot plant for green steel at its Woburn, Massachusetts headquarters. Last year, it received a $50 million grant from the Department of Energy for a plant to manufacture chromium and alloys in the former coal community of Weirton, West Virginia. In March, it opened a factory in Brazil, producing low-carbon iron alloys with similar green technology. Carneiro told Forbes earlier this year he expected the Brazilian operation to reach $400 million in revenue, with $100 million in operating profit, by 2026 – the same year the company aims to start selling its green steel.
Gaurab Chakrabarti
Cofounder and CEO, Solugen, United States
Forbes 30 Under 30 alumnus Gaurab Chakrabarti is cofounder and CEO of Solugen, which utilizes a unique biochemical process to produce industrial chemicals that are typically made with fossil fuels. Solugen uses yeast and proprietary catalysts to turn sustainable ingredients like sugar into chemicals, with less carbon emissions and waste than petrochemical companies. The company has raised over $600 million in investment and generates revenue from industrial, personal care and energy customers, as well as the Defense Department. It has a biomanufacturing facility in Houston and recently broke ground on a new 500,000 sq. ft. facility in Minnesota.
Yet-Ming Chiang
Professor of Material Science and Engineering, MIT, United States
A professor at MIT, Yet-Ming Chiang has used his research to launch 10 startups, eight of which are focused on green technology. These include Form Energy, which has raised nearly $1 billion to build a gigafactory for its iron-air battery products, and Sublime Systems, which in April received an $87 million Department of Energy award for a commercial plant to make low-carbon cement. Chiang, who immigrated from Taiwan as a child, has said the goal of his research is to replace current carbon-based technologies with commercially-scalable green and low-carbon alternatives. He holds some 110 patents and has published over 330 peer-reviewed papers. His startups have raised over $2.5 billion and have counted companies like Black and Decker, GM and Dominion Energy as customers. (For more, see “Meet The MIT Professor With Eight Climate Startups And $2.5 Billion In Funding.”)
Catherine Coleman Flowers
Founding Director, Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, United States
Catherine Coleman Flowers is the Founding Director of the Centre for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ), an Alabama-based non-profit working to improve public health and economic development by providing marginalized rural communities with wastewater technologies that could also be used to recycle and reuse water. In 2021, her community organizing work led to a federal investigation that found that the Alabama Department of Public Health failed to provide basic sanitation services to Lowndes County, Georgia, exposing residents to raw sewage. To date, CREEJ has raised over $10 million through donations and grants, and has worked in communities in Michigan, California, New York, and Barbados. She has served as co-vice chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council since 2021.
Wang Chuanfu
Founder and CEO, BYD, China
Wang Chuanfu is the founder and CEO of BYD, China’s biggest electric vehicle maker and one of its largest battery producers. A materials scientist, by training, he founded BYD in the mid-1990s to make phone batteries. But his shift into auto manufacturing, combined with a strategic investment by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2008, turned out to be a game-changing move. BYD became China’s top seller of electric vehicles in 2015 and is poised to overtake Elon Musk’s Tesla as the global EV leader this year as it aims to sell 4 million electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles worldwide. Wang’s company also produces electric transit vehicles and solar panels with stationary power storage. Though BYD has been blocked from selling its passenger vehicles in the U.S. by 100% tariffs, it’s looking to add production operations in Mexico that could eventually supply the U.S. market.
Tom Darrah
Cofounder and CTO, Koloma, United States
Tom Darrah is a geology professor at Ohio State University and one of the world’s leading experts on geological hydrogen, a potentially vast new clean energy source. Darrah’s research led him to cofound Koloma and serve as its chief technology officer. The startup has already raised more than $300 million from investors like Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The company is drilling test wells across the U.S. and is preparing to begin commercial extraction of naturally occurring hydrogen within the next few years. Initial users of its low-cost hydrogen are likely to include fertilizer producers and industrial customers. “It’s on every continent,” Darrah said. “The scale of how much there is is profound.”
Scott Dunn
Cofounder and CEO, Noveon Magnetics, United States
Motor manufacturers in the U.S. are largely dependent on China for rare earth minerals, which generate large amounts of toxic waste when extracted. That’s where Scott Dunn comes in. In 2014, he cofounded Noveon Magnetics to develop an energy-efficient way to manufacture high-performance magnets used in motors and generators, using rare earth elements from discarded devices. After raising approximately $200 million in funding, in June 2023 the company set up a factory in San Marcos, Texas to supply its automotive, renewable energy, aerospace and defense customers. “Ultimately, Noveon Magnetics hopes to create a circular economy for permanent magnets, both lessening the overall global demand for newly mined magnetic material while also accelerating the energy transition and powering the future more sustainably,” Dunn told Forbes.
