Goodbye in 2025: What and whom we lost this year

In the wake of Jane Goodall’s death Oct. 1 at 91, Kelly Fisher, HSBC’s head of corporate sustainability for the Americas, observed that one of the best ways to honor the legendary British conservationist is to mimic the positivity and hope with which she approached her work.

“She said that hope wasn’t a passive thing, that hope was active, but had to be actionable,” Fisher told me at Trellis Impact 25. “I think what she was telling us is that without hope, there is no progress.”

That’s difficult to remember when considering all the ways the corporate climate movement was undermined in 2025, some summarized with brief memorials below. But sustainability teams have always faced headwinds. Our losses in 2025 leave openings for new creativity and innovation in 2026.

The Inflation Reduction Act

Most people thought President Joe Biden’s signature climate policy — which dedicated $391 billion to clean energy — was safe under a second Trump presidency. But the administration has dismantled the solar and wind incentives and climate-tech investments that the IRA provided, through executive orders and the Republican budget bill that became law in July.    

The term ‘carbon neutral’

Successful legal challenges against climate claims — including a German court ruling in August against Apple and a still pending case against Delta Air Lines — have made it riskier for companies to describe themselves as “carbon neutral.” Roughly one-third of the world’s largest companies still have a carbon neutrality target, but more, including Google and Gucci, have moved away from the term or use it more sparingly in their marketing.

The SEC’s climate disclosure rule

The Securities and Exchange Commission in March 2024 voted to require public companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and material risks related to climate change, a move meant to standardize disclosures and allow for investor comparison. The rule was challenged immediately by Republican states, companies and environmental groups. Trump’s SEC said it won’t fight to save the rule, and its status remains in limbo.

The strictest EU reporting regulations

Legislators for the European Union in early December agreed to a rewrite of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, letting all but the largest multinational companies off the hook. The change also eliminates the requirement to publish climate transition plans.  

America’s offshore wind industry

President Donald Trump launched an assault on U.S. offshore wind projects immediately after his Jan. 20 inauguration, issuing an executive order halting all wind projects on federal lands or waters. The administration later stripped $679 million in funding and canceled permits for an industry once expected to attract $65 billion in investment by 2030. Developers have litigated successfully against the “capricious” policy, but many new projects have been shelved.

The ‘NREL’

The Department of Energy renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory on Dec. 1 to reflect the administration’s “broader applied energy mission” — and its bias against solar and wind. It’s now called the National Laboratory of the Rockies, with a focus on technologies that will “restore American manufacturing” and help the U.S. meet soaring energy demand.

Prospects for a plastics treaty

Talks aimed at finalizing a global agreement that would govern the life-cycle management of plastics broke down in August after oil-producing countries refused to accept proposed production limits. That leaves companies responsible for monitoring and complying with dozens of extended producer responsibility regulations around the world and across the U.S. 

Thousands of federal climate experts

The Trump administration’s purge of environmental scientists and renewable energy specialists decimated the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Department of the Interior. The EPA alone cut at least one-quarter of its workforce by July, more than 3,700 people, between layoffs and buyouts. Bright side: many of these individuals are starting to become changemakers in the private sector.