Fashion is a major sustainability challenge in the global economy, and for most of the last decade, it has faced little regulation. That is starting to change. In the past eighteen months, California passed the first U.S. law for extended producer responsibility (EPR) for textiles, France approved strict anti-fast-fashion laws, and the EU set a 2027 deadline for all member states to have a textile EPR program.
Every second, a garbage truck’s worth of clothing ends up in a landfill or is burned s
Fashion is a major sustainability challenge in the global economy, and for most of the last decade, it has faced little regulation. That is starting to change. In the past eighteen months, California passed the first U.S. law for extended producer responsibility (EPR) for textiles, France approved strict anti-fast-fashion laws, and the EU set a 2027 deadline for all member states to have a textile EPR program.
Every second, a garbage truck’s worth of clothing ends up in a landfill or is burned somewhere in the world. This isn’t just a figure of speech. The fashion industry produces about 92 million metric tons of waste each year, and if nothing changes, that number could reach 148 million metric tons by 2030.
Meanwhile, the resale market is growing about three times faster than traditional retail. The industry still has a long way to go, but for the first time, there are real systems in place to hold it accountable.
The Scale of the Problem
How big is fashion’s impact? It’s large, debated, and still growing. The fashion industry is responsible for 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN Environment Programme. While experts debate the exact numbers, everyone agrees the problem is getting worse.
The Apparel Impact Institute, a nonprofit supported by brands like H&M, Target, PVH, and Lululemon, reported that apparel sector emissions rose by 7.5 percent in 2023. This was the first yearly increase since 2019, and the group linked it to overproduction, ultra-fast fashion, and more use of virgin polyester, which now accounts for 57 percent of global fiber production.
No matter which numbers you believe, the trend is troubling. Each year, 80 to 100 billion new garments are made. Clothing production has doubled since 2000, and people now wear each item 36 percent fewer times before throwing it away. Synthetic fibers, mostly polyester made from fossil fuels, make up about 57 percent of global fiber production and are expected to increase.
The amount of water used in fashion is huge, even by industrial standards. Making one cotton T-shirt takes about 2,700 liters of water, which could provide drinking water for one person for 900 days. Producing a pair of jeans uses about 7,500 liters. Textile dyeing and treatment is the world’s second-largest source of water pollution, causing about 20 percent of industrial water pollution. ic clothing also sheds microplastics every time it’s washed. The IUCN has estimated that about 35 percent of primary microplastics in the ocean originate from synthetic textiles like polyester, nylon, and acrylic, though the total volume keeps rising as synthetic usage increases.
After technology manufacturing, garment production is still one of the industries most affected by modern slavery and child labor, according to International Labour Organization data. These problems are most common in the early stages of production, such as cotton farms, dye houses, and fabric mills, which are less visible than the brand-name factories.
Fast Fashion, Faster: The Shein and Temu Problem
In the last five years, a new category called ultra-fast fashion has emerged, making older models like Zara and H&M seem slow by comparison. Platforms such as Shein and Temu add thousands of new styles daily, produce items on demand in Chinese factories, and ship directly to customers around the world.
The environmental impact is severe. Shein’s own reports show its greenhouse gas emissions nearly doubled from 2022 to 2023, reaching 16.7 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent. That’s almost as much as Inditex, Zara’s parent company, which is five times bigger by revenue. In 2024, Shein’s transportation emissions alone were over 8.5 million metric tons, more than three times Inditex’s. Temu hasn’t shared its emissions data, but third-party estimates put its yearly footprint between 4 and 6 million metric tons of CO₂e, mostly from shipping over a million air-freight parcels each day.
These business models not only pass environmental costs onto others, they rely on it. This is the main reason behind the push for new regulations.
The New Regulatory Landscape
For most of modern fashion history, sustainability promises have been voluntary, hard to verify, and mostly ineffective. That is finally starting to change. Three recent developments in the past eighteen months are especially important to watch..
Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 707 into law in September 2024, making California the first U.S. state with extended producer responsibility for textiles. The law shifts responsibility for end-of-use management of apparel, footwear, and household textiles from consumers and municipalities to the companies that put the products on the market. Producers with less than $1 million in annual global revenue are exempt; everyone else must join a state-approved Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) that will finance collection, repair, reuse, sorting, and recycling.
Implementation is staged. On February 27, 2026, CalRecycle selected Landbell USA as California’s textile PRO. Producers must register with the PRO by July 1, 2026. A statewide needs assessment runs through 2027, final implementing regulations are due by July 2028, and full enforcement begins July 1, 2030, with fines of up to $50,000 per day for noncompliance.
France’s Anti–Fast Fashion Law
In June 2025, the French Senate passed the most aggressive anti-fast-fashion legislation in the world by a vote of 337 to 1. The law imposes a per-item eco-tax starting at €5 and rising to €10 by 2030 (capped at 50 percent of retail price), bans advertising and influencer marketing of ultra-fast-fashion brands, requires point-of-sale environmental disclosures including carbon footprint and durability data, and carries fines of up to €100,000 for violating the ad ban. Revenue is directed to French sustainable-fashion producers.
The law is clearly aimed at Shein and Temu. In November 2025, French authorities requested that Shein’s fast-fashion platform be suspended for three months over the sale of illicit products — days after Shein opened its first physical retail store in Paris. The European Commission issued a detailed opinion on the French law in September 2025; other EU member states are watching.
The EU Waste Framework Directive
Under revisions to the EU Waste Framework Directive, every member state was required to have separate textile waste collection in place by January 2025 and must have a fully operational textile EPR scheme by 2027. France’s EPR program, which has been operating since 2008, and the Netherlands (2023) are already live. Italy, Spain, and others have draft decrees in public consultation. Outside the EU, Switzerland, Australia, and Chile are developing national frameworks.
In the U.S., beyond California, New York’s Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act (A4631) and Senate Bill S3217A both carried into the 2026 session. Washington State introduced HB 1420 in January 2025; as of March 2026, it remains in committee. None of these have passed.
The Resale Market Is Doing What Regulation Hasn’t
While policymakers work on new rules, consumers are already changing their habits. ThredUp’s 2025 Resale Report says the U.S. secondhand clothing market grew by 14 percent in 2024, five times faster than traditional retail. It’s expected to reach $74 billion by 2029. Globally, the secondhand market could hit $367 billion by 2029, growing 2.7 times faster than the overall apparel market.
There is a clear generational divide. In 2024, 58 percent of U.S. consumers bought secondhand clothing. Among those aged 18 to 44, 48 percent now choose secondhand first when shopping for clothes. Thirty-nine percent of younger shoppers have bought secondhand items through social platforms like Instagram or TikTok Shop.
Resale alone won’t solve fashion’s environmental impact. Extending a garment’s life only helps if it replaces a new purchase. Still, this is the biggest shift in consumer behavior the industry has seen in a generation.
What Sustainable Fashion Actually Means
Sustainable fashion means having a supply chain that is responsible for both the environment and people at every stage. In practice, this includes using fibers that need less water, fewer chemicals, and create lower emissions; manufacturing with renewable energy; ensuring fair wages and safe working conditions; making products that last and can be repaired; and recycling materials into new clothes instead of turning them into insulation or sending them to landfills in places like Ghana or Chile.
It’s a long list, and no brand meets every standard. Still, more brands are making real progress. Patagonia, Eileen Fisher, and Pangaia share detailed impact reports that are checked by outside experts. Brands using leftover fabrics, made-to-order production, and closed-loop recycling are slowly growing. Certifications like Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) for organic fibers, Fair Trade Certified for labor, and bluesign for chemical management are meaningful when you see them on a label.
Fashion is still the most greenwashed part of the consumer goods industry. Words like “conscious,” “eco,” and “sustainable” aren’t regulated in the U.S. What really matters are specific certifications, published supply-chain data, and third-party audits—not marketing slogans.
Take Action At Home
Individual choices won’t fix fashion’s big problems, but they do influence demand. That demand can drive companies and lawmakers to make changes. Here are some practical steps, ranked by impact:
Buy less, buy better. The single most impactful choice is reducing the amount of new clothing entering your closet. A capsule wardrobe of durable, versatile pieces worn many times beats any “sustainable” label on a fast-fashion cycle.
Shop secondhand first. ThredUp, Poshmark, Depop, The RealReal, Vinted, and local thrift and consignment stores now offer selection and convenience comparable to traditional retail.
Get familiar with clothing materials. Natural fibers like organic cotton, linen, hemp, and wool usually have a smaller environmental impact at the end of their life than synthetics. Recycled polyester is better than new polyester, but it still releases microfibers.
Use a microfiber filter. Tools like the Guppyfriend wash bag or washing machine filters can catch a lot of synthetic microfibers before they enter the water system.
Repair before replacing. Visible mending, basic tailoring, and simple patches can extend a garment’s life by years.
Take care of your clothes so they last longer. Wash them in cold water, air-dry when you can, and avoid the dry cleaner unless it’s necessary. These steps help reduce emissions and wear on your clothes.
Recycle clothes instead of throwing them away. When something can’t be worn anymore, look for textile recycling options using Earth911’s recycling locator or a store take-back program. Sending clothes to a landfill should be the last resort.
Support new policies. Laws about textile EPR, supply-chain transparency, and anti-greenwashing are being considered in many states. These laws are more likely to pass when people contact their representatives.
Fashion is one of the most obvious ways the global economy affects our daily lives. Because it’s so visible, everyone is part of the problem—but it also means that when change happens, it’s easy to notice.
Editor’ Note: Originally written by Gemma Alexander on April 8, 2022, this article was substantially updated in April 2026.
The built environment, particularly office buildings other urban facilities, are responsible for 39% of the global energy-related emissions, according to the World Green Building Council. About a third of that impact comes from the initial construction of a building and the other two-thirds is produced over the lifetime of a building by heating, cooling, and providing power to the occupants. Our guest today is leading a key battle to reduce the impact of the built environment. Tune in for a wid
The built environment, particularly office buildings other urban facilities, are responsible for 39% of the global energy-related emissions, according to the World Green Building Council. About a third of that impact comes from the initial construction of a building and the other two-thirds is produced over the lifetime of a building by heating, cooling, and providing power to the occupants. Our guest today is leading a key battle to reduce the impact of the built environment. Tune in for a wide-ranging conversation with Rob Bernard, Chief Sustainability Officer at CBRE Group Inc., which manages more than $145 billion of commercial buildings, providing logistics, retail, and corporate office services across more than than 100 countries.
Rob Bernard, Chief Sustainability Officer at the commercial real estate giant CBRE, is our guest on Sustainability In Your Ear.
Rob cut his sustainability teeth at Microsoft, as its Chief Environmental Strategist for 11 years, as the company was developing its world-leading approach and collaborating with other tech giants to lobby for policy and funding to accelerate progress. He discusses CBRE’s Sustainability Solutions & Services for commercial building owners, as well as the accelerating progress for renewables, carbon tracking, and economic, health, and lifestyle benefits of living lightly on the planet. You can learn more about CBRE and its sustainability services at cbre.com
Take a few minutes to learn more about making construction and building operations more sustainable:
Editor’s Note: This is the first article in a new Earth911 series, Where Waste Comes From, examining the largest sources of waste in the typical American household, what each category costs the family, what it costs the country, and what it costs the climate. We begin with food because food is the biggest category, because every household touches it every day, and because the lever any one family can pull on it is unusually large.
