TOP 10 Most-Read Thought Leaders in Sustainable Lifestyle

Discover also our 2026 Rankings of the Most Read Thought Leaders in Business Impact, Carbon, Circularity, Climate Change, Energy, Energy Transition, Environmental Sustainability, ESG, Ethical Governance, Green Tech, Nature, Renewables, Social Responsibility, Sustainable AI, Sustainable Business, and Sustainable Finance. Explore how this year's leaders compare to the most influential voices of last year!

illuminem is proud to present the most-read Thought Leaders in Sustainable Lifestyle globally, as recognised by illuminem's ever growing community of 700,000+ readers.

The sustainable lifestyle conversation in 2025 was defined by a question of culture rather than policy: whether the stories, images, and habits that shape how people live could survive a year in which climate messaging itself came under attack. As ESG became a political liability and corporate commitments frayed, the communications and creative industries found themselves on the front line. The campaign by Clean Creatives to push advertising and PR agencies away from fossil-fuel clients put a spotlight on the role of marketing in climate delay, while a parallel reckoning over greenwashing forced brands to reconcile the gap between what they said and what they did.

What emerged was a recognition that behavior change cannot be legislated into being. The attitude-behavior gap – consumers who say they want sustainability but rarely buy it – remained the central puzzle, and the voices on this list approached it from culture, psychology, and design rather than regulation alone.

Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjørkskov, founder of No Objectives, topped this list by turning that puzzle into method. An architect by training, he treats branded activism as a tool to convert minority insight into majority action, integrating marketing with social and environmental causes to spark systemic change. His most-read piece made the case for doing first and believing later – that action, not conviction, is where change begins.

Joining him on the list, Gloria Benedikt explores what happens when theatre becomes a climate issue, Mikaela Loachbrings intersectional climate and racial justice to a mass audience, and Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org and one of the movement's founding voices, anchors the case that communication shapes who acts and when.

Drawn from over 2,500 thought leaders publishing on illuminem Voices, the ranking below reflects the voices that shaped how the sustainable lifestyle conversation evolved in 2025. Please join us in congratulating the Thought Leaders of the Year in Sustainable Lifestyle, and every voice contributing to this vital global debate on illuminem.

1️⃣ Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjørkskov - Founder of No Objectives
Country: Denmark 🇩🇰
Most-Read Thought Piece: Doing first, believing later
Profile: Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjørkskov is the founder of No Objectives, a non-profit research and design agency turning minority insights into majority actions. Also an architect, Kasper bridges strategy, activism, and design to transform complex challenges into actionable solutions, helping organisations drive collective action. Through branded activism, he integrates marketing with social and environmental causes to spark systemic change, shaping a future that prioritises sustainability, equity, and resilience.

2️⃣ Gloria Benedikt - Stage Director and Researcher
Country: Austria 🇦🇹
Most-Read Thought Piece: End to begin: when theatre becomes a climate issue
Profile: Gloria Benedikt is a stage director and researcher. She graduated from the Vienna State Opera Ballet Academy, English National Ballet School, and Harvard University. In 2015, she joined the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) to explore the role of science-arts partnerships in sustainability. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in 2021 and became a consultant to the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) in 2022. She has presented her work at the UN, European Parliament, UNESCO, and Harvard University.

3️⃣ Sylvie Goulard - Fmr. French Minister of the Armed Forces
Country: France 🇫🇷
Most-Read Thought Piece: For an agriculture that regenerates the soil and the economy
Profile: Sylvie Goulard is a Professor of Practice at SDA Bocconi, Vice President of the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University, and President of the Franco-German Institute. She previously served as Deputy Governor at the Banque de France and as a Member of the European Parliament. She holds a Law degree from Aix-Marseille University.

4️⃣ ex aequo Duncan Meisel - Executive Director of Clean Creatives
Country: United States 🇺🇸
Most-Read Thought Piece: Open letter: Clean Creatives – Edelman must drop fossil fuels
Profile: Duncan Meisel is Executive Director of Clean Creatives, a network of advertising and PR professionals committed to opposing fossil-fuel industry green-washing and urging agencies to decline fossil-fuel clients. His background includes digital strategy for climate justice campaigns and human-rights initiatives, and his work has helped bring industry attention to the role of communications in climate delay.

4️⃣ ex aequo Mikaela Loach - Climate-Justice Activist, Author and Podcaster
Country: Jamaica 🇯🇲
Most-Read Thought Piece: Open letter: Clean Creatives – Edelman must drop fossil fuels
Profile: Mikaela Loach is a Jamaican-British climate-justice activist, author and podcaster whose work focuses on intersectional climate & racial justice, inclusive movements and social media mobilisation. She is the author of It's Not That Radical: Climate Action to Transform Our World and combines grassroots activism with digital-campaigning to shift narratives in climate communications.

4️⃣ ex aequo Clover Hogan - Founder and Executive Director of Force of Nature
Country: United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Most-Read Thought Piece: Open letter: Clean Creatives – Edelman must drop fossil fuels
Profile: Clover Hogan is the founder and Executive Director of Force of Nature, a youth-led non-profit mobilising young people worldwide to turn eco-anxiety into climate action. She began the organisation at age 19, has spoken widely on the intersection of mental-health and climate activism, and works with both young people and corporate/decision-maker audiences to build resilience and agency.

