In its November 10, 2025, issue, Time Magazine did a series, “Time100 Climate,” featuring the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action. In this age of right-wing (and Trump-exacerbated) climate change denialism, the individuals highlighted in this overview provide a helping of much-needed hope and inspiration. Some of those featured are in the US, but quite a few are elsewhere around the globe. Here we will cite several examples and discuss briefly how they are defying anti-environmentalism – and how we might get on board with these leaders’ forward-thinking efforts.
Around the world (alpha by country)
Christine Lagarde, France. Europe-watchers will be familiar with Christine Lagarde. Head of the European Central Bank (ECB) since 2019, Lagarde is applying financial pressure to urge companies to move toward cleaner energy initiatives. “When banks borrow from the ECB, they must put up assets as collateral.” New 2025 rules mandate that “assets from high-pollution companies will be worth less as collateral,” so lending to industries that pollute will cost more for the banks “while potentially making it cheaper for green companies to borrow money” (Time, 68).
Anne-Cécile Violland, France. Violland, a Member of Parliament, has been in the forefront of passing a national bill to curb the environmental impacts of “fast fashion.” This industry is responsible for up to 10% of total global carbon dioxide emissions and shows no signs of slowing down (Time, 58). Despite fierce opposition from Chinese e-commerce companies like Shein and Temu, which introduce a high volume of new textile products onto the French national market, the bill was passed in France in 2025; it now goes to the European Commission to ensure it complies with EU single market rules. Among other regulations, the bill mandates an environmental awareness message for online marketplaces, bans the use of the word “free” in fast fashion promotions, and requires an indication of country of origin for online sales of textiles.
Taner Karacan, Germany and Belgium. Karacan is Managing Director for Germany and Belgium at SVEA Solar, one of Europe’s leading solar companies. Karacan is a major player in developing the company’s long relationship with IKEA, which has recently begun “selling Svea Solar’s affordable plug-in balcony solar panels in Germany.” The company’s goal is to expand into other countries and thus “bring modular home solar into the mainstream and give consumers easy access to energy independence.”
Charlot Magayi, Kenya. Magayi’s story is both heart-wrenching and inspirational. Despite being born in the Nairobi slum of Muruku, orphaned at age 10, becoming a mother six years later, and witnessing her baby burned by a traditional stove, she used her experience in remarkable ways for the benefit of many others. 
Magayi is now the winner of awards by Global Citizen, the World Bank and the United Nations; is an Echoing Green Fellow, an Africa Business Hero, a Global Good Fund Fellow, a Stanford Global Energy Hero, a Forbes under 30 lister and a Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst; and sits on the board of three international funds. The reason for these accolades? In 2017, following her baby’s injuries, she founded Mukuru Clean Stoves, which serves at least three purposes: they use less charcoal, thereby reducing household air pollution by 90% compared to traditional stoves; has a more stable design, thus reducing accidental burns; and cost only $10 per stove, thus being more affordable throughout Africa. In addition, Magayi employs female sales agents, whose families benefit financially, and she is “building a 300,000 square foot sustainable energy campus in Kenya and developing a malaria fighting fuel” (Time, 62).
Eef Brouwers, The Netherlands. Brouwers, co-founder and General Manager of North Sea Farmers – European Seaweed Industry, is pioneering the use of seaweed to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere (Time, 64). The company, a nonprofit Public Benefit Organization, had its first seaweed harvest this year from its commercial-scale farm, the first in the world. The North Sea project is a “floating farm located in the open space between wind turbines where seaweed production can be tested and improved.” The scientific research associated with the farm will also help “validate the carbon sequestration potential of seaweed farms and measure biodiversity impacts.”
Gillian Martin, Scotland. Martin is currently Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy. The Scottish government is making a 120-million-pound “investment to transform [the Northeast region of Scotland] from an oil and gas hub to a net-zero leader – and create green-energy jobs along the way” (Time, 57). The initiative that is making this happen is a pilot program that Martin started before she took office, in which 200 oil and gas workers will transition into clean-energy jobs. The Biden-Harris Administration took similar leads on such initiatives through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Trump and his far-right comrades have, of course, been chipping away at all those gains.
King Charles III, United Kingdom. King Charles, formerly known as the Prince of Wales and ex-husband of the late Princess Diana, has been concerned with and an outspoken activist in the area of climate change for decades. 
He began the Sustainable Markets Initiative in 2020, which “facilitates action between world leaders and CEOs to position sustainability at the heart of global value creation” and has mobilized “trillions of dollars for climate solutions” (Time, 67). More recently, King Charles has installed 2,000 well-hidden solar panels at the royal family’s Sandringham Estate; the panels are expected to create enough energy to heat and light the main house and other buildings, with surplus being returned to the National Grid. In other ways in which he is putting his values into practice, the King’s “cars are electric and two royal fleet Bentleys are being converted to run on biofuel.”