A family of four in the United States throws out more than $3,000
Editor’s Note: This is the first article in a new Earth911 series, Where Waste Comes From, examining the largest sources of waste in the typical American household, what each category costs the family, what it costs the country, and what it costs the climate. We begin with food because food is the biggest category, because every household touches it every day, and because the lever any one family can pull on it is unusually large.
A family of four in the United States throws out more than $3,000 worth of food a year. Not “wastes” in the vague sense of eating too much or buying the wrong brand. We mean “throws out” — into the trash, into the disposal, or scraped off a plate into the bin, according to the2026 ReFED U.S. Food Waste Report, the most current accounting of the problem.
The climate bill is equally devastating. All of that uneaten food carries an annual greenhouse gas footprint of 154 million metric tons of CO₂-equivalent, the same as driving 36 million passenger vehicles for a year. That food also required about 9 trillion gallons of water to grow — water that was never consumed by a human being. None of these resources made it to a table.
The waste stream inside the house
Food is the single largest component of landfilled material in the United States by weight, based on the EPA’s most recent sustainable materials accounting. EPA discontinued the comprehensive series after that December 2020 release; budget and staffing cuts under the current Trump administration have kept the report from being revived.
State waste studies provide continuing proof of the food waste epidemic, and the potential for progress. Washington’s 2020-2021 Statewide Waste Characterization Study found food waste accounted for nearly 20% of residential garbage. California’s 2021 Disposal Facility-Based Waste Characterization Study found organics, which includes food and yard waste, made up 28.4% of landfilled material, down from 34.1% in 2018, with the reduction credited largely to SB 1383, a state law that requires curbside organics collection for composting.
Where does food waste come from inside the home? ReFED’s consumer-behavior research, published in July 2025, breaks it down into four dominant habits:
Produce that spoiled before it was used. Fresh fruits and vegetables lose freshness quickly, cost less per pound than animal proteins, and tend to be bought in larger quantities than households consume.
Prepared food left over. The restaurant-style portion has migrated into the home kitchen. Leftovers are forgotten, buried, or mentally written off the moment a newer meal enters the fridge.
Confusion over date labels. “Sell by,” “best by,” and “use by” mean different things, are not federally regulated except for infant formula, and are frequently treated by consumers as expiration warnings when they are shelf-life guidance.
Over-purchasing against oversize packaging. The family-size bag of spinach and the 48-ounce jug of milk are typically the lowest per-unit price, and the highest risk of spoilage for small households.
ReFED revised its residential-waste estimate downward in its 2024 report by roughly 40 percent, or 17 million tons — not because household behavior improved, but because earlier estimates double-counted some flows. The overall residential waste picture is still enormous. It is also not shrinking. Consumer waste rates rose in the most recent data year even as overall U.S. food waste edged down, driven by retail and manufacturing progress that the home has not yet matched.
Burning a hole in your family budget
Let’s break down the national number to look inside a single household. A U.S. family of four spending roughly $12,000 to $15,000 a year on groceries throws away, on average, somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of it. The equivalent dollar number — $3,000 a year lost in the kitchen — is larger than the average American household’s annual spending on home energy, larger than most families’ annual clothing budget, and comparable to an annual car insurance premium. It is, in most households, the biggest single lever the family has on its grocery budget, climate footprint, and water footprint simultaneously. Very few household sustainability choices compound this cleanly.
Beyond the grocery-bill number, food waste generates costs the household pays for through taxes, utility fees, and environmental damage whether it knows it or not:
Landfill tipping fees: The 2024 Environmental Research and Education Foundation’s national tipping-fee survey put the weighted-average U.S. landfill tipping fee at $62.63 per ton, which is up 10 percent year over year — the largest annual increase since 2022. Every ton of food scraps sent to landfill is a ton charged against the municipal solid-waste budget that residents fund through utility bills and property taxes.
Landfill methane: Food waste is the single largest contributor to the methane emissions from U.S. landfills, which are the third-largest source of anthropogenic methane in the country.
Food insecurity: The 35 million tons of consumer food waste translate to nearly 58 billion meals that could have gone to people in need, while roughly 14 percent of Americans (1 in 7) experience food insecurity. The waste is not just resources; it is a distribution failure with a public-health cost downstream.
Water: Nine trillion gallons is an abstract number. It is roughly the volume of Lake Okeechobee. Every drop required an energy input for pumping, treatment, and, in the western third of the country, an increasingly scarce supply.
Where the infrastructure works, and where it doesn’t
Curbside organics collection, the municipal programs that pick up food scraps along with yard waste for industrial composting or anaerobic digestion, is available in parts of California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Vermont, Colorado, Minnesota, and a growing number of metro areas in other states. Where it runs, compostable collection materially shifts the numbers. San Francisco’s mandatory program, the oldest and most cited, diverts the majority of residential organic material from landfill and produces commercial-grade compost that returns to regional farms.
Outside those states, most households have no curbside pathway. Backyard composting is the most widely available option. For households without the space or the desire to compost at home, a small ecosystem of digital services has grown up to fill the gap municipal programs don’t cover. MakeSoil and Peels operate peer-matching platforms that connect people who have food scraps with neighbors who already run a compost pile, worm bin, or chicken coop. CompostNow runs paid curbside pickup in a growing list of cities, including Atlanta, Asheville, Cincinnati, and the Raleigh-Durham area, and partners with municipalities on drop-off programs elsewhere. ShareWaste, the original neighbor-matching service and the one most commonly cited in earlier reporting, unfortunately, was shuttered at the end of 2024.
Most of the household lever on food waste is not composting. It is prevention. Composting turns discarded food into a lower-impact product. It still represents calories, dollars, and upstream water and energy that never delivered their purpose. The first line of defense is buying, storing, and planning to match the family’s actual consumption. The second line is composting what remains.
Take Action
At the individual and household level, some simple steps can make a difference:
Audit one week of your kitchen trash. Actually weigh or photograph a week of food-bin contents. Families who do this consistently identify their top three loss categories (usually produce, leftovers, and bread) within a single week, and those become the behavior targets.
Shop the fridge, then the pantry, then the store. Before writing a grocery list, list what’s already on hand. Plan at least one “use it up” meal per week built around what is about to spoil.
Learn date labels. “Use by” is the only label where food should not be eaten after the date, and only for a short list of products (infant formula, some deli meats). “Sell by” is inventory guidance for the retailer. “Best by” is quality guidance, not safety.
Freeze aggressively. Bread, cheese, cooked grains, leftovers, and most produce (with minimal prep) all freeze well. Most household waste is time-based; the freezer pauses the clock.
Start composting where collection exists, or set up a backyard or countertop system.Earth911’s recycling search tool lists local organics programs by ZIP code.
At the community and policy level, a little cooperation and activism can go a long way:
Support mandatory organics collection where your state or city is considering it, then use the services when available. Organics bans have now passed in California (SB 1383, mentioned above), Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington. The programs work only when households participate.
Push for a unified federal date-label standard. Legislation has been introduced in every recent Congress. It has not passed.
Work on food insecurity in the same room as food waste. The two issues belong on the same municipal agenda. Rescue organizations — Feeding America, City Harvest, community food-pantry networks — need volunteers and advocacy as much as they need donations.
Nine million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. That is the projected climate cost of the 48-team, three-country, 16-city soccer tournament that kicks off June 11 in Mexico City — nearly double the average emissions of every World Cup held between 2010 and 2022.
The figure comes from a peer-reviewed analysis published by Scientists for Global Responsibility, the Environmental Defense Fund, Cool Down, the Sport for Climate Action Network, and the New Weather Institute. Their conclusion: FIFA’s de
Nine million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. That is the projected climate cost of the 48-team, three-country, 16-city soccer tournament that kicks off June 11 in Mexico City — nearly double the average emissions of every World Cup held between 2010 and 2022.
The figure comes from a peer-reviewed analysis published by Scientists for Global Responsibility, the Environmental Defense Fund, Cool Down, the Sport for Climate Action Network, and the New Weather Institute. Their conclusion: FIFA’s decision to expand the tournament and spread it across a continent has locked in a climate footprint that no amount of host-city recycling or LED lighting can offset.
Which makes the question of which host cities are doing serious sustainability work more important, not less. Their practices will outlast the tournament.
The Problem Is Structural
World Cup-related team air travel will account for roughly 7.7 million tons of CO2-equivalent — about 85% of the total, according to the SGR analysis. That is the direct consequence of two FIFA decisions. First, the tournament grew from 32 to 48 teams and from 64 to 104 matches. Second, FIFA chose to hold those matches across Canada, Mexico, and the United States rather than concentrate them in a single region.
The contrast with the previous tournament is stark. Qatar 2022 kept its eight stadiums within 34 miles of each other. The shortest distance between 2026 stadiums, from MetLife in New Jersey to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, is 95.5 miles. Most teams’ itineraries cover thousands of miles. One UEFA playoff winner, according to a Fossil Free Football analysis, could travel Toronto to Los Angeles (2,175 miles), then Los Angeles to Seattle (932 miles), then, in the knockout rounds, another 2,500 miles to Boston.
FIFA does not set binding emissions limits for host cities, and it did not address the underlying decision to spread the tournament across North America. SGR’s researchers urged FIFA to reverse the team expansion, set mandatory environmental standards, and end sponsorship deals with high-emitting companies, including the Saudi oil company Aramco, whose sponsorship is estimated to result in an additional 30 million tons of CO2e due to energy sales linked to the tournament’s promotion.
The Heat Risk Nobody Planned For
Climate change is not just an abstraction measured in tournament emissions. It is a condition players and fans will experience in real time. The SGR/EDF report assessed heat, flooding, and extreme weather risk at all 16 stadiums. Six face extreme heat stress due to Wet Bulb Globe Temperatures above 80°F, the threshold where exertion becomes dangerous. Eight of the 16 cities require what the researchers called immediate environmental intervention. Four need critical intervention, according to the report.
AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, which will host nine World Cup matches — more than any other venue — experiences 37 days per year above 95°F, with July wet bulb readings that exceed FIFA safety thresholds.
Houston’s NRG Stadium faces simultaneous heat, flooding, and wildfire risk.
Los Angeles contends with wildfire smoke.
Miami faces hurricanes.
Where Host Cities Lead, and Where They Lag
A sustainability ranking published by World Sports Network in April 2026 attempts to score the 16 host cities across transit access, electric vehicle infrastructure, waste, air pollution, urban greening, and greenhouse gas emissions. The methodology has limits — it weights all factors equally, uses stadium-specific data alongside city-wide data, and includes some questionable proxies — but its directional finding is consistent with what urban sustainability researchers have long documented about the climate in North American cities.