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Cody Finke
Cofounder and CEO, Brimstone Energy, United States
Cement manufacturing accounts for 7.5% of global CO2 emissions. Cody Finke and his company, Brimstone, are looking to change that by using non-carbonate calcium silicate materials to replace the traditional limestone used in cement production, which is responsible for 60% of its CO2 emissions. The startup has raised $60 million from investors, and in March, Brimstone received a $189 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to finance its first plant, which it says will be operational later this year. Brimstone’s manufacturing decreases emissions from conventional cement production by 75% compared to traditional cement-making facilities.
Marcel Gomes
Executive Secretary, Repórter Brasil, Brazil
Marcel Gomes is the executive secretary of Repórter Brasil, a non-profit media outlet focused on human rights and environmental investigations. His work linked Brazilian beef giant JBS to illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, which caused six major supermarket chains in Europe to indefinitely halt the sale of JBS products. In 2023, Hyundai pulled out of areas in the Amazon where Gomes reported that heavy machinery the company manufactured was accelerating illegal deforestation. Also in 2023, a Repórter Brasil investigation revealed that Starbucks sourced coffee beans from farms involved in slave and child labor. “My team at Repórter Brasil has shown that the due diligence mechanisms from companies in major sectors such as beef and soybean do not work and must be reviewed,” he told Forbes.
Jennifer Granholm
Secretary, Energy Department, United States
Jennifer Granholm, a two-term governor of Michigan, is the current U.S. Secretary of Energy. Her time in that role coincides with a major boost in funding for clean energy projects from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. That allowed Granholm to oversee the awarding of tens of billions of dollars in grants and loans for projects, including domestic battery and solar panel production and related materials, grid upgrades and creating a low-carbon, clean hydrogen energy industry. “Our motto is deploy, deploy, deploy,” Granholm said. “That has not historically been the case. When I came in we reorganized a whole new vertical inside the department and hired almost a thousand people to execute on deploying clean energy.” (For more, see “How Jennifer Granholm’s Energy Department Is Pumping Billions Into Clean Tech.”)
Rodi Guidero
Executive Director, Breakthrough Energy, United States
Rodi Guidero is executive director of Breakthrough Energy, the climate tech investment fund spearheaded by Bill Gates. Since its founding in 2015, the organization has raised more than $4.5 billion and supported over 165 climate tech companies across sectors and continents. Guidero has helped steer Breakthrough Energy since the early days—he first joined as managing partner in 2016 and became executive director in 2022. Notable investments over the years include fusion power company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, carbon removal tech developer CarbonCure and geothermal installer Fervo Energy. In June, he hosted nearly 1,500 climate tech investors, innovators, policy-makers and world leaders at a global summit in London, showcasing technologies across every area of green tech.
Katharine Hayhoe
Chief Scientist The Nature Conservancy, United States
Katharine Hayhoe is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy, where she leads and coordinates the nonprofit’s scientific research to tackle the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. She is also a professor at Texas Tech University, and one of the country’s foremost climate scientists, having authored over 125 peer-reviewed papers, abstracts, and other publications. Her research currently focuses on using climate models to predict the future impacts of climate change at regional and local levels. The Canadian-born scientist is best known as a communicator who regularly gives talks and is quoted in leading media outlets on climate science.
Søren Hermansen
CEO, Samsø Energy Academy, Denmark
Soren Hermansen is the CEO of Samsø Energy Academy, which since 1997 has decarbonized the Danish island of Samsø, which now produces all of its electricity from community-owned renewable energy projects. “It takes a community to make change. Leadership is a shared effort,” Hermansen told Forbes. Per capita, the island produces more solar solar power, and has more heat pumps and more electric vehicles than anywhere else in Denmark, and is one of the only carbon-negative communities in the world. The organization is now going global: In 2023, it partnered with the Japanese town of Ogata to build a biomass district heating plant.
