The Green 30 for 2020
The pioneers, leaders, and ideas that are trying to solve the climate crisis.
The climate crisis seems to get worse with each passing day as stories about wildfires, droughts, and floods inundate our news feeds. But there are rays of hope, if you know where to look. Bloomberg reporters and editors have identified 30 people, organizations, and trends that are offering possible solutions to the emergency. Some are familiar: Elon Musk or Mark Carney, for instance. But others have received less attention, such as the Green politicians who could soon be running the world’s fourth-largest economy. The Green 30 is not intended to be exhaustive. It’s more of an introduction to some of the most interesting entrepreneurs, policymakers, engineers, and thinkers to watch in 2020.
Mário Araripe
Founder and CEO of Casa dos Ventos Energias Renovaveis SA
Wind
Araripe had just sold a diesel-burning carmaker to Ford Motor Co. when, in 2007, he decided to invest in the strong winds that blow over Brazil’s northeast. Since then his company, Casa dosVentos, has become a symbol of the rise of wind power in Brazil. Wind is now Brazil’s third-largest source of electricity, and the company has developed about one out of every three wind farm projects in operation or under construction. In 2017, Araripe became Brazil’s first wind energy billionaire. This year the company plans to start operating a wind farm that will supply energy to mining giant Vale SA, the largest renewable energy contract ever signed in Brazil. —Gerson Freitas Jr.
Green Fact
Under
Araripe the company has become Brazil’s largest developer of wind power.
Sir David Attenborough
BBC broadcaster and natural historian
Documentaries
Attenborough has been one of Britain’s most famous broadcasters for decades. But it was his 2017 documentary series, Blue Planet II, that went truly viral with its heart-rending images showing how plastic waste is destroying marine life. The show ignited global anger about the scale of ocean pollution, making it arguably one of the most influential documentary series ever made. “We cannot be radical enough in dealing with these issues,” Attenborough said last year. He will release a film in 2020, A Life on Our Planet, in which he will reflect on his career as a naturalist and the biggest challenges facing the world. —Laura Millan Lombrana
Green Fact
His documentary series Our Planet, released on Netflix in April 2019, was watched by 33 million households in its first four weeks. It’s won two Emmy awards.
Mike Cannon-Brookes
Co-CEO and co-founder, Atlassian Corp.
Tech
As wildfires rage across Australia, no public figure has been more outspoken about the government and
its Big Coal backers than Cannon-Brookes. For years he’s wielded his Twitter
account like a cudgel against Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose government
has downplayed the links between climate change and the deadly blazes. At the
same time, Cannon-Brookes is also pouring billions into clean-tech ventures. A
2017 tweet to Elon Musk led to the construction of a massive battery storage
facility in Southern Australia. In 2020, Cannon-Brookes will be stumping for
his biggest green-tech gamble of all, backing a $20 billion project to build
the world’s largest solar farm in the Northern Territory. —Ashlee Vance
Green Fact
Last year,
Cannon-Brookes committed his software company to running on 100%
renewable energy by 2025.
Mark Carney
UN special envoy for climate action and finance
Finance
Bank of England Governor Carney has played a pioneering role in making the financial industry wake up to the threat of global warming. In 2015 he warned of a Minsky moment, when angst about climate change could spark a collapse in asset prices. As head of the Financial Stability Board, he spearheaded the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, which calls on companies to make disclosures about their climate risks. The Bank of England is planning the world’s most thorough climate stress tests of banks and insurers in 2021; it could provide a model for other central banks. Carney will continue his climate work after he steps down from the BOE in March, and as UN special envoy he’ll focus on mobilizing private finance to help achieve the Paris climate goals in the runup to the COP meeting in Glasgow, Scotland in 2020. —Jill Ward
Green Fact
Out of the 17 publicly available speeches Mark Carney made as BOE Governor in 2019, seven discussed climate change. He mentioned Brexit in five.
Wang Chuanfu
Founder and chairman, BYD Co.
