NSS Sustainability Journey: Jeremy Tamanini

Jeremy Tamanini is founder at Dual Citizen LLC, a US-based practice. Jeremy is a thought leader and consultant in the global sustainability space with over a decade of experience leading projects in collaboration with public, private sector, and intergovernmental partners. He started this work by creating the Global Green Economy Index™ (GGEI), the first and leading measure of country-level green performance. The GGEI has been used by numerous partners to create bespoke green performance frameworks, as well as generating over 250,000 downloads, 100+ media & academic citations, and usage in 100+ governments, institutions, and private firms. A dual citizen between the United States and Italy, Jeremy studied urban studies and economics at Columbia University (BA) and foreign policy and international business diplomacy at Georgetown University (MSFS). He was a Fulbright scholar in the United Arab Emirates and recently completed a Bellagio residency (Rockefeller Foundation). In 2025, Jeremy is leading research into applied AI for sustainability. This work focuses on identifying key "AI touchpoints" across enterprises and organizations including scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, supply chains, product development, waste management, carbon reporting, nature, and forward looking R&D. In parallel to this he is a member of the P7100 working group at the IEEE, formulating one of the first global standards covering the environmental impacts of AI systems. Learn more here.

 SUMMARY 

The NSS Sustainability Journey podcast features Jeremy Tamanini, founder of Dual Citizen, discussing his path into sustainability. Tamanini started with the Global Green Economy Index, evolving it into a performance measurement tool for 160 countries. He emphasizes the importance of understanding market needs, the value of community, and the integration of sustainability into business practices. Tamanini advises young professionals to be process-oriented and to leverage resources like LinkedIn for mentorship and networking. He envisions a future where sustainability is so integrated into society that it becomes second nature, eliminating the need for specialized discussions.

Hello and welcome to Sustainability Journeys. This podcast is brought to you by the National Sustainability Society Programming committee. We’re Emma Bowick, Laura Zanotti, and Caitlyn Finnegan, and we’re so glad you’re here.

This series is all about exploring the stories behind sustainability leaders. We’ll be sitting down with researchers, educators, and practitioners working in the sustainability space to learn more about the paths they’ve taken—including the questions that drive them, the challenges they've faced, and the experiences that have shaped their work.

Sustainability isn’t just a field—it’s a journey. Whether someone came to it through climate justice, environmental science, Indigenous governance, urban planning, or another route entirely, each story offers a unique lens on what it means to work toward a more just and sustainable future.

Our goal is to foster conversation, connection, and maybe even a bit of inspiration for those navigating their own paths in sustainability.

Today, we will be sitting down with Jeremy Tamanini, a leader in the field for Applied AI for sustainability and founder of Dual Citizen LLC.

Whether you're walking to class, washing the dishes, or pulling up another dataset—tune in, and journey with us.

Jeremy

My name is Jeremy Tamanini, and I'm the founder of Dual Citizen, which is a New York–based consultancy. The practice has been focused mostly on data measurement in the sustainability space. It started off in a circuitous way. I started an index around 2010 called the Global Green Economy Index. At the time, sustainability and the green economy were very abstract, non-mainstream topics. We started off just surveying people about their perceptions of different aspects of the green economy, related to renewable energy, the environment, and climate change. Over the years that followed, it developed into a much larger index that had a performance measurement of up to 160 countries.

As part of that growth, the business developed whereby I started to help clients understand topics under the umbrella of a green economy, how to measure them, why to measure them, and doing workshops with teams, really introducing what these ideas are, why they're important, and why they're important in different contexts: be it a geographical context, a business context, or the type of organization that you're in.

To answer your question, I didn’t have formal training in these topics. I got a graduate degree from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, that was sort of a generalist degree in foreign policy, and I was interested in energy. I was interested in the geopolitical aspects of energy.

But to be perfectly honest, I finished my program in 2009. There weren’t any classes to take on even the geopolitics of renewable energy or introduction to the green economy. This wasn’t even a thing that was embedded into graduate studies. Certainly, where I was, there were the beginnings of it in other programs, and now, of course, we have full schools that are devoted to climate and things like that.

So that’s the background, and I just underline for people coming into the field how much I admire you all for having, in most cases, I feel a much stronger baseline than I did, because I came in self-taught on a lot of these things. So I guess there are benefits to being young.