Vancouver tops the rankings. British Columbia generates roughly 95% of its electricity from renewable sources, largely hydropower. BC Place sits in the center of Vancouver, with 26 public transit stops within a 10-minute walk. Fans can reach it by SkyTrain or bus. That single design decision eliminates most of the vehicle trips and parking-lot sprawl that define a typical U.S. stadium day.
Boston ranked second, the highest-scoring U.S. city. That is less about inherent greenness than about what severe flooding has forced the city to prepare for. Boston experienced 19 days of flooding in 2024, and sea levels around the city are projected to rise 20 centimeters by 2030 relative to 2000. The city’s Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance requires large buildings to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, with interim targets that have already tightened performance at Gillette Stadium’s surrounding infrastructure.
Mexico City placed third, Toronto fourth, Monterrey fifth. The pattern shows that four of the top five cities are outside the United States, even though 11 of the 16 host cities are American. Mexico City’s transformation from one of the most polluted major cities in the world into one of the Americas’ most active urban reforesters, with over 27 million trees and plants added between 2018 and 2021, is the kind of long-horizon work that does not fit inside a tournament timeline but shapes what that timeline makes possible.
The American Transit Problem
Every U.S. host city except Boston falls in the bottom half of the WSN ranking, and the reason is almost always the same: transit.
AT&T Stadium in Arlington has no public transit stops within a 10-minute walk. Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, which will host seven matches, sits 17 miles north of downtown Miami with no rail connection. SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, MetLife in East Rutherford, and NRG in Houston all require a car, a shuttle, or a rideshare for most attendees.
Dallas-Fort Worth is ranked third in the world for transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, a structural problem no single event can fix. The Dallas organizing committee has built a sustainability plan in collaboration with the University of Texas at Arlington’s chief sustainability officer, Meghna Tare. It addresses waste management, single-use plastic reduction, composting, and community legacy. The North Central Texas Council of Governments has designed a charter bus system to fill the transit gap for the nine matches AT&T Stadium will host. These are real efforts. They also show that when infrastructure is car-dependent, event-specific workarounds can reduce harm but don’t substitute for the public transit that does not exist.
What This Means Beyond the Tournament
The 2026 World Cup will be a 34-day event watched by a projected 5 million in-person fans and up to 6 billion viewers worldwide. The emissions it generates will dissipate into an atmosphere that cannot tell tournament carbon from commuting carbon. What will persist are the infrastructure choices each host city makes now, including whether transit lines are extended or not, stadium renovations that meet LEED standards or do not, food recovery programs that continue operating after the final match or get packed away with the branded signage.
These are not reasons to hate world football. It’s the Beautiful Game, and its governing body, FIFA, can make changes to reduce the tournament’s impact and protect players from heat-related injuries.
If you took one long-haul flight each year for the past decade, the world would eventually pay about $25,000 for it. You won’t see this charge on your credit card, but the cost shows up somewhere—maybe as a hotter field with less rice, a stronger hurricane, or a factory forced to close on days that are too hot to work. This estimate comes from a Nature study published in March 2026 by researchers at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. They created a new way to link damage from s
If you took one long-haul flight each year for the past decade, the world would eventually pay about $25,000 for it. You won’t see this charge on your credit card, but the cost shows up somewhere—maybe as a hotter field with less rice, a stronger hurricane, or a factory forced to close on days that are too hot to work. This estimate comes from a Nature study published in March 2026 by researchers at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. They created a new way to link damage from specific emissions to certain places and years.
That $25,000 figure is based on the social cost of carbon, a dollar estimate of the harm caused by releasing one ton of carbon dioxide into the air. While it might seem abstract, it is one of the most important numbers in American policy. It helps decide if a fuel-economy rule is worth it and influences permits for pipelines and power plants. Over the last four presidential administrations, this number has been raised, lowered, removed, and brought back. What we think a ton of carbon costs today affects how much the country is willing to do about climate change in the future.
What Is the Social Cost of Carbon?
Think of the cost of carbon like a garbage bill, the metaphor the authors of the Nature study use. When you put trash on the curb, someone has to pick it up, haul it away, and store it somewhere. You pay for that service. Carbon dioxide works the same way, except no one sends an invoice—it’s more like using a credit card, the bill for which your children or great-grandchildren will eventually pay.
Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for centuries, quietly heating the planet, damaging crops, intensifying storms, and wearing down economies. Somebody, somewhere, eventually pays. The social cost of carbon is an attempt to figure out how much.
The number comes from combining climate science with economics. Researchers model how one extra ton of CO₂ affects global temperatures over the next century or two, then estimate how those temperature changes damage human health, farm yields, labor productivity, property, and economic growth. They add up the losses and express them in today’s dollars.
Two technical choices drive almost every disagreement about the final number:
Global versus domestic damages. Should the United States count the damage that occurs in India, Brazil, or Bangladesh from American emissions? Carbon mixes in the atmosphere — a ton released in Ohio warms the planet the same as a ton released in Mumbai — so the economic case for global accounting is strong. The political case for domestic-only accounting is that the US government works for Americans.
The discount rate. This is the trickiest piece. Economists “discount” future damages to express them in present-day dollars. A higher discount rate makes future harm look cheap today; a lower one makes it look expensive. Using a 7% discount rate, $1 trillion in climate damage in 2100 is worth only about $4 billion today. Using 3%, the same damage is worth about $86 billion. Same science, same damage, twenty times the present value.
That second choice, how much weight to give your grandchildren’s losses compared to your own savings, is where climate economics becomes a moral question.
That decision created a legal obligation. If federal agencies wanted to write rules that survived court review, they had to put a price on carbon. They just did not yet have one they could agree on.
2009–2016: The Obama Administration Sets the Framework
In 2009, President Obama convened an Interagency Working Group of federal economists and scientists. In 2010, the group published its first official estimate of the social cost of carbon: $21 per ton of CO₂.
In the following years, as climate models were updated, the estimate rose, reaching about $50 per ton (2020 dollars) by the end of the Obama years. This value was based on a 3% discount rate and global damages.
That framework, which involved interagency process and peer-reviewed models with global scope, was used in more than 65 federal rules and 81 subrules between 2008 and 2016. It shaped appliance efficiency standards, power plant emission limits, fuel-economy requirements, and rules governing methane leaks from oil and gas infrastructure. A higher social cost of carbon justified stricter rules. A lower one did not.
2017–2020: The First Trump Administration Rewrites the Math
That lower number was, as Resources for the Future explained, “too low to make climate policies economically justifiable.” Rules that had provided a cost-benefit analysis supporting strict emissions rules under Obama suddenly no longer did so. The Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of Obama’s climate policy, was repealed partly on the grounds that the climate benefits recalculated with the lower number no longer exceeded the costs. According to Scientific American, the change in the social cost of carbon was “determinative” in at least half a dozen petroleum-sector rollbacks during the first Trump term. Simply, it gave emitters an easy out.
2021–2024: Biden Restores, Then Raises, The Price Sharply
Biden reinstated the working group and set an interim value of about $51 per ton, adjusted for inflation. Legal challenges from some states were dismissed.
In November 2023, EPA set a new central estimate for the social cost of carbon: $190 per ton for 2020 emissions, rising to $230 by 2030 and $308 by 2050. This increase drew on updated climate science, new economic models, a lower discount rate of 2%, and two decades of scientific progress clarifying warming’s impact on economic growth, climate-driven mortality, and previously understated risks.
Other governments took note. Canada adopted the updated EPA number in 2023. Germany adapted the underlying model for its own analyses in 2024.
2025: The Second Trump Administration Tries to Erase It
On his first day back in office, January 20, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” which disbanded the Interagency Working Group, withdrew its estimates, and directed EPA to consider eliminating the social cost of carbon from federal permitting and regulatory decisions entirely. The order called the metric “marked by logical deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the absence of a foundation in legislation.”
In March 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency would “overhaul” the social cost of carbon. In May 2025, a follow-up executive memorandum directed federal agencies to stop factoring climate-related economic damage into their regulations and permitting decisions, except where statute requires it.
Where agencies are still legally obligated to put a number on it, the administration has settled on an interim estimate of as little as $1 per ton of CO₂, a return to the first Trump administration’s methodology, with domestic-only damages and higher discount rates. The companion social cost of methane dropped from $1,470 per ton to $58. In July 2025, the White House guidance went further, instructing agencies that any required analysis should be limited to “the minimum consideration required to meet a statutory requirement” and, where possible, should not be monetized at all. The practical effect: $1 per ton on paper, $0 in most decisions.
The cycle is now in its third full reversal since 2008. Each time the number changes, so does the federal government’s willingness to regulate emissions.
What the New Research Adds
The new study in Nature does something the federal estimates have never done well: it separates past damage from future damage, and it assigns both to specific emitters. Their framework treats every ton of CO₂ as an asset that pays out negative returns; it’s a garbage bill that keeps accruing interest. Using that framework, they found three things that reshape the conversation.
A ton of CO₂ emitted in 1990 has already caused about $180 in global damages by 2020. That same ton will cause an additional $1,840 in damages between now and 2100 — 10 times more. Using the authors’ conservative assumptions, which use a 2% discount rate with damages capped at 2100, the social cost of carbon for a ton emitted today is approximately $1,013. That is more than five times the Biden EPA’s $190 estimate, and higher estimates are possible under longer time horizons or lower discount rates.
Settling the bill for climate damage that has already happened would only cover a small fraction of the damage still to come from the same emissions. Past payments do not clear past debts.
Individuals and Corporations Run Up the Carbon Bill
The study also puts numbers on the kinds of choices that fill everyday life.
One extra long-haul flight per year for a decade produces roughly $25,000 in future discounted damages by 2100.
Switching from a meat-heavy to a vegetarian diet for a decade avoids about $6,000 in future damages.
Installing and using a heat pump for a decade results in an additional $6,000 in avoided damage.
Cutting driving by 10%, another $6,000 less future cost.
At the corporate scale, the numbers are staggering. Emissions from Saudi Aramco’s fossil fuel production between 1988 and 2015 are estimated to cause $64 trillion in cumulative discounted damages through 2100. ExxonMobil’s comparable share: $29 trillion. These are bigger than the annual GDP of most countries.
Today’s Cost, Tomorrow’s Reality
The social cost of carbon can feel like a number on a page in a regulatory document. It is not. It is a bridge between the world you are living in now and the world you will inherit.
When the federal government uses a low social cost of carbon, or no number at all, it writes rules that allow more emissions. More emissions mean a hotter atmosphere, which means stronger storms, longer fire seasons, lower crop yields, higher air conditioning bills, and more days when outdoor work becomes dangerous. Those consequences do not arrive as a lump sum in 2100.
They arrive gradually, starting now, and compounding in the form of flood and wildfire damage, biodiversity loss, and even defense spending to prevent immigration. The Nature researchers emphasize that their estimates are almost certainly too low because GDP damage functions do not capture losses of biodiversity, loss of cultural homelands, harm to mental health, or many slow-moving impacts such as sea level rise.