Cars
Wang, an engineer, founded BYD as a cellphone battery maker in 1995 and expanded into automaking in 2002, when battery-powered cars were curiosities. Wang wants to turn BYD into an indispensable part of the electric revolution sweeping the car industry to combat the growing scourge of air pollution, particularly in China. In fact, BYD was the world’s biggest EV manufacturer until Tesla surpassed it at the end of last year. Batteries are a key part of Wang’s strategy, so expect BYD to keep ramping up development and production in 2020, despite the slowdown in China’s domestic EV market. —Ying Tian
Green Fact
Last year, BYD’s electric taxi and bus fleets reduced carbon dioxide emissions by about 2.22 million tons in Shenzhen.
Climate Action 100+
Activist asset managers
Finance
Born on the sidelines of the 2015 Paris climate accord, Climate Action 100+ has become
a powerful force pressuring the world’s megacorporations. Consisting of more
than 350 large and small asset managers worth $41 trillion, the coalition
spends its time talking to boards of directors, filing shareholder resolutions,
and using annual general meeting votes to force companies to adopt
climate-friendly policies. It’s had some big successes, including strong-arming
Royal Dutch Shell Plc. and Nestlé SA to reduce carbon emissions. In 2020 the
group will continue to petition big polluters, asking the companies to clarify
how their corporate lobbying aligns with the Paris agreement. —Kelly Gilblom
Green Fact
In
February the group persuaded Glencore Plc, one of the world's biggest coal suppliers, to cut its annual coal production.
The ESG Debate
Environmental, social, and governance investing
Finance
Outgoing Bank of England Governor Mark Carney says climate change will affect the value of virtually every financial asset, but how do investors measure that impact? That’s where ESG comes in. Taking an ESG approach involves scoring information about a company—such as carbon emissions and safety at work. As climate concerns have escalated, ESG has gone from niche to mainstream. Investors scrambled to introduce ESG funds, sales of green bonds skyrocketed, and companies and policymakers began to take action. But the debate rages about what counts as sustainable. In the U.S. many investors look at the muddle of different methods and data, and wonder if there’s enough tangible benefit in doing good, especially if it risks lower returns. In Europe, banks are competing to demonstrate their goodness. In 2020 the European Union plans to issue a taxonomy of sustainable finance, which will go further than ever before at defining what’s “green.” —Tom Freke
Green Fact
Investments in ESG assets total more than $30 trillion.
The Fake Meat Pioneers
Ethan Brown, founder and CEO, Beyond Meat Inc. Pat Brown, founder and CEO, Impossible Foods Inc.
Food
In 2019 plant-based meat found its
moment. After years of drumbeating by environmentalists, the damage done by the
overconsumption of animals—accounting for 14.5% of man-made global greenhouse
gases, not to mention water and air pollution—finally sank in. Consumers
flocked to the patties, crumbles, and sausages that Impossible Foods and Beyond
Meat are selling. (The two Browns are not related.) The companies have announced
major partnerships with megachains Burger King (Impossible) and Dunkin’ (Beyond
Meat). The next challenge: penetrating
China. —Deena Shanker
Green Fact
Impossible’s
product is available in more than 17,000 restaurants; Beyond Meat’s can be
found in more than 67,000 locations.
Pamela Fletcher
Vice president for innovation, General Motors Co.
Cars
Fletcher has been on the leading edge of advancing GM’s green vehicles for more than a decade. She played a key role in the making of the Chevy Volt, and after that she led development of the second-generation Volt, the Cadillac ELR plug-in, and the Chevrolet Bolt EV. Her team also led development of Super Cruise, Cadillac’s hands-free driving system that lets drivers take their hands off the wheel while coasting on the highway. She’s now working on achieving GM’s promise to sell 20 electric vehicle models globally by 2023. GM will show off the first one this year when it is expected to unveil a new electric Cadillac. —David Welch
Green Fact
In August, GM increased the range of the Chevrolet Volt from 238 miles to 259.
