 In 2011, Wyss won the Robert Marshall Award from The Wilderness Society for his conservation work.In January 2015, a conservative U.S. news site "The Daily Caller" accused John Podesta, who was at the time an advisor on environmental issues to the Obama administration, of an ethics violation for pushing the advocacy agenda of a former employer, because he had previously received $87,000 as a consulting fee for work he did for Wyss' HJW Foundation in 2013 (that organization was later merged with the Wyss Foundation).According to the "High Country News", "nothing ever came of the accusations".