Anne Hidalgo
Mayor, Ville de Paris, France
Since taking office in 2014, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has made the French capital more sustainable and climate resilient by building hundreds of miles of bike paths, planting over 200,000 trees and increasing parking fees for gas-guzzling SUVs, helping reduce air pollution and vehicle traffic by more than 40%. Hidalgo also rolled out a plan to make the summer Olympics more sustainable by restricting the use of single plastics, fast-tracking efforts to make the Seine clean and swimmable and slashing emissions by 50% compared to the London Olympics.
Jay Inslee
Governor, Washington State, United States
Since becoming governor of Washington in 2013, Jay Inslee has implemented numerous reforms to reduce emissions. He has rolled out policies to direct state funding to underprivileged communities to increase access to renewable energy and reduce exposure to pollution. In 2023, he introduced a “cap-and-invest” program that charges companies for greenhouse gas emissions and uses the money to build climate infrastructure. His administration enacted policies to decarbonize buildings and awarded grants to install more than 5,000 EV chargers. In 2017, Inslee cofounded the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of governors dedicated to achieving the Paris Agreement’s climate goals. “In fighting climate change, I’m fighting for my grandchildren. Their future and that of so many others hinge on what we do today,” Inslee said.
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Cofounder, Urban Ocean Lab, United States
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is the cofounder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank aiming to advance climate action for the benefit of coastal cities, and the co-author of the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean in U.S. climate policy. The marine biologist is the author of “What If We Get It Right?,” a collection of essays and interviews with climate leaders published in 2024, and the writer and co-editor of “All We Can Save,” a climate anthology published in 2020 that includes insights from 40+ women leading on climate solutions and has sold over 100,000 copies. In past roles she helped develop U.S. federal ocean policy at the EPA and NOAA.
Miranda Kaiser
President, Rockefeller Family Fund, United States
Miranda Kaiser is the president of the Rockefeller Family Fund, a non-profit organization that provides grants to sponsor climate education programs, initiatives to reduce emissions and groups seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the climate crisis. The fund is best known for divesting from fossil fuels in 2016 and supporting litigation to hold Exxon accountable for misleading the public about the effects of the climate crisis. “As a member of the Rockefeller family, I have felt a special obligation to speak out against the behavior of Exxon and other companies that have been purposefully sewing confusion around climate change,” she told Forbes.
Peter Kalmus
Climate Scientist, NASA, United States
Peter Kalmus is a North Carolina-based NASA climate scientist, communicator and activist. As a scientist, Kalmus develops climate models to forecast how the climate crisis will impact ecosystems such as coral reefs, as well as kelp and tree forests. His latest research aims to understand how an increase in humid heat will impact human health. To make his research more accessible, his project “Undeniable - The Climate Emergency Network” produces animation, documentaries and videos to explain the root causes of the climate crisis and highlight solutions. “We must work together to transition urgently and skillfully away from fossil fuels,” he told Forbes.
Melissa Lott
Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Climate School, United States
As a professor at the Columbia Climate School, Melissa Lott’s work focuses on climate equity, technology and policy research. A 2013 30 Under 30 alumna and 2023 recipient of the AGU Pavel S. Molchanov Climate Communications Prize, she has authored more than 350 scientific articles, columns, op-eds, journal publications and reports, and her work has been cited by policy proposals more than 800 times. In her advisory work, she moves across aisles and borders, working with government leaders from five continents and executives for large companies. She has testified before the U.S. Congress twice in the last year and directly advised the UN Secretary General and several senators in the past 18 months.
Charlot Magayi
Founder and CEO, Mukuru Clean Stoves, Kenya
Over the past seven years, Charlot Magayi’s startup Mukuru Clean Stoves has sold over 425,000 clean cookstoves in Kenya, helping more than 2 million people by saving households $50 million in energy expenses. The stoves have avoided nearly 1 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions, and the company has nearly quadrupled its year-over-year revenue over the past several years. Mukuru repurposes locally sourced waste metal to craft its cookstoves and has developed mosquito-repellant fuel to power it, helping to combat outbreaks of malaria in areas where its cookstoves are being used.
Gina McCarthy
Managing Co-Chair, America Is All In, United States
Gina McCarthy is the managing co-chair of America is All In, which seeks to spur climate action across all 50 states. As the first White House national climate advisor, McCarthy worked to help pass the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which has so far spurred more than $361 billion in clean energy investments. At America is All In, McCarthy is helping organizations tap into tax credits and financing incentives in the IRA to accelerate the transition to a green economy. McCarthy was previously President and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council and helped strengthen clean air standards when she was the administrator of the EPA under President Obama.