José Ignacio Sánchez Galán
Chairman and CEO, Iberdrola SA
Electricity
One of Spain’s most influential executives and one of the most
outspoken on climate issues, Galán is proof that large companies can cut
emissions and remain profitable. He transformed Iberdrola from a traditional
utility company with a large fleet of coal to one that gets almost
two-thirds of its energy from renewable sources. During his tenure the
company’s market capitalization has more than doubled. Iberdrola is now a
multinational corporation with a presence in 30 countries providing electricity
to more than 100 million people. Under his leadership, Iberdrola has become the
world’s largest wind power generator. The utility will close its two last
remaining coal power plants in 2020, Lada and Velilla, both in Spain. —Laura Millan Lombrana
Green Fact
Last year
the company finished installing 1.43 million solar panels at its Núñez
de Balboa solar farm, Europe’s largest solar power installation.
Bill Gates
Philanthropist; founder, Microsoft Inc.
Philanthropy
In recent years, Gates has become increasingly vocal about the dangers global warming will pose
to the world’s poor. Unsurprisingly, he says technology offers the best alternative path forward, and he’s dived into a variety of projects. TerraPower LLC, a company he founded to build next-generation nuclear power, faces daunting regulatory and political hurdles, but he continues to advocate for the fuel. In 2019, Heliogen Inc., another startup he backs, announced that its solar furnace could achieve temperatures high enough to replace fossil fuels for industrial purposes such as steel production. In the spring he’ll publish How to a Avoid Climate Disaster, a book that promises to be a Silicon Valley-style action plan for achieving net-zero emissions through targeted investments. —Leslie Kaufman
Green Fact
In October the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged
$310 million through the World Bank to help small farmers across the globe
adapt to warming temperatures.
Germany’s Greens
Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, co-chairs, Germany's Green party
Politics
Politics is about luck, and Habeck and Baerbock were installed at the helm of their party
in 2018 just as the global wave of climate awareness was building. Yet the
Greens have flourished under their no-nonsense style, helped by the decline of
traditional parties. The Greens spent two terms in government as junior
coalition partner to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. Under
Habeck and Baerbock, they could go further. Voters cite climate change as their
No. 1 concern, and Habeck vies with Merkel for popularity. His next test will
be state elections in Hamburg in February, where polls show the Greens are reaching
for first place. Victory there would stoke speculation that Habeck could become
Germany’s first Green chancellor in 2021. —Alan
Crawford
Green Fact
Habeck and
Baerbock have established the Greens as a force in German politics, and for a
few weeks last summer they polled in first place, ahead of Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union-led
bloc.
Denise Gray
Engineer, executive at LG Chem Ltd.
Cars
The challenge of bringing electric vehicles to the masses is just one in a series of barriers Gray has overcome during her career as one of the few female black executives in the auto industry. Before joining LG Chem in 2015, the native Detroiter spent almost 30 years as an engineer at GM. She headed GM’s battery development group and played a key role in the debut of its first gas-electric plug-in hybrid vehicle, the 2011 Chevy Volt. At LG Chem, she helped oversee the acceleration of lithium-ion battery pack production in the U.S. She now runs the research and development arm of the South Korean company’s rapidly growing North American business. Construction on the Ohio plant will begin this year. —Chester Dawson
Green Fact
In December, LG Chem and General Motors announced a joint $2.3 billion electric vehicle battery plant employing 1,110 workers to be built in Ohio near an idled GM factory.
Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Climate policy expert
Policy
Gunn-Wright was raised in Chicago’s South Side, where she lived the impact of environmental degradation: She attributes her childhood asthma to the pollution there. She grew up determined to set policies that would change communities like hers, eventually becoming the policy director of New Consensus, the Washington think tank that helped develop New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's aggressive package of climate-oriented legislation. In December, Gunn-Wright announced she was backing Elizabeth Warren's candidacy for president and is acting as an informal adviser to the campaign. The Green New Deal has been an intellectual rallying point for many Democrats in the Trump era, and if a Democrat wins the White House this year, Gunn-Wright could be a key player. —Ari Natter
Green Fact
Gunn-Wright was a key architect of the Green New Deal, the progressive climate plan that calls for net-zero emissions by 2030.