When the federal government uses a high social cost of carbon, it writes rules that prevent emissions. Those rules have costs today, sometimes real ones, paid by workers in fossil fuel industries, by consumers adjusting to new standards, by companies retooling their operations. The social cost of carbon does not eliminate those costs. It weighs them against costs that will otherwise fall on other people, in other places, at other times. That weighing is a choice about who counts.
The history traced here is, in that sense, a history of that choice, and none of those decisions are final. Courts have repeatedly ruled that federal agencies cannot treat the value of carbon-emissions reductions as zero. The 2008 ruling that gave rise to this framework is still on the books. Whatever the current administration does, the legal obligation to account for climate damages in cost-benefit analysis remains, and the science underpinning the newer, higher estimates continues to strengthen.
An average big-budget movie creates about 3,370 metric tons of CO₂, according to the Sustainable Production Alliance’s 2021 report. That’s like driving over 700 gas-powered cars for a year, or about 33 metric tons of CO₂ for each day of filming. A single TV season can have the same impact as 108 cars. With thousands of productions happening every year in North America, Hollywood’s environmental impact is hard to overlook. Zena Harris, founder and president of Green Spark Group, has spent more t
An average big-budget movie creates about 3,370 metric tons of CO₂, according to the Sustainable Production Alliance’s 2021 report. That’s like driving over 700 gas-powered cars for a year, or about 33 metric tons of CO₂ for each day of filming. A single TV season can have the same impact as 108 cars. With thousands of productions happening every year in North America, Hollywood’s environmental impact is hard to overlook. Zena Harris, founder and president of Green Spark Group, has spent more than ten years helping the industry turn sustainability goals into practical steps that productions can track. On this episode of Sustainability In Your Ear, she shares how to build sustainable practices into film and TV projects from the very start, instead of adding them at the end when most waste has already been created. Zena started Green Spark Group in 2014 after earning a master’s in sustainability and environmental management at Harvard. She pitched Vancouver’s major studios on a simple idea: sustainability can save money. Her first big project, the X-Files reboot, managed to divert 81% of its waste across 40 filming locations. Since then, her certified B Corp consultancy has worked with Disney, NBCUniversal, Amazon, and other major studios, and she founded the Sustainable Production Forum, which is now in its tenth year.
Zena Harris, founder and president of Green Spark Group, is our guest on Sustainability In Your Ear.
This conversation comes at an important time. Soon, California’s climate disclosure laws will require studios to report emissions from every vendor in their production supply chain, both before and after filming. Zena points out that while studios are getting ready, most of their suppliers—like small companies that rent generators, handle waste, or provide lumber on tight schedules—are not prepared. The Sustainable Entertainment Alliance has released Scope 3 guidance for productions, and updated Scope 1 and 2 guidance came out in August 2025, but there is still no single tool that everyone uses. The real challenge over the next two years will be closing the gap between what studios must report and what their suppliers can provide. Zena also makes a bigger point about culture. After 12 years in the industry, she sees sustainability experts facing the same obstacles again and again because the way content is made hasn’t changed. The day-to-day work is important, but the bigger opportunity is in climate storytelling. Only about 13% of recent top-rated films mention climate change at all. Tracking the carbon footprint of a TV season is important, but what really matters is how a billion viewers see what’s normal on screen. That’s the influence Hollywood hasn’t fully used yet.
To follow Zena’s work, visit greensparkgroup.com. You can also learn more about the conference she started at sustainableproductionforum.com, or listen to her podcast, The Tie-In, which she co-hosts with Mark Rabin.
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability In Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society, and I’m your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today.
We’re going to talk about film and television, because every film and TV production starts the same way: with a creative vision, a budget, a shooting schedule, and a huge amount of stuff. Generators burn diesel all day and night at shooting locations. Trucks idle as they wait to move between locations. Sets are built from raw materials only to end up in the landfill when filming ends. Craft services rely on single-use items for literally everything that’s placed on the table for the production team.
Now multiply that by the thousands of productions happening in North America each year, and the scale of the problem becomes clear. The average feature film emits 3,370 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is like driving more than 700 gas-powered cars for a full year. And a single season of a TV show can match the emissions of 108 cars — and that’s not even counting the supply chain, everything that comes onto a set and everything that leaves. Hollywood has promised to be more sustainable many times, and our guest today has spent the last 10 years figuring out what it really takes to make these promises come to life in practice.
Zena Harris is the founder and president of Green Spark Group, a certified B Corp sustainability consultancy that she launched in 2014 with a mission to change the environmental impact of entertainment. She holds a master’s degree from Harvard in sustainability and environmental management, and she came to this work not as an environmentalist, but as a systems thinker — someone who spent her early career in engineering and HR identifying where organizations were leaking efficiency and money. But when she moved to Vancouver and discovered that nobody was focused on sustainability in what had become one of North America’s largest film production hubs, she saw a gap and filled it.
For more than a decade, she’s worked with major studios — including Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon — helping them embed sustainable practices in video production projects, and she’s developed measurable goals and built cross-industry collaborations that make lasting change possible.
She also founded the Sustainable Production Forum, which is now in its 10th year and has become the industry’s premier gathering place for turning sustainability talk into coordinated action.
We’ll talk with Zena about what it looks like when a production plans for sustainability from the very beginning, instead of adding it on at the end of the process like we usually do with all of our waste. And she’ll explain her idea of radical collaboration and why making real progress in Hollywood requires everyone — that includes unions, guilds, city governments, power companies, and those top-talent stars — to work together. We’ll also discuss how she uses the circular economy on set, the accountability gap that remains even as California’s new climate disclosure laws start to roll out, and whether the same systems-thinking approach can help business outside the film world.
To find out more about Zena’s work and Green Spark Group, visit greensparkgroup.com — that’s all one word, no space, no dash. Hollywood has the power to change how people think about sustainability, but can it also change how it works behind the scenes? Zena Harris is tackling both challenges at the same time. Let’s see what she’s discovered, right after this brief commercial break.
Mitch Ratcliffe 3:49
Welcome to the show, Zena. How you doing today?
Zena Harris 3:50
Hi. Thanks for having me. I’m doing great. The sun is shining in Tacoma, Washington, and I’m happy to be talking with you.
Mitch Ratcliffe 3:59
Well, I’m so happy to hear that you live in Tacoma. I lived there for almost 50 years. It’s a beautiful place, and I’m glad you’ve inherited it. I really like it. But you started your sustainability career in Vancouver, and you had no entertainment experience, and your first project was helping The X-Files reboot series divert material at 40 shooting locations — and you reduced their waste by 81%. What gave you the confidence to, you know, just call and say, ‘Hey, can I make you more sustainable?’
Zena Harris 4:31
It was a little more than that. You know, there was a lead-up to it. I had studied the film and TV industry in graduate school — I did my master’s thesis on it — so I had a little bit of a background. And the reason I studied it in grad school: I was in a sustainability master’s program, and I wanted to figure out how to shift culture. The first thing I thought of was, okay, people watch TV, we all love movies — that’s where I should start digging in to see what they’re doing. And they weren’t doing a ton. They were doing a little bit, but not too much.
So I talked to all the studio reps and found out what was going on and created a whole framework, like you do in graduate school, and wrote it all up. And then I pitched it to every studio. I sent out a white paper, essentially, to all the studios, and I was like, ‘Hey, let’s talk about this.’ Flew to LA, met with people in person. And I’m like, ‘I’m in Vancouver. I know it’s a major film hub. Put me to work.’ And one person did. She said, ‘Hey, you know, The X-Files is coming. It’s a big show. We have room in the budget to make this great. Let’s see what we can do.’ And that’s what really got me going.
One of the first people I met in the industry was Kelsey Evans. She is the owner of Keep It Green Recycling, which is a local vendor in Vancouver. Now, I had studied the film and TV industry, I know management practices and sustainability and the science, and she knew — like, really knew — the industry. So we worked together on that production, and we still work together today. She’s a friend of mine. She’s fantastic.
We got a lot of stuff done on that show, and that was my introduction into the film industry in practical terms. Vancouver, because it’s a major film hub, has — let’s just say — 20 shows filming at any given time. Sometimes it’s a lot more. But I knew that the work I was doing on that one show could scale. We needed to do it on all the shows. We needed to engage the industry. We needed to train people. So I started Green Spark Group as a vehicle to do this in the industry more broadly.
I think my past experience — prior to even going to grad school — in HR for a multinational company, and I was also an executive director at an international nonprofit where we had working groups and people from all over the world coming together to solve problems and create programs, all that gave me confidence to step into the film industry, look around, learn from others, apply my skills, and build this momentum locally. The company, locally, ended up — now we work across North America and even in other countries. So it’s been a journey.
Mitch Ratcliffe 7:52
Well, you point out that they said, ‘We’ve got room in the budget to make this great,’ but that isn’t always the case. So what’s the pitch to a new client?
Zena Harris 8:00
Yeah, yeah. Well, those are the magic words: ‘We can save you money.’ That is it. That’s it. I mean, look, this has been a movement over the last, let’s say, 12 years — that’s how long I’ve been working in this space. And it’s rare for folks to say, ‘Yeah, we can figure this out in the budget.’ Sometimes it happens, but most people want to know how they can save money. So if you can show them very clearly that they can save money, that pushes the door open. And then you can talk about lots of other things too.
Mitch Ratcliffe 8:43
So tell us about The Amazing Spider-Man 2. You saved them a lot of money. How’d you do it, and how much did you save them?
Zena Harris 8:48
I did not work on that. A colleague of mine, Emellie O’Brien, worked on that. That was actually one of the first productions publicized for saving a lot of money. I think they saved something like — well, I have the number here — $400,000. The cool thing about what happened with that, and also what happened with The X-Files and some others shortly thereafter, is that the studio recorded behind the scenes. They interviewed crew members to talk about what they had done. Then they published some of the stats in a case study and a video.
People in our industry love watching videos, right? So we did a behind-the-scenes for The X-Files, which caught lightning in a bottle — really created a whole movement in Vancouver. We showed that little five-minute behind-the-scenes video to everyone, and they saw their peers in that video because they were crew members speaking about what they had done. Things like that really sparked action in people and this excitement that, ‘Wow, things I have seen and kind of felt uncomfortable with — like waste, nobody likes seeing waste — people saw solutions in those videos. People saw themselves, saw their peers, and that inspired action, awareness, intrigue — like all the stuff you would want to create a movement. I can’t say enough about those early videos. They really helped kind of put us on a trajectory for more awareness and more action.
Mitch Ratcliffe 10:42
A set is kind of like a microcosm of a city. A lot of stuff comes together and then disperses again. We actually did some consulting a few years ago with Hollywood about recycling the material on site — they use the PCs for the first time and then send them to recycling. It’s amazing how wasteful it could be. Tell us about what happens on a set. What’s the input, and what’s the output?
