Navigating Net Zero: Lyrica McTiernan & Key Insights from Facebook and WeWork

In this episode of Navigating Net Zero, Alexia Kelly interviews Lyrica McTiernan, a sustainability expert with over 15 years of experience. Lyrica shares her journey from her early days at Facebook, where she helped establish the company's sustainability program, to her time leading sustainability partnerships at WeWork. She discusses the evolution of corporate climate action, the challenges of setting and meeting sustainability targets, and the importance of transparency and internal alignment. The conversation highlights the need for adaptability in the face of evolving standards and the critical role of effective change management within companies.

Creators and Guests

Host

Alexia Kelly

Alexia Kelly has worked for more than 18 years at the intersection of policy and finance to address the climate crisis. Alexia is the Managing Director of the Carbon Policy and Markets Initiative (CPMI) at High Tide Foundation. The CPMI accelerates ambitious climate action and capital mobilization through robust rules and guidance for voluntary corporate action and disclosures, and building the next generation of high-integrity carbon and environmental services markets. She currently serves on the Board of the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets (IC VCM) and the Board of the Advanced and Indirect Mitigation Initiative, as well as on the Expert Advisory Group of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI). Prior to joining High Tide Foundation, she served as Director of Net Zero + Nature at Netflix, where she led the company’s inaugural greenhouse gas inventory, renewable energy strategy, Science Based Target and global carbon credit portfolio. Previously, she worked at the U.S. Department of State, where she served as lead negotiator to the UNFCCC on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. She has also held senior roles at the World Resources Institute, The David and Lucille Packard Foundation, The Climate Trust, and in private equity.

Guest

Lyrica McTiernan

Lyrica McTiernan has spent more than 15 years helping companies build and grow their sustainability programs. She was one of Facebook’s first sustainability hires, where she spent nearly a decade shaping the company’s strategy, and later led sustainability partnerships at WeWork. Today, as an independent consultant, she draws on that experience to guide organizations through the complex world of corporate sustainability. She lives in San Francisco with her family.

Producer

Matt Jordan

Matt Jordan is a Director within the High Tide Foundation’s Carbon Policy and Markets Initiative (CPMI). Matt has been working in climate action for more than 15 years, and has a long track record of envisioning, developing and scaling innovative programs and financing tools that deliver lasting global impact. Matt built CLASP’s Clean Energy Access program from a single small project to an integrated portfolio of technical, research, and market stimulation programs with a coherent, issue-defining theory of change and a global team of more than 20. He co-founded Propel Clean Energy Partners, a consulting firm with clients such as the World Resources Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and the Asian Development Bank. Following their acquisition of Propel’s work and team, Matt served as a Director in RMI’s Global South portfolio and led their global clean energy workforce development initiative. He holds a BA in Philosophy from Colgate University, a Master’s in Public Policy Analysis from the University of California, and a Professional Certificate in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy from Yale University.

What is Navigating Net Zero with Alexia Kelly?

Navigating Net Zero is a new podcast featuring conversations with practitioners and experts who are working through the complex realities of corporate decarbonization and sustainability.

We demystify and highlight the challenges, opportunities, and real-world experiences faced by the people leading their institutions' net-zero journeys.

Hosted by internationally-renowned climate change expert Alexia Kelly and brought to you by the Carbon Policy & Markets at the High Tide Foundation, Navigating Net Zero hopes to inspire action from this generation of climate leaders and the next.

Navigating Net Zero – Episode 3
Guest: Lyrica McTiernan
Host: Alexia Kelly

Alexia Kelly: Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening—wherever you are in the world. Welcome to Navigating Net Zero, where we talk about what’s working, what’s not, and what’s next on the journey to net zero for the economy, companies, and the globe.

My guest today is Lyrica McTiernan, who’s spent more than 15 years helping companies build and grow their sustainability programs. She was one of Facebook’s first sustainability hires—spending nearly a decade shaping the company’s strategy—and later led sustainability partnerships at WeWork. Today, as an independent consultant (and someone I’m lucky to work closely with), she guides organizations through the complex world of corporate sustainability. Lyrica lives in San Francisco with her family. I’m delighted you’re here. Welcome.