Josu Jon Imaz
CEO, Repsol SA
Energy
Repsol, Spain's largest oil producer, pumps more than 700,000 barrels of oil and gas every day, and committing the company to net zero emissions by 2050 is no small feat. The pledge doesn’t apply only to Repsol’s operations but also to the motorists, airlines, and shipowners who buy the company’s fuel. That’s a place where the oil and gas industry has so far been reluctant to go. In 2020, Imaz will present a strategic plan to investors setting out how he’ll reduce the carbon intensity of Repsol’s business by 10% within five years. —Will Kennedy
Green Fact
In 2019 Imaz became the first industry chief executive to commit to net zero emissions by 2050.
David Keith
Founder and chief scientific officer of Carbon Engineering Ltd.
Science
Keith is on a mission to clean the atmosphere. As a Harvard physicist, he
studies the injection of chemicals into the upper atmosphere to reflect
sunlight and temporarily slow down global warming. It's a controversial
technique that scientists believe could be used as a last resort to avoid the
worst effects of climate change. Keith's proposed experiment to study whether
this process might work could take place in 2020. —Akshat Rathi
Green Fact
In his role at Carbon Engineering, Keith is helping the startup build large machines that can capture millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air. The first one, capturing 500,000 metric tons, got the go-ahead last year.
Kengo Kuma
Architect
Design
Kuma’s buildings are designed to reflect their cultural and environmental surroundings in order to replace the concrete that dominated 20th century designs with materials for a postindustrial society. Earth, stone, wood, and sunlight are the building blocks of his work. Kuma’s nature-inspired architecture comes into the global spotlight this year with his National Stadium. It’s decked with lush greenery and includes cedarwood from 46 of Japan’s 47 prefectures. —Aaron Clark
Green Fact
Kuma’s $1.4 billion new National Stadium was completed and handed over to the Japan Sport Council in November; it will host the 2020 Olympic Games.
Rose Marcario
CEO, Patagonia Inc.
Clothes
Marcario calls Patagonia an “activist company” and has placed the outdoor clothing brand at the vanguard of several environmental and social responsibility movements. It has audited its own supply chain to rid it of harmful materials, and to reduce waste, the company encourages customers to mend their old merchandise rather than buy replacements. Patagonia’s lawsuit against President Donald Trump after his decision to drastically reduce federal public lands protections in Utah remains ongoing after a federal judge refused to dismiss the litigation in October. This year, Marcario’s company plans to be highly involved in the 2020 elections in an effort to persuade voters to oust climate deniers from public office. —Kim Bhasin
Green Fact
Patagonia matched more than $10 million in customers’ donations to environmental causes after Black Friday.
Sophia Mendelsohn
Head of sustainability and environmental social governance, JetBlue Airways Corp.
Planes
Mendelsohn is in the vanguard of executives trying to convince the public that airlines can become carbon neutral. In addition to offsets, the carrier will use renewable jet fuel on flights from San Francisco by mid-year. Her sustainability credentials are well-established—last year she oversaw the conversion of JetBlue baggage tractors and belt loaders at John F. Kennedy International Airport to electric power. But plenty of skeptics question whether offsets are enough to erase the carbon footprint of an industry that accounts for 2.6% of total global emissions. Expect that argument to heat up in 2020. —Mary Schlangenstein
Green Fact
She masterminded JetBlue’s strategy to build sustainability into long-term planning, including its initiative to become the first large U.S. airline to offset emissions from all its domestic flights by July.
Elon Musk
Co-founder and CEO, Tesla Inc.
Cars
Things are looking up for Musk. Quarterly deliveries hit a record in the fourth quarter, the stock is on a tear (making Tesla the world’s third-most valuable carmaker by market value), and Tesla’s new plant in Shanghai is up and running, churning out 1,000 electric cars a week. Looking ahead there are plans to build a new plant in Germany, the backyard of some of Tesla's biggest competitors, and new models are on the way. It’s a far cry from the dark days of 2018, when the company came within weeks of running out of cash. After years of drama—much of it fueled by Musk himself—Tesla may finally be hitting its stride. —Tom Randall
Green Fact
This year, Tesla is expected to sell its millionth electric car—the first automaker to reach that milestone.