Caitlyn

Thank you. I feel like it's admirable to teach yourself all about climate and energy, and I think that's an incredible way of breaking into this space. Looking back, what advice would you give to yourself in your first year at Dual Citizen, or maybe just in the energy space?

Jeremy

Yeah, there are a couple of things. I love that question because I think there's so much value in that for younger professionals entering the field.

I think as a consultant and someone that has to make a living from this work, the advice I would give myself would be to be a lot more scrutinous and study more carefully the market, sort of like what the market needs at a certain moment in time, as opposed to what I think the market should need. And it's always a trade-off, right? Because so much of what we do as sustainability professionals is, by definition, forward-looking, right? We're kind of thinking about a vision and a configuration of the world that doesn't exactly exist today.

So you always want to be visionary and progressive in your mindset, but you also have to be rooted in reality, right? You've gotta get a job, or get a client, or get a thesis advisor, or get a course at a university approved. There has to be that rooting in reality. So that would be, for myself, the advice that I would give, 10-plus years ago, getting into this space.

The advice that I would give students, which is similar, is that today, in 2025, I would really look at the industry of sustainability. Ten-plus years ago, sustainability was more of a concept; it was more of an aspiration. Today, by and large, sustainability, it's an industry. I mean, it's sort of a dirty word, but what I mean by that is it's a formalized set of topics and specializations and functions that exist in many, many facets of the economy.

I’m here in New York this week at Climate Week, and when you go to meetings, by and large, it’s people that focus on waste management, or supply chains, or reporting and measurement. They’re really deeply embedded in specific functions within the economy, within academia, within companies. So I would encourage young people to really understand the landscape of what that looks like, to better understand maybe where their passions and interests may fit.

Laura

I really love that framing of the aspiration to the industry, as well as your emphasis on rootedness in this conversation and on future thinking. Because this next question is about the biggest influence in your career: what lessons did that person, or those people, if it's a collective or a group, teach you?

 Jeremy

I'm going to answer this in a broad way, but this is the authentic answer. I can't really point to one person around my practice or its development to answer this question.

Community is so vitally important, and community can exist in so many ways. I have a set of strategic advisors to my practice who have been incredible soundboards, an incredible community. Climate Week is an amazing community. I mean, it's been such a tough year in many ways for sustainability professionals, and to just be among your people, where everyone's passionate and working and embedded in various areas of this topic, it’s supportive.

The people in this broader global sustainability community are vital. They are passionate, they are interested, and they give everyone energy, momentum, and inspiration, so I would really emphasize the value of community.

I have started, in the past couple of years, doing more and more work around AI and sustainability. And this shows that I actually listen to my own advice sometimes. One of the first things I did, because I was realizing I’m going around the world, meeting all these people, they all are approaching sustainable AI from a different perspective.

Normally, you connect on LinkedIn and have that kind of digital networking effect, but I said, You know what? I'm going to form an actual monthly community. Every month, someone presents for 15 minutes. This month, I just released a paper on applied AI for sustainability, and I gave the presentation for 15 minutes. Then everyone in the group has three minutes to ask a question or give feedback. It’s been all of those adjectives I just gave you. It’s been inspirational. It’s been motivating and it’s been educating because of the amount of knowledge that people have.

So I would answer that question with a capital C, all caps, COMMUNITY. Because also, this space, this career choice, it’s not always roses. It’s not cookie-cutter. I don’t think any career really is these days, but there are a lot of stops and starts with this career choice. Hopefully that’s going to lessen as the years go by.

But there’s new political leadership, there are weird glitches in the economy that happen, there are things, and so you kind of need that community, that buttressing, to fall back on in times of progress and excitement, and also in times of challenge, which I would say is a good way of talking about the current moment.

Emma

I love that answer, and I think it's more important than ever—that community aspect, capital C.

Jeremy

All caps.

Emma

Yea, all caps, not just the first letter. How has your life in the sustainability world been different from what you imagined?

Jeremy

Such a great question, and that was one of your questions that stuck with me the most, because I didn't imagine anything, you know? And that goes back to what I said at the beginning. It's sort of like, I didn't imagine anything because there wasn't a precedent, right? There was no “ten years ago;” it was actually longer than that. I really started my practice in 2010. I mean, I formalized it into an LLC in 2014, but there wasn't a vision of what this looks like. There wasn't a history of folks that had done this.