Stella McCartney
Fashion Designer, Stella McCartney, and Special Advisor on Sustainability, LVMH, United Kingdom
British designer Stella McCartney is a long-time proponent of sustainable fashion. “Clothing waste is destroying our planet; every second, a truck-full of clothing ends up in landfill and less than 1% of garments are recycled,” she told Forbes earlier this year. McCartney has been seeking new materials to help address that. She created the first vegan “it” bag with the faux-leather Falabella tote and has incorporated or tested numerous sustainable new materials into her own work. She is also a founding investor in Collab SOS, a $200 million investment fund for sustainable materials, ingredients and supply chains. As special advisor to LVMH, she is promoting new sustainable materials to the company. “I hope they will continue to follow our sustainable lead,” she told Forbes earlier this year.
Kathleen McLaughlin
EVP and Chief Sustainability Officer, Walmart, United States
Kathleen McLaughlin is chief sustainability officer for retail giant Walmart. Among her tasks is finding ways for the company to reduce the carbon intensity of its operations and improve its overall efficiency. McLaughlin’s top accomplishment has been Walmart’s “Project Gigaton,” an initiative launched in 2017 to eliminate a total of 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, both from its direct operations and those across its 5,900 suppliers, by 2030. In February 2024 she announced that the target was already achieved–six years ahead of schedule–thanks to guidance from researchers at several environmental organizations that helped identify ways to measure and avoid greenhouse gas emissions. Walmart’s target now is to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
Mia Mottley
Prime Minister, Barbados
Mia Mottley is prime minister of Barbados, the Caribbean island nation that is one of the world’s most vulnerable to the climate crisis. In an impassioned speech before the United Nations in 2021, she decried the “faceless few” pushing the world toward climate catastrophe and imperiling the future of small island states like Barbados. “Our world knows not what it is gambling with, and if we don’t control this fire, it will burn us all down,” she said then. Over the past five years, she has developed an ambitious plan for Barbados to phase out fossil fuels by 2030, promoted solar energy and electric vehicles and explored debt-for-nature swaps. She has also pushed for countries on the front lines of climate-related disasters to have their debt forgiven so the money can be used to combat the crisis. Earlier this year, Barbados introduced an updated version of the Bridgetown Initiative, first introduced in 2022, to fill the financing gap for climate change.
Nemonte Nenquimo
Cofounder, Amazon Frontlines, Ecuador
Nemonte Nenquimo is the cofounder of non-profit organization Amazon Frontlines, which defends indigenous rights to land, life and cultural survival. Its team includes community leaders, human rights lawyers and anthropologists in the western Amazon. The organization has installed solar panels and water catchment systems to provide dozens of communities with clean energy and fresh water. In recent years, Nenquimo led a campaign against the Ecuadorian government’s plan to allow more fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon, resulting in a 2019 court ruling that protected 500,000 acres of Amazonian rainforest and Waorani territory from oil drilling. In 2023, she campaigned in a successful referendum to ban oil exploration in the Yasuní national park, home to one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems.
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Andrew Ponec
CEO and Cofounder, Antora Energy, United States
Andrew Ponec, an alumnus of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, is the CEO and cofounder of Antora Energy, which develops thermal batteries that store renewable energy by heating carbon blocks to extreme temperatures when solar and wind power are available. The company opened its first thermal battery manufacturing facility in October 2023, and earlier this year Antora raised a $150 million Series B fundraising round, bringing its total funding to over $230 million. In June, Antora was awarded $14.5 million from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy to partner with Con Edison to help provide the greater New York area with clean energy.
Mary Powell
CEO, Sunrun, United States
Mary Powell is CEO of San Francisco-based Sunrun, the largest U.S. installer of residential solar energy systems. In August, the company marked an industry first by reaching 1 million homes with both solar panel and battery systems. That works out to 7 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity and 2 gigawatt-hours of storage–enough to fully power San Francisco for half a day. Powell aims to expand this network to help ease the growing strain on the power grid and improve electric service for consumers. “We've focused on building a platform that can scale and that can provide people with a more stably priced, affordable, resilient way to power their homes and their lives,” she said. “And I can scale fast.” (For more, see “How Sunrun Is Easing The Electric Power Crunch One Home At A Time.”)
