One of the first things Cassandra Garber saw when she arrived for her first day at General Motors last spring was a 10-foot-tall lobby-wall sign proclaiming the company’s commitment to zero emissions. Garber had been asking herself if she had made the right move in swapping the chief sustainability officer role at Dell for the same position at GM. “And then you walk in and you see the very thing that you want to do with your entire career on a big panel on the wall,” she recalled. “You’re like, that’s mine.” Cassandra Garber, GM’s new CSO, on her first day at work. Source: GM. That commitment is, however, a complicated thing to inherit. Concerns about high prices and low ranges deterred consumers from adopting EVs as quickly as the company expected when it set targets in 2021. Tailpipe emissions from new light-duty GM vehicles in the U.S. have fallen just 7 percent, likely rendering unobtainable the company’s goal of eliminating tailpipe emissions by 2035. And the Trump administration has dismantled critical regulatory support for EVs, which will further slow the transition. Special Series Chasing Net Zero ArcelorMittal: Inside the struggle to reach 2030 climate goals Nestlé: On track (holes and all) for a 50 percent emissions cut GSK: Can it keep the biggest climate promise in pharma? Series Overview & Methodology All of which leaves Garber with some tough decisions. Should she push back the target date? Dial back the scale of commitment? Or declare the goal itself —…
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