There were certainly people who had been involved in facets of it, whether they were lawyers or activists or embedded in certain areas, environmentalists, but it really has coalesced a lot over the past 10 or 15 years. I didn't really know, and it's interesting, even today, it's sort of like, I don't really know how the next 10 years are going to look for my practice or for my career.

There's been this whole embed of technology and AI that's come into my practice. I don't know how that's going to unfold. I'm even trying to figure out right now exactly where the market demand is for consulting services. I would underline to young professionals that you may not be able to see, with crystal clarity, what your 10-, 20-, or 30-year trajectory is going to look like in this field, and that's okay. That's kind of part of what the excitement is.

It's part of what makes it a journey that's interesting and a bit mysterious, where there's constant learning, because what we're all doing collectively is something new, something different. One of the downsides to that is we don't have this guidebook or reference point to necessarily lean on or look back to.

Caitlyn

Earlier, you had mentioned that you got your Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, and you had an interest in the geopolitical aspect of energy. Would you be willing to share a bit more about your path to sustainability and some of the key moments along the way?

 Jeremy

I would say definitely I have to really thank a lot of the international organizations that today at the UN are getting sort of maligned for various reasons. But the United Nations, various agencies within it, the World Bank, other NGOs, and international organizations in the early 2010s were some of the most supportive entities for the work that I was doing.

That was extremely helpful because I was this independent actor starting out with this new approach in this new topic. I wasn't associated with a large entity, and so having those entities and leaders within them really take me under their wings and say, 'What you're doing has value, it's important, and it's resonating with the themes we're promoting around green growth, green economy, or sustainable development,' that was really validating and important.

Then I would say, beyond that early phase, a lot of the important support and teaching that I received was from my clients, actually. What clients have been really helpful at is teaching me how to translate what can be very difficult language, concepts, and aspirations around these topics into formats and language that can be digested, integrated, and synthesized by companies, NGOs, or academia, et cetera.

I feel like I'm a person who's always been really, really strong around critical thinking, creativity, and innovation, but not as strong around process and implementation. I feel like clients, through assignments, have really taught me about the second part and actually made me appreciate the second part. I used to be much more focused on hitting send and posting; I loved the burst of excitement around finishing, getting feedback, and putting out a message or putting out something.

As I've gotten older, I've become a lot more interested in the process and being in the details of the process. That's something I really thank many of my clients for, because what they're doing is process-based. It's process-based within their corporate goals, or within an NGO's mission, or within what the purpose or direction of an academic study, and that's been very grounding for me.

Laura

Yeah, I find it really captivating, the way you're characterizing sustainability as something that can be both at once mysterious but process-based and detailed, as well as creative. I'm wondering, in your time, if your perception or definition of sustainability has changed or not as you've moved through different spaces or different moments of your career?

Jeremy

That is a very good question. I'll zoom out from that a little bit and say that definitions and framing have changed a lot over the past 15 years. Even today, if you're at Climate Week, there are going to be people talking about SDGs, and then there are going to be corporate people who aren’t going to mention anything about UN lingo or even climate; they're just going to be talking about energy efficiency or supply chain optimization. There are all kinds of ways into this, and the perspectives globally are really different.

To answer your question more specifically, one thing that the Global Green Economy Index really taught me was how different perspectives between the Global North and the Global South are around this topic. I started out with a very Global North perspective, around reducing emissions, around renewable energy, more of an economic lens into these topics, and then, when you start working in the Global South, you see that there are all kinds of issues around adaptation, around resiliency, around land and the use of land related to climate change and to economic livelihoods.

It's a tricky needle to thread, and I think the way I've approached it, through the index, there was a lot of thinking about how to balance perspectives. When you're covering 160 countries, you can't just give a myopic, narrow geographic view of the topic. You have to make sure not only that everything’s covered thematically, but also that there’s data that exists to measure a small African country’s 18 variables on something the same as the United States or a richer Global North country. That’s one way into the answer.

But I would just add what I’m hearing a lot this week at Climate Week, and which I think is kind of empowering in a way, is that there’s value in stepping outside our labels and terms and really linking a lot of our words back to concepts like value, or efficiency, or profitability. I don’t want to be someone who totally encourages us not to use certain words, we can use any words that we want, but I think it’s important to realize that what we are doing, what we are promoting, what we are studying, what we are advocating, is of value.