Zena Harris 11:10
Yeah, you are right. It is definitely akin to a city. I mean, if you think about it, for a large film or TV series, there can be 20 different departments working together to make that project happen. Each of those departments brings in some kind of material, some kind of input. The production office will have lots of office supplies, equipment, office equipment, furniture for the office — that kind of thing. Those things are coming in, and then you use them, and then they go out.
Then you can think of production design and construction. These two departments work really closely together, and they’re the ones creating and then building the sets in the sound stage. You can think about all the materials that might be associated with that. Construction is a big input department, where we’re bringing in lots of wood — and other types of material. It’s not just wood, but essentially we’re building a village inside a sound stage to shoot. And it’s all the wood and any other material that goes into that: wallpaper, paint, all sorts of props, set dressing that will go into that space.
So all that’s coming in, and then we use it for a short period of time, and then we have to do something with it. A lot of times, set walls are kind of standard — they can be reused. These are things that, if we recognize the patterns here, we’re using these things all the time. We’re breaking them down, and then we do something with them. A lot of times the breakdown is fast. You don’t have a ton of opportunity to really think. But if we know that there’s a pattern associated — prep, production, and wrap every single show — we know that we can disrupt that pattern. We can plan for it.
This is where thinking ahead and planning like, ‘Hey, we can reuse these walls. Got a lot of doors here — we’re going to reuse these doors. We’re going to send them to a place that will hold them temporarily, like a reuse center, and then those can be redistributed back into the industry.’ Some productions will store this stuff on their own if they have reshoots they think they might have, or another series they might come along. So all of these are options.
The default historically has been — because this is a dynamic industry, because timelines are short, people need to get out of their stage space — to use it, break it down, put it in the dumpster, get that thing out of here, and move on. So we’re saying there’s another way to do it, and just that alone saves the production a lot of money, because those big dumpsters at the end of it all are expensive to haul away. If we can reduce even a few of those, that is a cost savings, and then that material can be diverted and reused. So everything coming in — food, big material like construction material that people think a lot about, anything coming in — has an opportunity to be diverted, redistributed on the back end. And then that action saves money.
Mitch Ratcliffe 14:59
Well, you describe what’s needed as radical collaboration. I’m wondering if you can explain what that means, because Hollywood’s going through a lot of changes right now, and it sounds like sustainability may be the keystone of some new talent or new careers during the production process. So what are the hardest stakeholders in that radical collaboration to get to move from where they are today?
Zena Harris 15:22
Yeah. I think, like I said, I’ve been doing this for a really long time, and one of the things that I’ve picked up over the years is that people in the industry have been conditioned to point fingers. There are different stakeholders in the industry. Crew will point to the union or the studio, for example, and say, ‘You know, those folks need to do something so that I can integrate sustainable practices.’ The unions will point to crew or studios. The studios will point to production or unions. And so at the end of the day, that doesn’t get us anywhere. We’re kind of swirling in this finger-pointing. And nobody really knows what to do. They’re waiting for something. So progress is slow when you do that.
In order to move the needle, I think one of the things we need to do is actually work together in ways that might seem unconventional or radical. I keep reminding myself of the saying, ‘What got us here won’t take us forward.’ So we have to get over ourselves and do something differently. We know that there’s no single organization that’s going to solve all the problems or change the existing system. We need a different approach, a different narrative around all of this — not just kind of deferring to another stakeholder.
This is what I call radical collaboration, because it’s different. Collaboration between crew and unions and studios and creatives and suppliers and industry organizations — in ways that have been different than we’ve tried before, that really haven’t worked so well, or not to the degree we wanted them to work. So instead of reinventing the wheel on that, we need a whole different tack. I think that in order to see success, we need positive reinforcement for people. We need to actually say, ‘Yes, this worked,’ and in increments too — not just the big things. When people see that positive reinforcement, they actually lean in. They actually have more confidence in what they’re doing. And then this increases momentum. That’s kind of my view of radical collaboration and what I think is needed to keep the ball rolling.
Mitch Ratcliffe 18:07
Well, you’re making a really interesting point, which is that people don’t dislike change. They may be a little afraid of it, but they want to see that the extra effort involved in making the change actually is paying off. As the orchestrator of the sustainability activities on set, how do you communicate that to them so that the Teamsters and the members of the Screen Actors Guild all say, ‘Oh, I’m in’?
Zena Harris 18:37
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it’s interesting. You mentioned a couple of different positions there — Teamsters and actors and these sorts of things. Everybody is coming to the production with a different perspective, a different viewpoint, kind of a different mandate within their department. Like, their job is to do this. So everybody sees sustainability in a slightly different way.
One of the things we really strive to do — and I would say this is kind of a standard practice, but what we’re trying to do as a team at Green Spark Group — is go beyond surface-level conversations. Not just say, ‘Here are a few things you could do,’ but really try to have a deeper conversation with people in each of these departments and ask them what they see, what they need to be successful in doing any one of the things that they might want to do differently, and really help them get there. If they’re afraid to talk to someone, well, we’ll help them do that. We will have their back. We will go with them and be a backstop for anything they may not know or feel confident talking about. If it is finding a vendor and they don’t have time to look around, we’ll help them do that.
You know, people say, ‘Meet you where you are.’ But it’s really going beyond surface-level conversations. It’s really tapping into people’s wants, needs, level of confidence, and helping them grow that and helping them shine in their role — whatever it is. I think that sort of human-centric approach is really helpful, and what really moves the needle, or actually builds trust. Because at the end of the day, we can go in there and talk about all sorts of gear. There’s a lot of gear out there. There’s a lot of batteries out there that are going to save emissions. But I have seen multiple times where batteries have been rented, they sit in the gear truck, and people are afraid to use them. Why is that? Let’s talk about that. Let’s really unpack it, and let’s find a safe space to do it. Maybe it’s that lightweight one over there, and we want to just test it out. Totally cool. Let’s make that happen. What’s it going to take to get there?
Mitch Ratcliffe 21:24
This very meta moment — talking about telling stories to storytellers to get them to change their behavior — is a great place to take a quick commercial break. Folks, we’re going to be right back to continue this really interesting conversation.
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. Let’s get back to my conversation with Zena Harris, founder and president of the Hollywood sustainability consultancy — although Vancouver, too — Green Spark Group. Zena, your mission is to change the climate of entertainment, and that has a double meaning that clearly was deliberate. But I’m wondering, in the current environment and thinking about the stories we tell about why we do things, with all the whiplashing political winds of the last couple of years, how has that changed your message and your perception of what Hollywood’s trying to accomplish?
Zena Harris 22:16
Yeah, I mean, I’ve said this a few times. We have a lot of momentum. Right now, in 2026, there are more organizations, there are more people thinking about sustainability, there are more tools out there for people to use. There’s a lot of momentum in the industry. So for us at Green Spark Group, we are on a mission to change the climate of entertainment, and it’s incremental, year over year, year over year — and so we’re still working on it. It’s very relevant for us today.
We have had a hand in changing a lot in the entertainment industry over the last 12 years. We started programs, we’ve created strategic plans for industry organizations and training in the C-suite, and started the industry’s first conference. We’re uplifting people and trying to give a platform to people to collaborate and share their ideas. But there’s a lot of opportunity out there. There are still a lot of people who are new to sustainability, and they need someone to help them make sense of it all. It’s taking all this wonderful information that’s been created by various organizations — and we’ve contributed as well — and distilling it and helping them make sense of it all, make decisions that are in line with their values, and implement the things that they want to implement. Save the money that they can save, that they know they can, when they start doing the math.
Mitch Ratcliffe 24:11
Is the money the key thing right now? Is it the sustainable savings, or is it still a commitment to the climate, in the context of, again, all the backlash against the idea of environmentalism?
Zena Harris 24:24
Yeah, I mean, the idea of environmentalism, I think, is kind of in the broader ethos. I think when you get down to talking to people one on one, they want solutions to things — waste they’ve seen, or emissions they’ve encountered on production, or food waste, or whatever it is. Whether they call themselves an environmentalist or they just are a caring and concerned person, everybody wants a positive working experience. And they don’t want that tension internally between, ‘I’m doing this great, creative, wonderful thing in my job, and then I look over here and some negative thing is happening environmentally or whatever.’ People want a holistic, positive work experience. So I think that’s core at the end of the day — to tap into that, and, like I said, just go beyond surface-level conversations and really help people figure that out.
Mitch Ratcliffe 25:35
Let me ask about the other side of that equation, about changing the climate of entertainment. Hollywood has enormous cultural reach, but we did a little research and found that only about 10%, 13% was the number we came up with, of recent top-rated films even acknowledge the idea of climate change on screen. Do you hear creatives on the content side talking about climate? Do they ask you? Do they say, ‘You know, this is interesting, I’d like to learn more, and I might tell a story about it someday’?
Zena Harris 26:05
Yeah. I mean, this idea that the industry reach is certainly enormous — the cultural influence of the industry, wherever you’re interacting with it, whether you love a character on screen, whether you follow an actor in real life and kind of just like what they do, whether you follow — like, I’m an operations kind of person, I like looking at how things work and trying to improve that. But this idea of climate storytelling, a lot of people are thinking about it right now. It’s a huge lever. You will hear that batted around a lot. A lot of industry organizations are doing research on it and trying to get into writers’ rooms and in film schools.
There’s a lot of momentum in that space. We have been engaged a few times in that effort, and it’s proven beneficial. So I would say that 13% — there’s a lot of momentum around this subject, and I can see that number increasing over time. People want stories that reflect the current reality they’re feeling in real life. There are a lot of people working in environmental jobs, or in some shape or form, and I think those kinds of professions will be reflected on screen a lot more in the future. So, yeah, I think there’s a lot of momentum in that space.
Mitch Ratcliffe 27:52
I can see a film about a ranger saving a family from a fire.
Zena Harris 27:57
You can think it, they can do it.
Mitch Ratcliffe 28:00
Let’s turn back to the operational question, as you pointed out you focus on that. One of the common problems that production has, along with every other business, is trying to fully measure what’s going on. Like we were talking about, this set is this midpoint in a very complex supply chain where stuff has flowed in, now it needs to go somewhere in order to either be reused or appropriately recycled, but we can’t fully measure all that. What’s still in the invisible category of information? In the same sense that Scope 3 emissions are hard for a typical corporation to measure, is there a comparable issue with production sustainability?
Zena Harris 28:36
Oh yeah, 100%. Look, there are always more things to measure. As an industry, we have focused a lot on carbon emissions from things like utilities, fuel, air travel, and accommodations. We have a really good handle on that. But those are, like, four categories, right? And, as you said earlier, materials are coming onto production — food, wood, office supplies, you name it, it comes onto production. So those are the things we don’t have a solid handle on. There’s embedded carbon and all that stuff.
There are also lots of industry tools, industry carbon calculators out there — some measure more than others.
Mitch Ratcliffe (interjects)
Are any of them any good?