Michael Regan
Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency, United States
Michael Regan is the 16th Administrator of the EPA. In that job, he’s worked with state and local governments and industry to implement policies to reduce air and water pollution and, increasingly, energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. The role has become more challenging as the EPA faces pushback from conservative members of Congress and a controversial Supreme Court ruling on the “Chevron Doctrine” that could severely limit its regulatory authority. Among the goals he’s pursuing are new rules requiring coal and natural gas power plants to cut or capture 90% of their climate-warming emissions by 2032 to meet goals of cutting overall U.S. greenhouse gas pollution by 75%. Regan has also directed the agency to channel funds allocated from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to communities for things like replacing lead pipes and buying electric school buses.
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Gaurav Sant
Director Institute for Carbon Management, United States
Gaurav Sant is director of UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management, which turns cutting-edge cleantech research into companies and commercial products that dramatically reduce emissions of climate-warming gasses. To date, Sant’s work has led to the creation of six startups, including CarbonBuilt, Concrete.AI and NextLi, which build low- and no-carbon industrial materials, and Equatic, which is commercializing an ocean-based system that removes carbon dioxide from seawater while simultaneously producing valuable green hydrogen. Equatic’s prototype plant opens in Singapore this year and the company is preparing a $100 million plant in Canada that will eliminate 100,000 tons of CO2 annually. "Ensuring the affordability and global accessibility of carbon management technologies is foundational to mitigating and reversing ongoing and accelerating climate change,” Sant said.
RJ Scaringe
Founder and CEO, Rivian Automotive, United States
RJ Scaringe is the founder and CEO of automotive startup Rivian, which has raised more than $11 billion from backers including Amazon and Ford Motor Co., and is one of the market’s fastest-growing EV makers. It launched U.S. production in 2021 amid the global supply chain crisis, and expects sales of about 60,000 units this year. Critically, the company is pivoting into more affordable, mass-market models priced at $45,000 or less, with new R2 and R3 SUVs arriving in 2026 to compete with rivals like Tesla (which is suing it for claims it stole trade secrets). Amazon has been the main buyer of electric delivery vans Rivian makes at its Illinois plant and Volkswagen recently announced a technical partnership and plans to invest up to $5 billion. “We started strong but our objective is to be building the highest quality vehicles in the world,” Scaringe said.
Christophe Schilling
Cofounder and CEO, Geno, United States
A bioengineer by training, Christophe Schilling founded Geno, which makes bio-based alternatives to chemicals made from petroleum, over two decades ago. Developing products using biological processes is slow, and scaling them up takes time, but Geno has lined up big-name customers and partners that include Unilever, Aquafil and Lululemon. One of its major products is a chemical that is used to produce flexible fibers for seat cushions and athletic apparel. It also makes chemicals for personal care and beauty products and a nylon for carpets, clothing, and engineered plastics. Because most of these chemicals are made from fossil fuels, their replacement is a critical piece of reaching climate goals. The company has raised $400 million from investors that include Novo Holdings, Viking Global and Unilever. In August, it received $1.5 million from the Pentagon to build a plant for bio-chemicals with applications in the aviation and automotive industries. “The materials transition isn’t just coming–it’s here and it’s accelerating,” Schilling told Forbes by email.
Rajiv Shah
President, The Rockefeller Foundation, United States
Rajiv Shah is the president of The Rockefeller Foundation, the largest private U.S. philanthropy to date to pursue a net zero endowment. In 2023, the Foundation managed 589 grants worth $1.2 billion and announced plans to invest $1 billion in climate solutions over the next five years. The Foundation is part of the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, a coalition to accelerate renewable energy transition in low- and middle-income countries alongside the Ikea Foundation and Bezos Earth Fund. The Foundation says that its work has helped avert 147,000 cumulative tons of CO2 emissions and connected 1.3 million people and businesses to new or improved electricity generation.
Andrew Steer
President and CEO, Bezos Earth Fund, United States
Andrew Steer is president and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, a philanthropic organization charged with disbursing $10 billion in grants to fight the climate crisis and protect nature. The Fund has already committed $3 billion in grants and helped launch the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet in 2021, a $1.5 billion grant facility focused on transitioning to green energy. The Fund supports initiatives to transform the Port of Houston and the Port of L.A. into clean energy hubs, as well as the Bezos Centers for Sustainable Protein to develop affordable alternative proteins. In April 2024, the Fund announced a program to provide $100 million in funding to climate-focused AI projects.