It is of value to the bottom line, to the profitability of companies. It is of value to the mission of NGOs. It is of value to citizens and to children in all these different types of economies, who can live better, live healthier lives. There are ways in which these words get really stigmatized and politicized, and I think it might be a good idea to think about how we can embed them and connect them to very simple, important, commonly shared words that unite people and resonate with people going forward.

Because a lot of these conversations get stuck in the weeds of all the different ways in and ways of framing things, why this is right or wrong, or inclusive or not inclusive enough, and I think we might benefit from moving beyond that a little bit.

Emma

I appreciate those insights. Bridging from that, you talked a little bit about the lessons you've learned from your clients and the education and motivation from the community, but I'm wondering, if we turn it back a bit to you, how would you like your colleagues in the sustainability space to remember you?

Jeremy

That’s a great question! I was at dinner with someone from Amazon last night, and she said one of her colleagues said, we were talking about quotes or advice, and the quote was, “Do something in life that will make both your five-year-old self and your eighty-year-old self happy or approving.” And I don't know, it sort of stuck with me.

I'm a person that, at my root, I care about issues more than I care about money or recognition. I mean, obviously those things are important, but I think values and issues are what drive me. That's what motivates me and excites me.

I think that sustainability, everything under that umbrella, is so important. It touches on so many aspects of our lives, and it's such a long-term project that matters so much for future generations. I feel like all of us now are revolutionary. We are truly doing something that is revolutionary for the way our economies work and the way our societies function. That's why it's so hard, because it's a big, big thing.

I think that's how I want to be remembered. Not as a revolutionary, but as someone who dedicated my life, or my work life, to issues that had really big, long-term consequences to lots of people. And having done just a small part within that would be plenty for me.

Caitlyn

I really like your framing on sustainability being revolutionary, and kind of flowing out of that. What are your hopes for what the future holds in this space?

Jeremy

It's interesting to almost, like, contradict, it's not a contradiction of what I just said, but I kind of, what I hope for in my lifetime, and I'm already seeing this in the younger generation, is that this is not like an add-on thing. This is not a peripheral thing. This is not an exotic, idealistic thing. This is the thing, right?

So that sustainability, that all these different facets of the topic, are so integrated into business as usual, into how we live our lives, think about decisions, make consumption, run a business, that there's not even the need, at a certain point, for this other conversation, because it's so integral to the conversation. It is the conversation.

And I feel this amazing tension right now in New York because you have the UN General Assembly, where you have a certain conversation happening between countries, and particularly from the President of the United States around this topic, and then you have Climate Week, where there's all kinds of stuff happening. It may not be shouted as loudly as it has been over the past few years, but it's still happening, it's really still happening.

There feels that there's this separation still, but every year it feels that it's creeping (as strange as that sounds) closer to integration. I think if, in my lifetime, there's a point where, like, this podcast is not even necessary, it's not even a thing anymore, because what it's talking about is so second nature to CEOs, to everyone around us operating in our societies, that would be kind of amazing.

You know, if you almost put yourself out of business. I don't know what the expression is, but there's some expression like you've succeeded when your topic, your issue, is no longer needed because it's so second nature that it's adopted by people.

Laura

I love that! As we close, is there anything else you want to share to our listeners?

Jeremy

Just to keep going, and to obviously check out the National Sustainability Society, which is a fantastic community, talk about a great example of that. It's also a community where there are all kinds of resources for professionals coming into this space. There's a lot of examples that you can find among professionals in the society, in the NSS, that can be good for mentorship, that can be good for just sort of seeing yourself, seeing what a career might look like.

I would encourage everyone also to just connect on LinkedIn with people, because I think that's another underutilized resource by younger folks entering this field. Back to the original question around trajectories and what these careers look like, just look at people's LinkedIn profiles.

You don't get all the nuance necessarily, but you can start to see, oh, this is a person that I'm interested in; this is a person that I admire. Let me look at what their trajectory is. People will be surprised, it's not linear. I mean, it's not a linear progression.

People get to these things from different places, but it can start to flesh out some more detail around what these careers look like, what kind of skills are valuable for what types of jobs, and also can just help in general for mentorship and networking around getting jobs.