CEO Perspective
When we built Thallo, the pitch was simple
Give companies a better, more transparent way to access high-integrity carbon credits. The carbon markets were broken – opaque, slow, and inaccessible to anyone without the right connections – and we believed technology could fix that.
And it has, to a degree. We built one of the market’s leading carbon credit exchanges. We connected buyers and sellers with real rigour around project quality. We’re proud of what we’ve built and it continues to serve our customers globally.
But somewhere along the way, a pattern emerged that I couldn’t ignore.
Again and again, we’d get on a call with a potential client: a head of sustainability at a manufacturing firm, or a CFO who’d just been handed a net-zero commitment by the board. The conversation would go in a similar direction. They weren’t ready to talk about carbon credits. They didn’t have a strategy to speak of yet. They were buried in ESOS compliance questions, Scope 1, 2 and 3 data problems, board reporting deadlines, and supply chain pressures. All of this, typically, with a team of one or two people trying to hold the whole thing together.
We’d refer them elsewhere and move on. But it kept happening. And eventually I had to ask: what does it say about us if we keep sending clients away precisely when they need the most help?
The resourcing problem is worse than most people realise
The sustainability profession has expanded faster than almost any other function in the last decade. The responsibilities have multiplied: carbon accounting, compliance (ESOS, SECR, TCFD), Scope 1, 2 and 3 reporting, net-zero strategy, supply chain due diligence, greenwashing risks, board reporting. The list grows every year.
The headcount hasn’t.
Recent research found that 76% of sustainability professionals say they aren’t adequately resourced for their role, and 91% have been pulled into areas beyond their core expertise. Only 11% believe their company is on track to meet its targets – a collapse from 25% just a year ago.
I’d seen this up close through our own clients. One sustainability lead told me recently that she’s responsible for the environmental performance of over 200 sites across a portfolio of restaurant brands. She’s a team of one. She wasn’t failing. She was extraordinary at her job. But the odds were stacked against her in a way that felt unfair and, frankly, unsustainable.
This is the context in which companies are trying to make meaningful progress on climate. And it’s the context in which they’re expected to use tools like carbon credits responsibly – with a clear strategy, with high-quality data, and with governance that can withstand scrutiny.
You can’t build on sand. If companies don’t have the foundations in place – the strategy, the data, the compliance framework – then the offset strategy to accompany that is often lacking.
Why Thallo is the right organisation to help
This decision didn’t come without some internal debate. Sustainability consulting is not the same business as running a carbon exchange. We know that.
But the more I thought about it, the more it felt like the natural evolution of what we were already doing. Our team understands the full picture: the regulatory environment, the market mechanisms, the science. We’ve spent years helping companies think about their emissions, their reporting obligations, and how carbon markets fit into a broader climate strategy. The consulting piece isn’t a departure from that. It’s the earlier chapter of the same story.
What we’re building is a fractional sustainability team model: a dedicated team that embeds alongside yours at a fixed monthly cost, covering the things that your internal resource can’t. ESOS compliance. Scope 1, 2 and 3 measurement. Net-zero strategy. Supply chain assessments. Board reporting. The remit that one person can’t possibly hold alone.
And crucially: when clients are ready to think about offsets, they’ll be doing it with a coherent strategy underneath them. They’ll know which emissions they can reduce, which they can’t yet, and how high-integrity credits fit into a credible transition plan. That’s how carbon credits should work. It’s what we’ve always believed, and now we have a way to help companies get there.
A word on timing
I want to be honest about something. This isn’t just an opportunity. It’s a response to a genuine crisis in how sustainability is being delivered.
The regulatory stakes are getting higher, not lower. ESOS Phase 4 is bringing public disclosure of action plans for the first time. CSRD is expanding. Scope 3 reporting requirements are tightening. Boards that have been quietly deprioritising sustainability spend are going to find that the cost of underfunding has become very visible, very quickly.
The companies that will come through this well aren’t necessarily the biggest or the best resourced. They’re the ones that found a smarter model early enough: lean, strategic, backed by the right expertise when they needed it.
That’s what Thallo’s sustainability services are designed to be.
If you’re a sustainability professional who feels like you’re responsible for everything and resourced for a fraction of it, I’d genuinely love to speak with you. Not to sell you anything on the first call – just to understand what you’re dealing with and whether we can help.
That feels like the right place to start.
Joe Hargreaves is CEO and co-founder of Thallo. Book a free assessment