In an economy of uncertainty, one thing has remained predictable—the past 10 years on Earth have been the hottest on record. But will companies’ climate mitigation efforts weather the uncertainty storm?

Yee Lee, chief growth officer at Terraformation, a forestry carbon credits supplier, spoke with CFO Brew about what CFOs and ESG departments that still want to invest in climate solutions during this new age of economic turmoil need to know.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What advice would you give companies wanting to buy carbon credits?

Keeping in mind it’s such a nascent early space, quality of projects really matters, and trust in the partners that you’re working with really matters. Because you’ll get very different results, depending on who you work with. Even though it may be attractive to try to do the price satisficing thing or the price optimizing thing, really actually try to spend the time to understand project quality, to understand what’s happening on the ground as a result of your dollar investments.

Click here for more on making climate investments during economic turbulence.—JK

The Trump administration’s tariffs could cost US companies $989 billion, or nearly a trillion dollars per year, new analysis by PwC shows. Prior to the election, US companies paid $76 billion in tariffs on imports. If the tariffs go through without any changes, the “implied average tariff rate,” PwC wrote, “would jump from 2.5% to 32%.”

That’s “about a 13-fold increase from where we’re at today,” Chris Desmond, principal for customs and international trade at PwC, said at a recent webinar. He described the results of the analysis as “pretty staggering.”

PwC estimates that the tariffs will have a $468 billion additional impact on dutiable goods, and a $445 billion impact on goods that were once duty-free.

The accounting firm’s estimates are based on where the tariff situation stood as of April 15. That situation is in flux, as countries are expected to negotiate to bring their tariff rates down, and states have filed lawsuits to prevent the tariffs from taking place.

Where the impacts will be greatest: Imports from China will see the brunt of the tariffs, the PwC analysis found: Chinese imports could potentially be hit with an additional $653 billion in tariffs. Companies that import from Mexico could face an additional $64 billion hit, and those that import from Canada could pay an additional $60 billion.

To keep reading about where tariffs may hurt the worst, click here.—CV

UPS is laying off 20,000 employees as it continues cost-cutting efforts tied to a steep reduction in delivery volume from Amazon, its largest customer.

The shipping giant previously reached an “agreement with Amazon to reduce their volume in our network by more than 50% by June of 2026,” CEO Carol Tomé noted on the company’s Q1 earnings call on Tuesday. More specifically, UPS is rolling back its Amazon “fulfillment center outbound volume,” which “is not profitable for us, nor a healthy fit for our network.”

That pullback plan is running ahead of schedule, and now, the layoffs align with the plan to lessen UPS’s “dependency on labor.”

Beyond the internal restructuring, UPS also stands to be impacted by businesses trimming import orders as fears about rising costs from President Donald Trump’s tariffs breed uncertainty.

“The actions we are taking to reconfigure our network and reduce cost across our business could not be timelier,” Tomé said in a statement. “The macro environment may be uncertain, but with our actions, we will emerge as an even stronger, more nimble UPS.”

Continue reading here.—NP