Lyrica McTiernan: Thanks, Alexia. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Alexia Kelly: Like many of us, you are “long in the tooth” on corporate climate action—especially around the role of sustainability professionals. Tell us about your work at Facebook and then WeWork, and how you’ve seen the space evolve over the last 15 years.

Lyrica McTiernan: It’s been quite a journey. I joined Facebook in 2010—which, in sustainability terms, feels like ages ago. There was no sustainability team then; I came in as a contractor because there wasn’t headcount. Facebook knew a lot about energy efficiency—especially for data centers—but not much beyond that. My initial remit was essentially: “Figure out what sustainability should mean for us,” starting from scratch.

At the time, Facebook had about 2,000 employees—tiny compared to today’s Meta—so we started with the most material lever: renewable energy for data centers. We focused on small, incremental wins to build momentum and political capital, then used that credibility to expand the program. It took time. Establishing sustainability as a respected, strategic function in a hyper-growth company requires patience—tying it to decisions about data center siting, energy procurement, and how we show up in local communities.

By 2019, nine years later, we had a robust program: an internal sustainability council, partnerships, and multiple workstreams. I then moved to WeWork, where I launched sustainability partnerships and quickly took on the foundational pieces—materiality, nuts-and-bolts inventory work, and groundwork for a comprehensive strategy.

For the last five years, I’ve left corporate roles and worked independently across company clients and multi-stakeholder initiatives. It’s been a lot of fun.

Alexia Kelly: In 2010 there wasn’t much guidance on what “good” looked like. What external sources did you turn to, and how did that translate into internal engagement and buy-in?

Lyrica McTiernan: There wasn’t much to lean on. One of my first moves was to learn greenhouse gas accounting—because without a footprint, you can’t prioritize. I literally opened a blank spreadsheet, worked with consultants, gathered data, and built an inventory. We paired that with early materiality work to identify strategic priorities.

It was hard—guidance was murky, and peers were also just starting out. Energy was clearly dominant for Scopes 1 and 2, so we began there. For Scope 3, measurement was so challenging that, initially, we only quantified three categories we could actually get data for—things like corporate travel and shipping for data center components. We were transparent about the limits. That would never fly today, but back then it was common.

As expectations evolved, Scope 3 became a bright spot: companies started taking it seriously, digging into supplier engagement and better data. The progress in the last few years has been significant—even if the data is still imperfect.

Alexia Kelly: Were you using the emerging GHG Protocol guidance for that first inventory?

Lyrica McTiernan: Yes. The Scope 3 guidance was helpful conceptually, but at the time it felt hypothetical. The data requirements often weren’t feasible, so we used what we could and built out over time. Now there’s robust Scope 3 accounting with much more detail, which is great to see.

Alexia Kelly: Once you identified material sources of emissions, how did you approach target-setting and prioritization?

Lyrica McTiernan: Year one was about getting baseline data and tying it to the company’s core narrative around energy efficiency. Facebook had already done impressive efficiency work, so we layered on renewables: “The cleanest electron is the one you don’t use—and the next cleanest is a renewable one.” That made sense as a first big move.

Only after a renewable energy strategy was in place did we tackle other sources—Scope 1 and the broader Scope 3. This was pre-SBTi, but once SBTi launched we set a science-based target around 2017. It was a useful lens—though not sufficient on its own to ensure the global outcome we need.

Lyrica McTiernan: Facebook was scaling rapidly—like other hyperscalers. Absolute emissions could rise even while intensity falls. How did you think about absolute reduction targets in that growth context?

Lyrica McTiernan: It’s a hard challenge. We tried to give context—for example, we’d say the emissions associated with one person’s annual use of Facebook were less than a single latte. But of course, billions of users equals a lot of lattes.

Timing also mattered. Our SBTi baseline coincided with a wave of renewable projects coming online, which helped us meet the target. If those projects had already been online before our baseline year, setting an SBT would have been much harder. That highlights a broader issue: whether a company meets a target can depend heavily on where they are in their decarbonization lifecycle when they set it.

Alexia Kelly: Exactly. Baselines, assumptions, and growth trajectories are technical—but crucial. Current target frameworks struggle to recognize avoided emissions and the real work high-growth companies do to bend the curve. Without space for that, we risk losing leaders. Before external standards matured, what did the internal conversation look like to set ambition?

