Annalisa Tarizzo ’27 MEM
Goal: Accelerate supply chain decarbonization
How do you get a company to implement a step-by-step action plan to reduce emissions and help decarbonize the economy? As a shareholder advocate at Green Century, a Boston-based firm that promotes environmentally responsible investments, Annalisa Tarizzo ’27 MEM used shareholder proposals to press companies to reduce emissions.
“Many companies have really ambitious net-zero goals, but there are gaps in actually implementing actions to achieve them all the way through to the supply chain,” she said.
Tarizzo first became interested in shareholder engagement while volunteering for AmeriCorps after she graduated from the University of Michigan. At AmeriCorps, she developed a zero-waste plan for the University of Tennessee’s Office of Sustainability.
“While I worked with the University of Tennessee, I realized how much corporate contracts were impacting its ability to make changes to reduce emissions. I grew really interested in how to move companies to improve their environmental practices,” she said.
Before joining Green Century, Tarizzo deepened her understanding of the clean energy sector through YSE’s Financing and Deploying Clean Energy certificate program. After receiving her certificate, she applied to Green Century due to her desire to find practical ways to get companies to take action steps to reduce emissions.
At Green Century, Tarizzo filed shareholder proposals with several corporations to push for reductions in fossil-fuel based packaging and deforestation-related activities. As a result of that push and shareholder negotiations with the companies, CVS and Target agreed to reductions in virgin plastic packaging, which is derived from natural gas or crude oil and has no recycled content, and Coca-Cola committed to using refillable containers for 25% of its products by 2030. She later went to work in shareholder engagement for Boston-based Ceres, Inc., a nonprofit advocacy organization that works with investors, companies, and policy makers to promote the green transition.
“Shareholder advocacy ended up being exactly the direction I wanted to move in. I would spend summers researching companies and then have conversations with company executives. For companies that needed more of a push, I’d file a shareholder proposal, and then we’d let them know we’d withdraw the proposal in exchange for setting goals,” she said.
At YSE, Tarizzo is deepening her understanding of environmental science and exploring the interplay between climate change, business, and the environment.
“Companies have to manage long-term risks around climate and other environmental issues, but there isn’t a quick return on investment. We need to figure out how to change incentive structures to make these long-term investments more palatable,” she said.
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