Zena Harris (continues)
Yeah, yeah, they’re good. But some have more inputs than others. Some will only measure those four categories that I mentioned. For years, for example, everybody in the industry wants to know the waste diversion rate, right? But nobody focuses on the carbon emissions associated with that material. We just get a diversion rate, and we call it good. So you have to choose: if you want to know all of that, you have to choose a tool that will allow you to input more of that information. And we don’t have a standard tool yet in the industry that everybody uses, so we can compare apples to apples.
We have guidance in the industry, and that’s really helpful. The Sustainable Entertainment Alliance, which is an industry consortium, has put out guidance on Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3. Their Scope 3 guidance is the most recent, and with new information, new methodology, a lot of people don’t really know what to do with that, and maybe aren’t sure which tool to use to capture some of that stuff. So there’s a lot of uncertainty even around the guidance that’s out there. That’s where you can seek out professionals to help you understand all that stuff.
Mitch Ratcliffe 31:11
One of the characteristics of the change we’re undergoing right now is the recognition of externalities. And in Hollywood production generally — I have some friends who are in the industry — it seems to me that they focused almost entirely on who was in front of the camera and who was behind the camera, and only now are starting to recognize that they’re part of this deeper supply chain. And now California’s new climate disclosure laws are going to require studios to report indirect, upstream and downstream emissions from every vendor by this year. How’s that going to change? And is the industry actually getting the traction on trying to respond to that requirement?
Zena Harris 31:47
The studios are very aware of this. They’ve been preparing for this. The suppliers upstream, downstream are not as [prepared].
Mitch Ratcliffe 31:58
So how are they not prepared? What do we need to do?
Zena Harris 32:00
Well, they haven’t been tracking.
Mitch Ratcliffe 32:10
So they’re the typical company.
Zena Harris 32:13
They are a typical company. These are small companies servicing these projects, these productions. And we’ve been so focused in the industry on pre-production and production — that piece of the content creation process. So if you think of a book that has 10 chapters, we’ve been essentially focusing on one chapter. So you’ve got all of the other ones, and all of the service companies and suppliers and all of that that still incorporates the book, and all of those are contributing in some way.
Now we’ve been collecting data from waste haulers. We’ve been collecting data from people who supply equipment, and even those folks are still trying to get organized with their data. So you can imagine, like every other company, they all have their own operations. So that’s one thing. You can incorporate sustainability into your own company operations, and then you can provide data associated with the product or service that you are providing. And that’s going to matter. Those things roll up into this production reporting, and that production reporting rolls up into the larger studio, who’s going to have to incorporate that into their corporate reporting.
Mitch Ratcliffe 33:54
So do you see this regulation as catalyzing the potential for sustainability at scale in entertainment production?
Zena Harris 34:05
Yeah. I mean, I think it provides people a solid talking point to go up and shake the tree a little bit and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to have to be doing this.’ Look, they’re not going to have all the information they need, probably, in year one. So they’re going to take what they do have, and they’re going to estimate probably across their slate. And then they’re going to work really hard to make that better, more accurate in the coming years. So if you’re not asked in year one as a supplier for certain information, you might be in year two and three. It would be wise, I think, to kind of get your house in order and be able to start reporting on these things, even if you’re never asked. It’s good for you as a company, because you start to understand where your waste is, where your emissions lie, and then you can start making changes accordingly. And yes, that stuff saves money. So it’s good for everyone to be thinking about this, whether you’re asked by a studio or not.
Mitch Ratcliffe 35:16
Well, that’s really the key — that it’s also rewarding to make that kind of additional positive impact, as well as save some money and make more profit in the long run. I mean, that’s what’s rewarding about progress in general.
Zena Harris 35:30
Totally, totally. It’s a ripple effect, right? And then we just get better as an industry, and then an industry that contributes to broader society.
Mitch Ratcliffe 35:40
So after 10 years, how far has the industry come toward the vision that you had when you started Green Spark Group?
Zena Harris 35:50
Oh, gosh. Well, there’s a lot that has happened over these years. Like I said, more people are aware, more people are engaged. But I think that we are swirling within the existing system. Sustainability practitioners that started working on production like I did years ago — we just entered this existing content creation system. And what I’m noticing now is that we’re swirling within the same system. We’re all running up against similar challenges around the world with regard to implementing sustainable practices. So we’re coming up against consistent hurdles, barriers within this system.
For me, that’s an opportunity to look a little bit bigger and say, ‘Okay, well, if we keep running into the same barriers, what if the system shifted? What if the entire system shifted? What are the incentives involved in the system to keep it the way it is?’ And there’s a lot — that’s a whole separate podcast — but all to say, this is where we need to be thinking: how we shift the system, how we have that radical collaboration, how we shift the needle on what suppliers are doing and reporting, and these sorts of things. And that’s what’s going to take us to the next level. We’re going to get over the hump.
Mitch Ratcliffe 37:34
So, given that, imagine that you are Zena, goddess of sustainability, and can put your finger on one thing and change it. What would it be, in order to drive much more rapid transition to a more sustainable production environment?
Zena Harris 37:51
I mean, I think it all comes down to the people — the people in the system that are either allowing or not allowing, either making excuses or open to possibility. It all comes down to that. There are some core elements associated with people, behavior change, these sorts of things. I think mindset is core, absolutely core. I think courage — even to talk about this stuff within your small team or your department, or even in a larger conversation — is pretty critical, to voice some things you’re noticing, or what ideas you have for doing things differently. I think that collective confidence — once you do that, people get on board. They come together. Confidence is critical as well. If you don’t have it, you’re not going to take the next step, right? So there are fundamental human elements that need to be developed, to be encouraged, to be demonstrated. And I think that is going to shift the needle.
Mitch Ratcliffe 39:08
It’s a storytelling challenge in a lot of ways. There’s some carrot, there’s some stick, there’s a lot of nuance to that tale that we need to really make embedded into everybody’s approach to thinking about the work. Zena, thanks so much for your time today. How can folks follow both Green Spark Group and the work you’ve done with the Sustainable Production Forum?
Zena Harris 39:28
Sure. You’re always welcome to check out our website, greensparkgroup.com. We post insights there monthly and have a lot of great information for folks. Also on social media at @greensparkgroup — pick a platform, we’re probably on it. And then the Sustainable Production Forum is online as well, sustainableproductionforum.com, and from there you can get to all of their content, videos, anything you want to know is there too.
And I’ll also just give a quick plug for my podcast that I co-host with my longtime friend Mark Rabin. It’s called The Tie-In, and so folks can also check out stories from crew members, from people doing amazing work behind the scenes. We talk to them all there.
Mitch Ratcliffe 40:21
Zena, thanks so much. It’s been a fascinating conversation. Really enjoyed it.
Zena Harris
Thank you.
Mitch Ratcliffe 40:31
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. You’ve been listening to my conversation with Zena Harris, founder and president of Green Spark Group, the certified B Corp sustainability consultancy she launched in 2014 to change the climate of entertainment. You can find Zena and her team’s work at greensparkgroup.com — that’s all one word, no space, no dash. And check out their conference, the Sustainable Production Forum, now in its 10th year, at sustainableproductionforum.com, also all one word, no space, no dash.
I think the headline from Zena’s work is a pitch, not a principle: ‘We can save you money.’ That’s how she opens a conversation with a studio, and it’s why The Amazing Spider-Man 2 became an early case study, based on the work of a colleague of hers at Green Spark who helped that production save roughly $400,000 through sustainable practices. The implications of these savings are clear when you stand next to the dumpster at the end of a chute and watch a village’s worth of lumber, furniture, wallpaper, and props get hauled away to a landfill because the stage needs to be empty by Monday.
The sustainability opportunity in film and TV isn’t a values problem — the industry’s values are already stated on the record. It’s an operational capacity problem, and Zena’s work is translating aspiration into line items a production accountant can track. And that’s to the benefit of the environment, even if it’s not visible on the bottom line.
California’s new climate disclosure laws are about to change the equation, too. Beginning this year, studios will have to report upstream and downstream emissions from every vendor in their production supply chain. That’s the chapter of the book, as Zena put it, that the industry has never actually opened. The studios knew that this is coming, and they’ve been preparing for it. Their suppliers — the small companies servicing productions on short timelines — mostly haven’t. That gap is the real story over the next 24 months in the entertainment sustainability business.
Zena’s advice to suppliers is the same advice my recent guest Steve Wilhite, who leads Schneider Electric’s power management division, offered corporate energy buyers just a few weeks ago: get your house in order now, because even if you’re not asked for data today, you will be in two or three years. The companies that can report cleanly will win work, while those that can’t will become a balance sheet burden to the studios.
A digital nervous system is arriving now in Hollywood, and every waste hauler, every generator rental company, every lumber supplier is becoming a data-producing node in a network that didn’t exist just one or two production cycles ago. California’s environmental policy is forcing that network into being, and once it exists, it will not unbuild itself, because people are going to see the benefits. They’re going to see the savings that we’ve been talking about throughout this conversation.
And after 12 years in the business, I think Zena’s comment near the end of our conversation — that sustainability practitioners in entertainment are ‘swirling within the existing system’ — is important to note. The hurdles they hit on one production look identical to the hurdles they hit on the next, because the content creation system itself hasn’t changed. That’s the green living myth problem I discussed recently with author Michael Maniates, but with a Hollywood accent: individual actors are doing the right thing inside a structure that continues to produce the same outputs by default. And that can easily become disenchanting. On-set greening is necessary and it’s real, but the industry’s deepest cultural lever is the one that we discussed in passing.
Only about 13% of recent top-rated films even acknowledge climate change on screen. The carbon accounting for a single TV season matters, but the cultural accounting — for what a billion viewers see, what they feel is normal, and what film and television characters drive and eat and care about — that’s the lever that this industry hasn’t yet pulled. Production sustainability builds the operational muscle and the credibility, but climate storytelling is where that credibility will be built at scale, because it will spread these ideas, changing not only Hollywood’s practices, but the practices of an entire world. One without the other leaves the most influential narrative engine on the planet running on the old script, and it’s time for a change.
So stay tuned. We’re going to keep talking with people rewriting what’s possible on set and on screen. And could you take a moment to help spread the word about the sustainable future we can build together? You are the amplifier that can spread more ideas to create less waste. So please take a look at any of the more than 550 episodes of Sustainability In Your Ear in our archives. Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us. So please tell your friends, family, and co-workers they can find Sustainability In Your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness they prefer.
Thank you, folks, for your support. I’m Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability In Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, take care of yourself, take care of one another, and let’s all take care of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.
The average American discards roughly 82 pounds of clothing and textiles each year — and most of it lands in a landfill. According to the EPA, more than 17 million tons of textiles were generated as municipal solid waste in 2018, a figure the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed was more than 50% higher than in 2000 due largely to the rise of fast fashion. And the recycling rate for clothing and footwear? Just 13%.
Denim is one of the most salvageable things in that waste stream. Beca
The average American discards roughly 82 pounds of clothing and textiles each year — and most of it lands in a landfill. According to the EPA, more than 17 million tons of textiles were generated as municipal solid waste in 2018, a figure the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed was more than 50% higher than in 2000 due largely to the rise of fast fashion. And the recycling rate for clothing and footwear? Just 13%.