4️⃣ ex aequo Bill McKibben - Co-Founder of 350.org
Country: United States 🇺🇸
Most-Read Thought Piece: Open letter: Clean Creatives – Edelman must drop fossil fuels
Profile: Bill McKibben is an author, journalist and environmental activist, co-founder of 350.org and widely regarded as one of the leading voices in the climate-justice movement. His 1989 book The End of Nature is credited as one of the first widely-available books on climate change aimed at a general audience.

5️⃣ Carlos Terol - Founder of Good Ripple
Country: Spain 🇪🇸
Most-Read Thought Piece: The climate funnel: a framework to ignite change through effective communication
Profile: Carlos Terol is an impact entrepreneur and founder of Good Ripple, a tech platform born to connect changemakers who are ready to tackle the world's most pressing issues, ranging from poverty to climate change and inequalities. He has extensive volunteering experience and has actively collaborated with various non-profit organizations, successfully leading a local chapter of Engineers Without Borders UK, and overseeing its operations for nearly two years.

6️⃣ Marci Zaroff - Founder, CEO, and Chairwoman of EcoFashion Corp
Country: United States 🇺🇸
Most-Read Thought Piece: Decarbonizing the music industry: music to your ears
Profile: Marci Zaroff is the Founder, CEO, and Chairwoman of EcoFashion Corp, a sustainable apparel and home textile manufacturing platform based in New York. She also leads brands such as Farm to Home, YesAnd, and Seed to Style, and is credited with coining the term "ECOfashion". Zaroff has served as a guest host on QVC and HSN and produced the THREAD Documentary, which examines the environmental impacts of the textile industry.

6️⃣ Roni Gamzon - Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at BioFluff (SAVIAN)
Country: France 🇫🇷
Most-Read Thought Piece: Decarbonizing the music industry: music to your ears
Profile: Roni Gamzon is the Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at BioFluff (SAVIAN) in Paris, a biomaterials startup producing the worlds first 100% plant-based alternative to fur, shearling, and plush. She is also a Consultant at Diana Balogh Consulting, advising luxury jewelry brands and major corporations on innovation and circularity strategies for a more sustainable industry.

6️⃣ Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri - Founder and Chief Vision Officer of Open Origin
Country: Canada 🇨🇦
Most-Read Thought Piece: Decarbonizing the music industry: music to your ears
Profile: Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri is the Founder and Chief Vision Officer of Open Origin, a green energy company in Canada developing industrial-scale zero‐emissions solutions including a green supercomputer and 100% green ammonia production. She is also the Founder and Executive Director of Shakti Regeneration Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to ecosystems regeneration and intersectional justice, and the Founder and CEO of DX Studios, a multidisciplinary creative agency. Additionally, Pal-Chaudhuri serves as a keynote speaker at international forums and as a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University.

7️⃣ Simon Gupta - Founder & Managing Director of Broadpeak
Country: Germany 🇩🇪
Most-Read Thought Piece: Climate conflict trilogy: tackling displacement in fragile cities
Profile: Simon Gupta is the Founder & Managing Director of Broadpeak, a Swiss-based Advisory Company specializing in Impact Finance. He has 20 years of experience in development finance in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Simon has been involved in the set-up of multiple blended finance structures on the LP side as well as the GP side and is the Chairperson of several impact investment funds. Before founding Broadpeak, he worked for development institutions DEG, KfW, and responsAbility.

8️⃣ Jef Teugels - Regenerative Relationships and Learning Director of the Regenerative Marketing Institute
Country: Poland 🇵🇱
Most-Read Thought Piece: The imagination we share
Profile: Jef Teugels is the Regenerative Relationships and Learning Director of the Regenerative Marketing Institute. He designs planet- and people-first solutions and he is a Faculty Member of the EMBA Program at the Krakow School of Business, Krakow University of Economics, and a Postgraduate Researcher at the Institute of Business, Industry. He explores the energy created by the friction between customer behaviour, organizational readiness, and exponential technologies.

9️⃣ Susana Gago - Founder of UNAKTI
Country: Spain 🇪🇸
Most-Read Thought Piece: The forgotten genius: nature, the self, and the fall of the human intellect
Profile: Susana Gago is the Founder of UNAKTI, a female-led ecosystem dedicated to cultivating high-value medicinal and aromatic plants, and transforming them into pure raw materials for the Cosmetic, Health & Wellness industries. As part of her job at UNAKTI, she collaborates with local women farmers and communities, empowering them through regenerative medicinal forest cultivation to step up into leadership roles within their families and communities.

🔟 Angela Chaudhuri - Chief Catalyst at Swasti
Country: India 🇮🇳
Most-Read Thought Piece: Celebrating global changemakers: spotlight on the 2025 Impact Makers
Profile: Angela Chaudhuri is a United Nations Climate Change COP Impact Maker and the Chief Catalyst at Swasti, leading initiatives at the intersection of global health, climate resilience, and systems change. She has unlocked over $1B for equity-driven programs and co-convened COVIDActionCollab, recognized by the World Economic Forum. Angela is also the author of Boiling Over: How Heat Affects Women and co-designed the Precision Health Platform (PATCH). She holds a Master of Public Health from Boston University.

Congratulations to our most-read thought leaders of the last year. In a time when the sustainability conversation was pulled in every direction at once, the voices on this list helped move it forward with clarity and intellect. We are proud to amplify their voices, and look forward to what comes next.

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