United States (alpha by state)
Darren Crouch, California. Crouch co-founded Passages International in 1999 to provide sustainably-produced and biodegradable urns, caskets, and memorial products for families and funeral homes. Crouch is also president of the board of the Green Burial Council (Time, 63). These initiatives positively affect the environment by adopting eco-friendly means of creating meaningful end-of-life rituals.
Michael Walker, California. Since 2019, Walker has been CEO of Stax Engineering, based in Long Beach. As CEO, he has a broad portfolio and has been instrumental in guiding the company in the area of exhaust-capture technology, especially in ports around the state. The technology can remove almost all particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, which are among the most harmful emissions to humans. In 2025, Stax “became the first approved emissions-control provider for vessels docked in the Port of Los Angeles,” and the company is now expanding into capture and control of carbon dioxide (Time, 65).
Justin Johnson, Michigan. Johnson, who is Black and holds two masters degrees in Urban Planning and Public Administration, heads the Michigan Office of Future Mobility and Electrification (OFME). OFME works through public and private partnerships “to enhance Michigan’s mobility ecosystem, enriching lives, [and] creating equitable opportunities,” and Time highlighted Johnson’s role in “building the country’s first wireless EV-charging road in Detroit in 2023.” The technology is being made available to commercial vehicles such as UPS trucks (Time, 58).
Kathy Hochul, New York. The Democratic Governor, up for reelection in 2026, is familiar to most Americans. In the energy-environmental arena, she implemented an initiative that had been approved in 2023 under Biden, temporarily paused, then put into play as a first-in-the-nation congestion-pricing program. In the first six months of its implementation, “the toll reduced traffic in the busiest parts of Manhattan by 11%,” among other successes. It is projected to raise $500 million by the end of the year, which will go toward mass-transit upgrades (Time, 57). Not surprisingly, Trump used his social media platform to slam the effort, and he and his Transportation Department are attempting to overturn the earlier federal approval. Hochul and her colleagues are doing at the state level what Trump and his underlings are irresponsibly combatting at the federal level: taking steps to “ensure a cleaner and greener environment and economy” (Time, 57).
Curtis Robinhold, Oregon. Robinhold holds the position of Executive Director of the Port of Portland. The Port includes three airports, three operating marine terminals, and six business parks, and employs hundreds. Robinhold is overseeing the renovation of the Portland International Airport using the world’s largest mass timber frame made from locally sourced timber. In addition, the PDXNext project, a $2 billion investment that includes energy-efficient upgrades, will help the airport increase capacity and withstand magnitude 9.0 earthquakes. Robinhold encourages other airports to follow Portland’s lead.
John Curtis, Utah. [] Curtis is a Senate Republican but, bucking the GOP trend, has argued to his colleagues that advocating for clean energy aligns with conservative values. For instance, Curtis argues that “the market is driving three things: affordable energy, reliable energy, and clean energy.” For the past four years, Curtis has hosted the Annual Conservative Climate Summit at the University of Utah, attended this year by 600. The Summit included participants such as Berkshire Hathaway Energy, the nonprofit Megafire Action, Stewardship Utah, and the Healthy Environmental Alliance of Utah. One hopes that other conservatives will take heed.
Kyle Clark, Vermont. Beta Technologies is a “Vermont-based electric aerospace company that is developing a transportation system to make aviation greener, safer and more accessible.” 
Kyle Clark, CEO, earned a Harvard degree and founded several other companies before being supported in the amount of $1.5 million by (transgender) entrepreneur Martine Rothblatt in 2017 to launch Beta. Clark came to Time’s attention when Beta became “the first to land an electric passenger plane at JFK airport, flying around 70 miles with occupants. Short-haul electric flights [such as this] could reduce congestion and fuel costs compared with gas helicopters” (Time, 63).
Conclusions
There are many more individuals included in the Time report than those we have singled out, and we salute and thank them all for their efforts. We must also thank Time for this spread; it is quite possible that the individuals who have been featured, as well as Time’s editors and writers, may have taken great risks by stepping out, so we also commend their courage.
What can we average citizens do with this information?
- Support the companies and organizations that are involved in positive initiatives to help the environment. Be aware that they may be on the receiving end of nasty social media posts – or worse – by climate deniers and others.
- Support and vote for government officials and candidates who have a proven track record of pro-environment policies and practices.
- Speak out against climate denialism, if feasible. It is usually the case that people in power or leadership roles who deny that climate change is real have a self-serving interest in the fossil fuel status quo – or who resist government regulations that reduce their voracious greed.
- Take courage ourselves, be inspired, and hold onto hope. There is much taking place in many circles, by individuals, groups, organizations, companies and government entities, that is helping in the area of climate change.
As this brief overview shows, innovation that can help mitigate the tremendous damage climate change has done to our planet is coming from all corners of the world – and all kinds of people. Right-wing and Trump-inspired attempts to make the situation considerably worse for all of us because of racism, misogyny, retribution, greed, and ignorance are not only cruel but also wrong-headed, short-sighted and, frankly, stupid. The individuals and groups highlighted by Time, along with many others like them, are moving in a decidedly more righteous direction.