Denim is one of the most salvageable things in that waste stream. Because authentic jeans are made mostly from cotton, a natural, biodegradable fiber, they can be recycled into building insulation, pet bed inserts, and thermal packaging, or given a second life through resale and creative reuse.
Here are five ways to put your worn-out jeans to work, and have some fun doing it.
1. Your unwanted denim can be turned into insulation.
Cotton Incorporated’s Blue Jeans Go Green program has been recycling denim into insulation since 2006. Since then, the program has collected more than 5 million pieces of denim and diverted over 2,290 tons of textile waste from landfills. That recycled fiber gets processed into UltraTouch™ Denim Insulation by Bonded Logic — used in homes, thermal packaging, and pet bedding — with some insulation donated each year to building projects in communities in need.
The program accepts any denim item (jeans, jackets, skirts, shirts) that’s at least 90% cotton, in any condition. Drop off locations include Anthropologie, which has committed to diverting 10 tons through the program, and a rotating list of retail partners you can find on the Blue Jeans Go Green recycle page.
You can also mail denim directly to the program at Cotton’s Blue Jeans Go Green™ Program c/o Phoenix Fibers – CIMI, 400 East Ray Road, Chandler, AZ 85225 (a free prepaid label program ended in August 2025, so you’ll need to cover shipping).
Madewell’s denim trade-up program is one of the most practical ways to close the loop on old jeans, regardless of the brand. Drop any pair of jeans of any cut, color, or condition at a Madewell store and receive $20 off a full-priced pair of Madewell jeans. The program is year-round with no limit on how many pairs you bring in.
The program has collected more than 2.3 million preloved pieces. Gently worn jeans are resold through Madewell Forever, the brand’s resale platform with ThredUp; jeans beyond repair are recycled into housing insulation and sustainable packaging via the Blue Jeans Go Green partnership.
You can also mail in denim with a free Clean Out Kit or shipping label if you don’t have a Madewell nearby.
2. Turn your denim into a pair of shorts.
This is probably the easiest way to repurpose a pair of jeans. Even if you don’t sew, you can make long jeans into shorts. Get a pair of sharp scissors, figure out where you want to cut, and then enjoy your new shorts. Remember the old saying, “measure twice, and cut once.” If you’re a sewer (or good with a glue gun), check out this tutorial by Craft & Creativity for some adorable additions to cutoffs.
3. Upcycle your denim into a reusable bag.
One of my favorite ways to upcycle denim is by making reusable bags. You can use the bags as an adorable way to package a gift, as a purse, and as a reusable grocery carrier, just to name a few. I also found this creative phone charging bag. This is another project that could be done simply with a glue gun or, if you don’t have one, some craft glue.
4. Upcycle your denim into some sweet friendship bracelets.
One of my girls’ favorite projects is to upcycle material, including denim, into friendship bracelets. They are able to use their creativity and make each bracelet a special work of art. First, gather supplies like fun buttons, embroidery floss, and any other embellishments you may have on hand. Then cut the denim into strips.
Next is where the fun really begins. Let your kids use their imaginations to dream up some adorable ways to decorate their friendship bracelets. They could even begin by sketching out their ideas so you know how to help them make their vision a reality.
Your kiddos can wear their bracelets proudly and give them as gifts.
5. Make a craft supply holder with your unwanted jeans and some cans from the recycling bin.
This is a great idea for anyone who wants to organize their craft supplies in one spot. You could make it a kid-friendly craft supply holder by including washable markers, colored pencils, safety scissors and glue sticks. Add a handle and this could be a great way to bring craft supplies on the road with you. I found this example at 8Trends.com.
Denim scraps also work well as ties for garden plants, drawer liners, coasters (backed with felt), small coin pouches, and journal covers. Because denim frays attractively rather than looking ragged, even imperfect cuts tend to look intentional. There’s also a growing community of textile artists on Pinterest’s denim upcycle boards with ideas organized by skill level and material quantity.
Your old jeans are too valuable to throw away. If they’re still wearable, donate them to a local thrift store or trade them in at Madewell. If they’re worn out, recycle them through Blue Jeans Go Green — or cut them into something new. Use Earth911’s Recycling Search to find textile recycling drop-off spots near you.
Editor’s Note: Originally published by Wendy Gabriel on February 6, 2017, this article was updated in April 2026. Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock.com.
Earth911 inspirations. Print them, post them, share your desire to help people think of the planet first, every day.
Today’s quote is from primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall: “The greatest danger to our future is apathy.”
This poster was originally published on May 17, 2019.
The post Earth911 Inspiration: The Greatest Danger to Our Future Is Apathy appeared first on Earth911.
Forty thousand miles of plastic waste wash through the global ocean every year, enough to wrap the Earth at the equator. But walk into the right store, and you can personally shorten that pipeline by a few feet, returning a pair of worn sneakers, a dead laptop, or a piece of furniture destined for the dumpster.
Some retailers have built genuine end-of-life infrastructure for the products they sell — not just a PR line, but real systems with documented results. The seven below have the numbers to
Forty thousand miles of plastic waste wash through the global ocean every year, enough to wrap the Earth at the equator. But walk into the right store, and you can personally shorten that pipeline by a few feet, returning a pair of worn sneakers, a dead laptop, or a piece of furniture destined for the dumpster.
Some retailers have built genuine end-of-life infrastructure for the products they sell — not just a PR line, but real systems with documented results. The seven below have the numbers to back it up, updated for 2026.
Patagonia
Patagonia’s Worn Wear program remains one of the most comprehensive take-back systems in retail apparel. In 2025, customers made more than 137,000 trade-ins — almost 71,000 of them from return and warranty claims — and the online Shop Used feature launched in September 2024 has expanded the secondhand market significantly. Items deemed wearable are cleaned, repaired, and resold through Worn Wear; those beyond repair enter a recycling pipeline.
On the material innovation side, Patagonia partnered with Eastman in 2024 to process 8,000 pounds of pre- and post-consumer clothing waste through molecular recycling — breaking apparel down to chemical building blocks for reuse as new fiber. The brand has also moved aggressively on materials: by fall 2025, over 90 percent of Patagonia’s fabrics were recycled, organic, or traceable. Its 2025 Work in Progress Report disclosed that reducing hang tags by over 40 million pieces has avoided 170,000 pounds of packaging waste. The structural challenge — mechanically recycling blended fabrics — remains unsolved at industrial scale, and Patagonia acknowledges it openly.
Apple
Apple’s trade-in and recycling program sent 15.9 million devices to new owners through refurbishment schemes in 2024 alone. Devices that cannot be refurbished are processed by Daisy, Apple’s disassembly robot, which can now break down 36 models of iPhone into discrete components to recover aluminum, copper, rare earth elements, and other materials. A second robot, Dave, disassembles Taptic Engines to recover rare earth magnets, tungsten, and steel.
The material-recovery numbers are striking. In 2024, 24 percent of all materials shipped in Apple products came from recycled or renewable sources, up from 10 percent in 2019. Recycled aluminum accounted for 71 percent of the aluminum Apple purchased. The company avoided 6.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by using recycled and low-carbon materials in 2024, according to its 2025 Environmental Progress Report. Apple has also surpassed 99 percent on its 2025 goal to use 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets and 100 percent recycled cobalt in all Apple-designed batteries. Customers can drop devices off at any Apple Store or ship for free.
Best Buy
Best Buy has collected 2.7 billion pounds of electronics and appliances since launching its recycling program in 2009, making it the nation’s largest retail collector of e-waste. The program accepts most consumer electronics at more than 1,000 stores regardless of where items were purchased, collecting more than 400 pounds of product every minute stores are open.
The program has expanded: a mail-in recycling service now lets customers without easy store access ship old tech in purpose-built boxes. A home haul-away service launched for customers who cannot transport large items. Best Buy requires all recycling partners to comply with rigorous environmental management standards and holds them to regulatory compliance and responsible workforce practices. TVs and monitors carry a $25 fee; most other electronics — phones, laptops, tablets, cables — are accepted free.
Nike
Nike’s original Reuse-a-Shoe program launched in 1995 to recycle worn athletic footwear into Nike Grind material for surfaces and new products has evolved into the Recycling + Donation (RAD) service, now available globally.
The program accepts athletic footwear and apparel from any brand and inspects each item to determine donation or recycling eligibility. Wearable items go to nonprofit partners including Soles4Souls for redistribution to communities in need; worn-out footwear is ground down into Nike Grind, which goes into playground surfaces, running tracks, and new Nike products.
Part of Nike’s Move to Zero initiative, targeting zero carbon and zero waste across the supply chain, the Participating stores accept shoes of any brand — athletic footwear only; no cleats, boots, or sandals. Nike also runs Nike Refurbished, which cleans and resells gently worn or slightly imperfect footwear and apparel at select factory and community stores, extending product life before material recovery.
Staples
Staples pioneered national retail recycling in 2007 as the first U.S. retailer to offer a universal e-waste takeback program. Today the program accepts over 50 types of materials including computers, printers, phones, cables, batteries, crayons, and coffee machines from any brand. Since 2021, Staples has recycled 7,000 tons of e-waste and 19 million ink and toner cartridges, helping HP reach a milestone of 1 billion cartridges recycled.
Staples’ Easy Rewards program currently gives members 500 points (equivalent to $5 back) per month for tech recycling. Ink and toner cartridge recycling earns $2 per cartridge for members spending at least $30 on ink over the previous 180 days, up to a monthly limit. Staples uses certified recyclers whenever possible, and recycled toner material gets routed into road construction aggregate. The company accepts electronics in-store at customer service desks at all U.S. Staples locations.
IKEA
Furniture is the United States’ largest category of discarded household goods, with Americans throwing away approximately 12 million tons of it each year. IKEA’s Buyback & Resell program addresses the problem at the point of sale: customers fill out an online form, receive a value estimate, and bring gently used IKEA furniture to any participating store in exchange for store credit. Items that pass inspection enter the As-Is section for resale; those that cannot be resold are recycled under IKEA’s zero-waste-to-landfill policy.
The U.S. program now runs in 33 stores and, as of 2025, accepts more than 5,000 product types, including tables, chairs, storage units, lamps, and kids’ furniture among many. Globally, IKEA’s circular initiatives contributed to a 24.3 percent reduction in the company’s climate footprint while revenue grew 30.9 percent. Sofas, mattresses, and modified products are not accepted. IKEA Family members currently receive 50 percent more in store credit through May 2026.
REI
REI’s Re/Supply program sold nearly 1.4 million items of used outdoor gear in 2024, double the volume from 2019. The program accepts trade-ins of gently used REI-brand and name-brand gear including backpacks, sleeping bags, tents, and apparel. Members receive store credit; items are inspected, cleaned, and resold at a discount. Selling a used item through Re/Supply emits at least 50 percent less carbon than selling a new equivalent, even accounting for shipping, cleaning, and remerchandising.