Luisa Neubauer
School strike activist
Activism
Luisa Neubauer has gone from being an anonymous geography student at Goettingen University to being one of the world’s most influential climate activists in less than 12 months. Hand in hand with Greta Thunberg, she has built a global movement that has inspired millions of people to join climate marches to pressure political leaders and businesses to fight climate change. Coal has been a major cause. After Neubauer criticized Siemens over its financial ties to an Australian coal mine, Chief Executive Officer Joe Kaeser offered her a position on the company’s supervisory board—an offer Neubauer rejected. The young activist will be a key voice to listen to as climate change climbs the political agenda ahead of Germany's federal elections next year. —Laura Millan Lombrana
Green Fact
Luisa Neubauer kick-started the Fridays for Future protests in Germany that have completed 54 consecutive weeks of climate strikes in Berlin.
Mary Nichols
Chair of California Air Resources Board
Air
She’s been called the most influential environmental regulator of all time. As
chair of the powerful California Air Resources Board, Nichols has pioneered several
landmark climate initiatives, including the state’s cap-and-trade program,
designed to cut greenhouse gases from industrial sources. Nichols also worked
with the Obama administration to establish higher automotive fuel
standards. The Trump administration now wants to roll back those standards
and take away California’s ability to set its own pollution rules. This year
will be her last as chair, and Nichols will likely spend it defending the state
against Trump’s challenge—one of the biggest assaults on American clean air
regulation in modern history. —Mark Chediak
Green Fact
Nichols led the state’s fight last year against the
Trump administration’s push to weaken U.S. auto emission standards.
Julia Olson
Attorney
Legal
When Olson started representing kids in 2011, suing governments over the right to a healthy environment, the odds of her winning her cases seemed slim. But as the executive director and chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust, she's represented hundreds of them in lawsuits against 9 states and 11 countries, and the suits are getting results. Olson’s litigation aims to establish a legal right to a stable environment and in the past few years, she has achieved victories in Massachusetts and Colombia. Last week, a federal appeals panel dealt a blow to her biggest case yet: Juliana v. U.S., which aims to force the government to produce an action plan to end the country's fossil-fuel dependence. The court said that climate change should be addressed by Congress, not the judicial branch, but Olson’s team plans to appeal. —Kartikay Mehrotra
Green Fact
In 2019, she battled for children's legal rights to a stable climate in six states and also sued Canada while continuing to litigate her landmark case against the U.S. government.
Claire O’Neill*
President, 2020 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26)
Policy
O’Neill will inherit one of the toughest jobs in global diplomacy when she takes charge of the United Nations’ annual climate conference in November. Last year’s talks were a huge disappointment: The parties failed to agree on rules for a global carbon market. This year’s summit, which takes place in Glasgow, will give countries the first opportunity to upgrade their emissions pledges since the 2015 Paris agreement. O’Neill’s job will be to bring together countries as diverse as Brazil, China, and Germany, and show that most of the world is still moving in the same direction on climate, despite the Trump administration’s withdrawal from Paris. —Laura Millan Lombrana
Green Fact
Under O'Neill's tenure as Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, the number of onshore and offshore wind turbines in the U.K. surpassed 10,000 for the first time ever. *(Update: On January 31, O'Neill was removed from her role as president of COP26.)
Yoshikazu Tanaka
Chief engineer, Toyota Motor Corp.
Cars
Tanaka is in charge of engineering for Toyota’s hydrogen-powered car, the Mirai. While most of the automaking world is scrambling to ramp up production of battery-powered electric vehicles, Toyota has persisted with the development of a fuel-cell vehicle that runs on hydrogen. If Toyota succeeds—and if it can persuade the world to build a distribution network for the highly explosive gas—it could upend the future of transport. A big test for Toyota’s technology will come this year when the company introduces its second-generation Mirai. —Kae Inoue
Green Fact
Toyota had annual production capacity of 3,000 Mirai fuel cell vehicles in 2019.
