The TIME100 Climate list acknowledges the world’s most influential leaders driving climate advocacy and action. Now, in its second year, the list focused on the finance of climate action by celebrating and granting special attention to leaders who are working to unlock funding and resources in the fight against climate change.

Several signatories of The Climate Pledge were honored on the 2024 list, including Microsoft Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa, who this year brokered a deal that’s considered the world’s largest such corporate commitment to clean-energy expansion, and Lime Vice President of Sustainability Andrew Savage, who in 2023 helped grow the micro-mobility brand’s business year-over-year by 32% while simultaneously reducing annual CO2 emissions by 16.3%.

Read on to discover The Climate Pledge signatory leaders highlighted on this year’s TIME100 Climate list. (Copy excerpted from TIME article.) 

Melanie Nakagawa, Chief Sustainability Officer, Microsoft

Microsoft Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa has led a storied career advocating for sustainability, from working as an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council from 2006 to 2009 to helping the United States rejoin the Paris Agreement during the Biden administration in 2021. 

In her current role, she oversees the Microsoft clean-energy expansion and earlier this year developed an estimated $10 billion deal to help develop 10.5 gigawatts of new renewable-energy capacity around the world—enough to power 1.8 million homes. The agreement is considered the largest such corporate commitment to clean-energy expansion.

As Microsoft uses more energy to power its artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives, Nakagawa is simultaneously furthering the company’s efforts to address the energy and water use of data centers, supporting the growth of lower-carbon materials for building data centers, and improving the energy efficiency of AI and cloud services themselves. Learn more. 

Ellen Jackowski, Chief Sustainability Officer, Mastercard.

“Let's shift the conversation from avoiding catastrophe to creating opportunity, moving from fear to hope, and building a thriving future we're eager to step into,” said Mastercard Chief Sustainability Officer Ellen Jackowski, when asked about the future of climate advocacy by TIME editors. 

Under Jackowski’s leadership, Mastercard is taking bold measures to realize that future, beginning with its commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. Case in point: In 2023, Mastercard grew its net revenue by 13% while decreasing its emissions by 1% compared to the year prior. As part of this work, the company reduced its Scope 3 supply chain emissions, which were down 40% in 2023 compared with its baseline year of 2016.

“The future belongs not to the loudest, but to the hum of many, rising together,” she said. Learn more. 

Andrew Forrest, Executive Chairman and Founder, Fortescue 

Embracing renewable energy is key to limiting global warming, according to Fortescue Executive Chairman and Founder Andrew Forrest. In September, Forrest outlined a climate transition plan for his global mining company known as Real Zero, focused on eliminating fossil fuels from the organization’s operations by 2030 without relying on carbon offsets or carbon capture. Forrest also uses his platform to routinely critique the oil and gas industry and raise the bar on corporate sustainability. “There is no way to keep the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius alive without ending the use of fossil fuels and accelerating the rollout of renewable energy and green technology,” he told TIME. Learn more.

Andrew Savage, Vice President of Sustainability & Founding Team, Lime

Not only is Lime helping to decarbonize human transit—the company reported that customers booked approximately 156 million trips on Lime bikes globally last year—it’s also taking aggressive steps to make its own business more climate-friendly, in part by transitioning to a zero-emissions transport fleet. Overall, its carbon emission intensity has dropped nearly 60% since 2019, demonstrating that sustainability and profitability can go hand in hand. 

“We need to exist and provide our service to have an impact,” Savage wrote in an op-ed for The Climate Pledge in April. “Doing this hard work alongside other like-minded businesses similarly committed to a decarbonized future is easier than going it alone. That’s why we signed The Climate Pledge.” Learn more.

Mary Powell, CEO, Sunrun

Customers have Sunrun CEO Mary Powell to thank when they use their new Ford F-150 Lightning to power their homes. Establishing partnerships with Ford and Tesla to turn F-150 Lightning trucks and Tesla battery wall systems into power plants is just one of the innovations residential solar company Sunrun has achieved under Powell’s leadership.

“As electric vehicles, home electrification, artificial intelligence, and data centers grow at breakneck speed, the single most critical action over the next year is for governments, utilities, and aggregators to accelerate radical collaboration that allows for the adoption of customer-centered solutions and technologies that can then be leveraged to help all Americans,” Powell told TIME.

Sunrun is well-poised to deliver on that front. The company is now the largest developer of residential solar in the U.S. and is responsible for one-fifth of all home systems installed. Just this August, it became the first solar-plus-storage company to surpass one million customers. Learn more.

Mads Nipper, CEO, Orsted

“Only through collective action can we secure a livable planet for future generations,” said Orsted CEO Mads Nipper. Orsted is the world’s largest developer of offshore wind power and, over the last 15 years, has become a leader in embracing renewable energy. In 2017, Orsted divested itself of its oil and gas business; this year the company shut down its last coal-fired power plant. 

“Orsted’s company transformation, recently with the closure of our last coal plant, proves it’s possible to move fully from fossil energy to green energy,” Nipper told TIME. “But the global transition must accelerate.” Learn more.

To develop the TIME100 Climate list, TIME editors vetted names from across the economy. They prioritized recent action and measurable, scalable achievements over commitments and announcements. Read the full list here. 

Last year, executives from nine Climate Pledge signatory companies were featured on the 2023 TIME100 list:

Kara Hurst, Chief Sustainability Officer, Amazon

Matti Lehmus, CEO and President, Neste Corporation

Suzanne DiBianca, Chief Impact Officer and EVP of Corporate Relations, Salesforce

Vincent Clerc, CEO, A.P. Moller-Maersk

Ignacio Galán, Executive Chairman, Iberdrola

Amit Kumar Sinha, CEO of Mahindra Lifespaces, Mahindra Group

Annette Clayton, CEO, Schneider Electric North America

Val Miftakhov, CEO and founder, ZeroAvia

Rebecca Marmot, Chief Sustainability Officer, Unilever