REI also became the first major U.S. retailer to reach 90 percent operational waste diversion, achieving zero-waste certification in 2024 that audited and independently verified — ahead of Walmart and Target. Three of its distribution centers hold TRUE Zero Waste certification. In 2024, about 52 percent of the polyester and 45 percent of the nylon in REI Co-op products came from recycled sources. REI also charges brand partners a recycling fee to discourage individual plastic poly bags, and the majority of brands it carries have eliminated them as standard practice.
More than 400,000 tons of release liner waste are generated in the United States every year — and the vast majority ends up in the landfill. You know these slick sheets: they’re the backing on address labels, shipping labels, postage stamps, and every sticker you’ve ever peeled. They look like paper, they tear like paper, but your recycling bin can’t process them like paper.
Label backing sheets, known in industry as release liners, are a hybrid material that confounds conventional recycling sys
More than 400,000 tons of release liner waste are generated in the United States every year — and the vast majority ends up in the landfill. You know these slick sheets: they’re the backing on address labels, shipping labels, postage stamps, and every sticker you’ve ever peeled. They look like paper, they tear like paper, but your recycling bin can’t process them like paper.
Label backing sheets, known in industry as release liners, are a hybrid material that confounds conventional recycling systems. Understanding why helps you avoid contaminating your curbside bin, and points toward where real solutions are emerging.
What Makes Release Liners So Hard to Recycle
The paper component of most label backing sheets is called glassine, a highly processed, translucent paper whose fibers have been flattened and aligned to create a smooth surface. Glassine has uses in food wrappers, pastry bags, and envelopes, but its compressed fibers yield very little usable pulp in the recycling process. The paper market runs on fiber strength, and glassine simply doesn’t have it.
The second problem is the coating. Release liners are treated with a release agent — almost always silicone — that prevents labels from permanently bonding to the backing. This silicone layer is what allows you to peel cleanly. It’s also what makes recycling nearly impossible at most facilities; the coating can’t be removed without specialized processing, and when it contaminates paper recycling streams, it degrades the quality of the resulting pulp and can jam machinery.
A third issue is material variation. Some liners use plastic film made from PET (#1 plastic) or polypropylene (#5 plastic) instead of paper as their base, adding another layer of complexity. Without knowing what type of liner you have, there’s no reliable way to route it into a specialized program.
Industry data suggests that historically only about 1–1.5% of liner waste has been recycled. More recent label industry reports put the overall global recycling rate at around 35%, but that figure is heavily skewed by industrial-scale programs in Europe and at large commercial facilities.
For the consumer peeling address labels at home, the recycling rate is effectively zero.
The Bottom Line for Consumers: Not Curbside
Label backing sheets from home use, such as the backing sheet from a page of address labels, the liner from a sheet of postage stamps, the wax paper-like sheet from a roll of stickers, do not belong in curbside recycling. Placing them in the recycling bin contaminates cleaner paper streams and does not help the material reach an appropriate end market.
The exception is if you can verify that your liner is an uncoated, matte paperboard with no silicone feel. That type may be recyclable as regular paper in some municipalities, but it’s uncommon for consumer label products. When in doubt, trash it — a wrong recycling choice is worse than no recycling choice.
Don’t put silicone-coated liners in composting either. The coating prevents biodegradation and will contaminate the compost.
The Label Industry Responds
The past two years have brought significant movement on release liner recycling, almost entirely at the commercial and industrial scale — so, still not helpful for curbside recycling but it promise more mail-in options.
The Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute launched its Liner Recycling Initiative (LRI) in 2024, partnering with paper mill Sustana Fiber. Sustana’s mills in De Pere, Wisconsin and Levis, Quebec can process white silicone-coated paper release liner and remove silicone alongside inks and other contaminants. The LRI is running regional pilots in Chicagoland and the Northeast U.S., with aggregation drop-off locations in Boston, Buffalo, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Wallingford CT, and three Canadian cities.
Avery Dennison’s AD Circular program, which connects commercial label brands and large businesses in the U.S. with vetted recycling providers for liner waste, is designed to kickstart a circular economy in label backing. The company has also partnered with Mitsubishi Chemical’s Polyester Film division for a closed-loop PET liner recycling program. These programs are designed for businesses generating consistent volumes of liner, not for household use.
UPM Raflatac’s RafCycle program provides a similar commercial liner recycling network in the U.S. and Canada, converting used liners into recycled paper, insulation material, and other products.
In 2025, labeling company SATO launched a recycling program at its Kitakami, Japan facility to recycle approximately 19 tons of silicone-coated release liners annually.
Sustainable Alternatives Are Growing
The most direct solution to the release liner problem is eliminating the liner altogether. Linerless label technology applies a special release coating directly to the face of the label, allowing rolls to wind without sticking to adjacent layers. These labels generate no backing waste, and rolls contain significantly more labels per roll, reducing material use and shipping weight.
For consumers who buy labels directly for home organizing, shipping, or small business use, EcoEnclose offers a patent-protected Zero Waste Release Liner made from 100% post-consumer waste that is curbside recyclable alongside regular paper. Their shipping labels, product labels, and sticker sheets use this liner. It’s the only liner of its kind currently available at consumer scale.
What You Can Do
Do not put label backing sheets in curbside recycling or compost — silicone coatings contaminate both paper and compost streams.
If you produce label liner regularly at a business, check the TLMI Liner Recycling Map at com for aggregation sites near the Northeast or Midwest U.S. pilots.
Look for linerless label options when purchasing labels for shipping, home organization, or small business use. They cost roughly the same and eliminate the waste problem entirely.
If sustainable sourcing matters to you, EcoEnclose‘s Zero Waste Liner products are curbside recyclable, a rare consumer-accessible option.
Reuse intact backing sheets as non-stick craft surfaces, interleaving material, or temporary labels before discarding.
More Americans than ever think the environment is in bad shape, and they want the government to do something about it. According to a new Gallup poll released last week, only 35% of U.S. adults rate the overall quality of the environment as good or excellent. That’s the lowest number Gallup has recorded since it started asking the question in 2001.
It’s not just one or two things people are worried about. Drinking water, rivers and lakes, climate change, air pollution, endangered species. Concer
More Americans than ever think the environment is in bad shape, and they want the government to do something about it. According to a new Gallup poll released last week, only 35% of U.S. adults rate the overall quality of the environment as good or excellent. That’s the lowest number Gallup has recorded since it started asking the question in 2001.
It’s not just one or two things people are worried about. Drinking water, rivers and lakes, climate change, air pollution, endangered species. Concerns are on the rise across the board.
What People Are Most Worried About
Water is the top concern, and it has been for over two decades. More than half of Americans — 56% — say they worry “a great deal” about drinking water pollution. Another 53% say the same about the country’s fresh water supply. Half are deeply worried about pollution in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.
Climate change isn’t far behind. A companion Gallup climate report finds that 44% of Americans worry “a great deal” about global warming, close to the all-time high of 46% recorded in 2020. Two out of three Americans say they worry at least “a fair amount.”
The poll also found that 57% of Americans now think the government is doing too little to protect the environment. That’s up from 50% just a year ago, a significant jump in a short time and in the face of an administration dedicated to dismantling U.S. environmental regulations.
While Democrats worry more than Republicans on nearly every issue, independent voters — often the key swing group in elections — have shifted sharply toward deep concern about the nation’s direction: 61% now say the government isn’t doing enough, up from 52% last year.
So What Has Congress Actually Done?
While public concern has been rising, the 119th Congress, which took office in January 2025 with Republicans in control of both chambers, has been rolling back environmental protections at a record pace.
The main tool has been the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a law that lets Congress cancel recently issued regulations with a simple majority vote. In 2025 alone, Congress passed 22 CRA resolutions into law, more than the total number of successful CRA rollbacks in the entire prior history of the law. Most targeted the EPA.
Among the protections eliminated: a rule charging oil and gas companies for methane pollution, standards regulating hazardous air emissions from rubber tire manufacturing, and California’s authority to set stricter vehicle emissions standards, overturned despite a determination by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office that those waivers weren’t even legally subject to repeal.
Meanwhile, pro-environment bills have gone nowhere. The Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act, which would require fossil fuel companies to pay into a $1 trillion climate fund, has gone undebated in committee since January 2025. The Clean Competition Act, a bipartisan carbon border adjustment that would reward cleaner American manufacturers, has also stalled.
The public says it wants more action on the environment. Congress has delivered less.
Tell Your Lawmakers How You Feel
The good news: this is exactly the kind of issue where public pressure can matter. Here’s how to make your voice heard:
Ask specifically whether they support fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund and passing the Clean Competition Act.
Share the Gallup poll results with friends, neighbors, and on social media. Public awareness drives political action. Take a stand for the environment you want.
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What we call waste is really just misallocated feedstock—raw materials waiting to be cycled back into the next generation of products and packaging. According to research by the World Economic Forum and United Nations Development Programme, the circular economy could unlock $4.5 trillion in new global value by 2030, and investors are racing to capture part of that opportunity. Meet Elizabeth Blankenship-Singh, Director of Inn
What we call waste is really just misallocated feedstock—raw materials waiting to be cycled back into the next generation of products and packaging. According to research by the World Economic Forum and United Nations Development Programme, the circular economy could unlock $4.5 trillion in new global value by 2030, and investors are racing to capture part of that opportunity. Meet Elizabeth Blankenship-Singh, Director of Innovation at Overlay Capital, an Atlanta-based alternative investment firm whose Waste and Materials Fund is backing both early-stage materials innovators and later-stage recycling operations with established infrastructure. Overlay’s strategy involves investing in innovation and implementation simultaneously—in both startups and established companies—to accelerate progress across multiple layers of the circular economy. It offers a window into where smart money sees the materials transition heading.
Elizabeth Blankenship-Singh, Director of Innovation at Overlay Capital, is our guest on Sustainability In Your Ear.
Elizabeth explains that sortation is the biggest bottleneck at the materials recycling facilities (MRFs) your garbage and recycling are sent to after curbside collection. The U.S. is simultaneously the world’s leading exporter of scrap aluminum and the number one importer of finished aluminum, because we’ve lacked domestic sorting capacity. Overlay has invested in companies like AMP Robotics, which recently closed a 20-year contract with SPSA, a southeastern Virginia municipal authority, to sort all recyclables from four to five cities using AI-driven systems. When you fix sortation, she says, you trigger a domino effect: recycling rates climb, landfill life extends, and margins improve as higher-purity materials command premium prices.
Overlay’s portfolio also includes next-generation materials companies united by a common thesis: they must be better, faster, cheaper, and more sustainable than what they replace. Cruz Foam converts chitin from shrimp shells into compostable packaging foam. Simplifyber uses cellulose to create biodegradable soft goods through 3D molding, bypassing traditional textile manufacturing entirely. Terra CO2 just closed a $124 million Series B to scale low-carbon cement technology that could cut into concrete’s 8% share of annual global CO2 emissions. Each uses abundant, waste-derived feedstocks and has achieved or is on a clear path to price parity with incumbents.
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