Greta Thunberg
Protest leader
Activism
It took a teenager to make the world pay attention. Thunberg’s speech at the United Nations in September
lambasted the world’s elites for dragging their feet on the climate crisis. “We
are at the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money.
How dare you!” The speech turned Greta into a single-name global figure and
even drew the attention of President Trump, who sarcastically tweeted about her
twice in four months. The question now is what Thunberg does with her fame.
Back home in Sweden, she plans to continue the school strikes that have
captured the imaginations of children around the world. But by her own
admission, the strikes have “achieved nothing” because emissions have continued
to rise. “I’m just an activist, and we need more activists. ” —Emily Biuso
Green Fact
To avoid the carbon cost of flying,
Thunberg crossed the Atlantic twice by boat to attend climate conferences last
year, spending 36 days at sea.
Ursula von der Leyen
President, European Commission
Politics
The new head of the European Union’s executive arm has embraced the fight against climate change as the
defining issue of her presidency. Just days into her job, she unveiled the
European Green Deal, a road map of sweeping reforms that will transform the EU
into a low-carbon economy. “This is Europe’s man on the moon moment,’’ she
said. She’ll unveil a frenzy of legislative proposals this year to put the plan
into action and has vowed to mobilize $1.1 trillion in investment
over the next decade. But Von der Leyen has her work cut out for her: The
commission’s proposals must be approved by the bloc’s governments, whose
national interests often win out over climate goals. —Nikos Chrysoloras
Green Fact
In December, Von der Leyen
announced her plans for Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent by
2050.
Kotchakorn Voraakhom
Landscape architect
Design
In a city infamous for its traffic, density, and frequent flooding, Kotchakorn designs parks that do more than provide residents with much-needed green space. She’s built throughout Bangkok almost 50 acres of gardens, including a huge park designed to soak up the downpours that flood the Thai capital’s streets in the wet season and store water during the months of dry weather. With few open spaces to work with, her gardens are sometimes found on concrete rooftops. Her latest project is the world's first river garden bridge and was built on top of a failed rail structure. It opens to the public in May. —Randy Thanthong-Knight
Green Fact
In December, her 22,000-square-foot park became Asia's largest urban farming rooftop garden.
Ying Yong
Mayor of Shanghai
Politics
Ying got Elon Musk to put Tesla's first overseas factory in Shanghai, a coup for the city boss who's also overseen an anti-pollution drive, burnishing Shanghai’s green credentials. The city’s reputation is likely to be bolstered this year as Ying works to future-proof a coastal city of 24 million people, most of whom live on land that is projected to fall below below sea level by 2100. His tenure has already seen the creation of a sprawling “sponge city” using underground pools and special gardens to soak up water surges and supplement conventional defenses such as sea walls. The plan is that such sponge regions will retain as much as 70% of rainwater by the end of this year. —Martin Ritchie
Green Fact
Tesla's plant shipped its maiden vehicle last month. Its planned capacity is 250,000 cars a year.
Zeng Yuqun
Chairman, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL)
Cars
Zeng is the man powering China’s electric car revolution. He’s turned CATL into the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery producer and has become a billionaire in the process. CATL supplies the power packs for major Chinese EV makers, and his global customers include Volkswagen, Daimler, and BMW. Even as vehicle sales slow in China, Zeng is doubling down on the technology, having broken ground in October on his first gigafactory outside China, a $2 billion plant in Germany. The company has reached a preliminary agreement to supply batteries for Tesla’s Shanghai plant as soon as this year and could agree to a global supply contract with Musk. —Michael Tighe
Green Fact
Since October, CATL’s stock has jumped almost 60%
(Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News has committed $500 million to launch Beyond Carbon, a campaign aimed at closing the remaining coal-powered plants in the U.S. by 2030 and slowing the construction of new gas plants.)
Photography: Getty, Denise Gray (Detroit Free Press/Tribune News Service via Getty Images), David Keith (Alamy), Kotchakorn Voraakhom (Marla Aufmuth/TED)