Simon Stiell
Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Germany
Simon Stiell is the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, tasked with coordinating global efforts to address the climate crisis. Before being appointed in 2022, the trained engineer spent five years as minister for climate and the environment in his home country of Grenada. Stiell helped negotiate a breakthrough accord to provide “loss and damage” funding for vulnerable countries affected by climate disasters at the 2022 United Nations COP27 summit, and a deal to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels at COP28.
Leah Stokes
Anton Vonk Associate Professor, University of California - Santa Barbara, United States
Leah Stokes is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at UC Santa Barbara, where her research is focused on reforms to decarbonize the economy. She helped build two coalitions that designed portions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act related to clean energy. She is building the 2035 Initiative at UC Santa Barbara, a think tank that makes decarbonization policy roadmaps and is a policy advisor at Rewiring America, part of a nonprofit coalition that in April received a $2 billion federal award to accelerate residential electrification. She also runs the popular podcast “A Matter of Degrees” and wrote the award-winning book “Short Circuiting Policy,” which examines the role of utilities in undermining regulation and promoting climate denial.
Kat Taylor
Cofounder and Board Chair, Beneficial State Bank, United States
Kat Taylor is the cofounder and board chair of Beneficial State Bank, a B Corporation owned by a nonprofit that distributes its profits to the under-resourced communities in which it works. Beneficial State Bank has a lending program for renewable energy, sustainability entrepreneurs, net-zero building construction and climate crisis mitigation projects. By the end of 2023, the bank had a cumulative total of $26.4 million in outstanding loans to environmentally-focused commercial projects and $109.7 million in residential solar loans. Taylor is also a Founding Director of TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation (TKREF), which runs ranching, training, research and school programs that seek to make the food system more sustainable.
Chuck Templeton
Managing Partner, S2G Ventures, United States
OpenTable founder Chuck Templeton is a managing partner and co-head of S2G Ventures, a climate-focused investment firm founded by billionaire Walmart heir Lukas Walton that invests across food and agriculture, clean energy and oceans, including aquaculture. The Chicago-based firm has $2.5 billion in assets, and in May took in outside capital for the first time, raising $600 million. Its 100-plus company portfolio includes green cement maker Brimstone; Apeel Sciences, which is boosting food shelf life; and Moleaer, which cleans water with nanobubbles 2,500 times smaller than a grain of salt. Templeton, a former U.S. Army ranger and alumnus of CalTech and Northwestern, said he first started to think about how to mitigate the impacts of climate change after his daughter was born.
Laurence Tubiana
CEO, European Climate Foundation, France
Laurence Tubiana is a professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and the CEO of the European Climate Foundation, which in 2023 provided grants worth $181 million—nearly twice as much as in 2021—to 703 partner organizations and launched the European Climate Neutrality Observatory, an independent watchdog ensuring that EU institutions meet their climate commitments. The Algerian-born Tubiana received the Royal Scottish Geographical Society Shackleton Medal last year and was made an Officier de la Legion d’Honneur—France’s highest civilian honor—in 2008. She is best known as a climate diplomat working at the international level—she co-chairs the EU-U.S. Dialogue on Climate Change and the Friends of Paris Agreement High Level Dialogue.
Michelle Wu
Mayor, City of Boston, United States
Soon after becoming Boston Mayor in 2021, Michelle Wu signed a bill to fully divest the city from fossil fuels and began efforts to invest $400 million in ESG funds. She later created a Climate Cabinet to enable an all-of-government approach to sustainability and secured locally sourced clean electricity including a purchase agreement with a future offshore wind project. She has tripled Boston’s curbside compost collection program to serve a total of 30,000 households, rolled out policies to decarbonize buildings as well as a program to protect and grow the city’s tree canopy. She has also accelerated electrification of the city’s bus fleet, which now has 39 electric school buses and another 75 slated to hit the road next school year.
Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr.
President and CEO, Hip Hop Caucus, United States
Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. is the president and CEO of Hip Hop Caucus, a non-profit organization that aims to engage young voters in the political process through hip-hop music and culture. Yearwood hosts "The Coolest Show," a podcast featuring Black activists working on racial justice and the climate crisis, which has garnered more than 250,000 listeners across 200+ episodes. Yearwood is also a White House Champion of Change for Climate Leadership and serves on the advisory board of The Climate Mobilization, a grassroots advocacy group. He also produced “Underwater Projects,” a documentary film narrated by comedian Wanda Sykes that exposes how coastal flooding impacts Black communities in Norfolk, Virginia.