Lyrica McTiernan: It was a lot of change management. To succeed, sustainability leaders have to understand what matters to executives and connect the dots—translate high-impact sustainability moves into the language of existing strategy. You can’t turn the company around; you “dock a train car” to the direction it’s already going.

We prioritized initiatives with the biggest GHG impact that also aligned with leadership priorities—recognizing we couldn’t do everything at once.

Alexia Kelly: That alignment is critical—but not easy when you need behavior change, riskier tech, or higher-cost options. In 2010, renewables were pricier and green power purchasing was immature. How did you sell that internally?

Lyrica McTiernan: We took a step back and mapped stakeholder concerns: community relations, policy exposure, operational risks, etc. Then we linked sustainability outcomes to those priorities. Local communities really cared about energy and water impacts where we had data centers or offices, and those relationships were strategically important. Showing up well on sustainability supported those relationships—so it wasn’t just “green for green’s sake,” it was a license-to-operate and reputation conversation, too.

Alexia Kelly: Let’s talk about the “inside/outside” game. Companies aren’t monoliths; they’re people pushing change—sometimes aligned with core business, sometimes not. What do sustainability leaders need to do to maximize influence in the room where decisions happen? And how do external pressures help or hinder?

Lyrica McTiernan: It depends on the pressure. Some makes leaders dig in; some opens doors. Corporate leaders are smart—they know how decisions get made. I’ve been most successful when I start by understanding leaders as humans: what motivates them professionally and what “language” they speak—finance, real estate, engineering, etc. Then I calibrate how I communicate.
It’s not manipulation; it’s empathy and translation. You build an authentic platform to collaborate so everyone wins—the business advances its goals and you drive climate outcomes. External pressure can be useful when it helps reveal a path leaders didn’t see before.

Alexia Kelly: Some things have changed, some haven’t. What challenges from the early days are still with us in 2025?

Lyrica McTiernan: The moving target of standards and guidance. Sustainability pros need internal trust and a strong personal brand. If standards shift under their feet, they risk credibility: “You asked for $1M for X because it would be required; six months later, it isn’t.” That makes the next ask much harder.

My worry is that well-intentioned shifts in the external landscape can unintentionally undermine effective people inside companies.

Alexia Kelly: It’s a real tension. We want to hold powerful companies accountable and push hard—yet reputational blowback can punish internal champions and chill spending. We were finally mobilizing real money in 2020–2021, then rewrote standards mid-stream. That uncertainty slows checks and jeopardizes targets. What clarity would help companies move faster while balancing accountability and support for internal teams taking real risks?

Lyrica McTiernan: Radical transparency. The standards ecosystem is evolving; uncertainty will persist for a while. Companies should disclose clearly: what actions they’re taking, expected impact, emissions context, and which standards they’re layering on and why.

Side-by-side clarity reduces accusations of greenwashing and acknowledges different tools deliver different kinds of value. “These two things are different, and both matter—and here’s the evidence.”

Alexia Kelly: Agreed. Regulatory disclosure and Article 6 implementation should help, but there are big gaps to fill.

Lyrica McTiernan: And we don’t have time to wait for perfection. We can’t nickel-and-dime ourselves over whether something is 80% right and 20% wrong. Move fast with transparency; different theories of change can coexist if we’re honest about impacts.

Alexia Kelly: What’s one lesson from your journey—from in-house at a global brand to running your own consultancy—that you hope the next generation takes with them?

Lyrica McTiernan: Lead with curiosity and assume best intent. This work is messy and complex. Ask hard questions, stay optimistic, and remember that many people around you are genuinely trying to solve the same problems—even if they’d choose different tools.

Alexia Kelly: And finally: what keeps you up at night, and what gives you hope?

Lyrica McTiernan: I worry about speed—and about getting stuck arguing over the 10% where we disagree instead of acting on the 90% where we agree. We can’t afford that.

What gives me hope is how much people care. If we commit to focusing on shared ground and moving together, I believe we can get there.

Alexia Kelly: Hear, hear. Lyrica, thank you so much for joining Navigating Net Zero.

Lyrica McTiernan: Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.