Day 1: From Risk to Opportunity: The Drivers of Leadership in a Changing World
8:30am Welcome
Aimée Christensen, Founder, Sun Valley Institute
Nina Jonas, Mayor of Ketchum
8:45am Leadership on the Edge
Robert Swan (OBE), Polar Traveler, Foundation 2041
Get inspired by the first person in history to have walked to the north and south poles as he shares what he has seen, and where he is going next, why, and how we can all be part of it.
9:20am The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and the Remaking of the Modern World
Jeff Goodell, Author & Contributing Editor, Rolling Stone
Join Rolling Stone Contributing Editor and award-winning author Jeff Goodell as he shares the reality of our present climate impacts and glimpses from our future in his forthcoming book from conversations with the world’s leading scientists, business leaders, and government officials. Jeff’s insights are informed by his writings about the energy industry, our climate, and politics, from travels to Paris with Secretary Kerry, to Silicon Valley with those who seek to engineer a safer climate, to Alaska’s glaciers with President Obama.
9:40am Global Health and Our Environment
Dr. Philip Landrigan, Dean for Global Health, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
The World Health Organization estimates that disease caused by preventable hazards in the environment accounts for 23% of premature death among adults, and for as much as 36% of all deaths worldwide among children. A forthcoming report from the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health confirms that pollution-related disease was responsible in 2015 for nearly 9.6 million deaths - three times the number of deaths caused by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Pollution caused by toxic chemicals is an increasingly important part of this global problem. Dr. Philip Landrigan, the lead author on the Lancet Commission Report and Dean for Global Health in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, presents the latest information on the environmental chemicals challenge.
10:00am Rethinking Weather: The Resilience Imperative and the Power of Data
Paul Walsh, Director, Weather Strategy, IBM Global Business Services/ The Weather Company
In a time of increasing weather chaos, weather data is empowering companies, saving ecosystems, protecting communities, engaging consumers, and informing investors to build a more resilient world.
10:15am State Leadership and Innovation for Building Resilient Prosperity
Hilary Franz, Commissioner of Public Lands, State of Washington
States have long been the pioneers, the place where policies of all types are tested before being adopted at the federal level. This tradition continues with states like Washington driving leadership on building more resilient prosperity.
10:30am BREAK
11:00am The Urgent Opportunity of Energy Resilience
S. David Freeman, Engineer, Attorney & Author
Jennifer Worrall, CEO, Iteros
Discussants Michael Cohen, CEO, Cypress Creek Renewables
Dan Elliott, CEO, EnerBlü
Greg Kandankulam, Sustainable Energy Strategist, NRG
Energy has the potential to undermine resilience to devastating effect, whether from fragile infrastructure, by draining capital for imported resources, or by contributing to the increasingly chaotic climate shifts underway. Yet energy can also serve as a powerful engine for resilient prosperity. Tapping into local resources, renewable energy, storage technologies, and microgrid solutions can increase security, reduce environmental impacts, generate high quality jobs, reduce energy prices and strengthen energy reliability. Join energy legend S. David Freeman, energy innovators EnerBlü and Iteros, Cypress Creek Renewables, one of the biggest developers of home-grown renewable energy, and NRG, the largest independent power generator in the country to explore the future of energy.
11:45pm Tour the Solar Microgrid in Forest Service Park!
12:00pm LUNCH
The Drivers of Leadership: Nature as Inspiration, Nature as Provider
1:00pm Wonder, Awe and Resilience
Louie Schwartzberg, Award-winning Cinematographer
Wonder and awe bring us into the present moment, connecting us with the resiliency of nature, which possesses the power to inspire and heal us Louie Schwartzberg, cinematic wizard, reconnects us with our human birthright: our innate spiritual resonance with visions of wonder and awe in the natural world.
1:15pm Human Need for the Wild: Salmon, Climate, and the Demise – or Return? – of an Icon
Rocky Barker, Author & Journalist, The Idaho Statesman
Nature provides critical benefits to humans: physical health, mental health and spiritual inspiration. Just knowing that a species or place exists benefits us. Award-winning journalist Rocky Barker of The Idaho Statesman has studied the power of the wild, and in particular the Northwest’s iconic salmon, the urgent challenges they face, and the opportunities to bring them back – a window that is fast disappearing. Can we re-wild our world?
1:30pm Nature, Technology, and Value
Michelle Lapinski, Vice President, The Earth Genome
Our natural systems provide the food, fuel, shelter, and inspiration we must have to survive. Yet capital markets rarely value nature or the ecosystem services nature provides. The Earth Genome is using big data to help change that.
1:50pm Levering Artificial Intelligence for a More Resilient Planet
Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist, Microsoft
From transforming the way we manage water to monitoring and optimizing energy use to mapping natural ecosystems, technology supports resilient prosperity.
The Drivers of Leadership: Communication: Engaging Companies, Consumers, Citizens
Host: Freya Williams
2:05pm Content That Matters
Russell Sparkman, CEO Content Strategy, FusionSpark Media
In an age when people prioritize purpose when choosing where to work or who to buy from, how can companies leverage purpose-focused marketing initiatives to connect with audiences, drive impact and meet business goals? Explore purpose-focused principles and case studies to learn how corporations can drive the conversations we need.
2:20pm Engaging Effectively: Psychology of Climate Change Communications
Dr. Renee Lertzman, Psychologist, Communications Strategist & Researcher
How do we engage each other about our environmental crisis and what it means for our families, communities, and the planet, without shutting down, but instead driving engagement? Psychologist and communications researcher, Dr. Renee Lertzman, shares with us her insights and inspiration.
2:35pm The Power of Story: The Messages, Messengers and Avenues for Impact
Lexi Dupont, AdventureAthlete and Environmentalist, Member of Protect Our Winters
Peter Horton, Writer, Director and Actor, Pico Creek Productions
Moderated by Jake Moe, Founder, Powder Magazine
The passion of conviction, the joy of adventure, the excitement of invention: how do we inspire and activate? Three passionate nature advocates share their stories and strategies, audiences and avenues – in person, online, on video or audio, to build communities of fellow travelers to make a difference.
3:00pm Finding Purpose in Corporate America
Howard Pyle, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience & Design, MetLife
Geof Rochester, Managing Director, The Nature Conservancy
Julie Shafer, Bank of the West / BNP Paribas
Moderated by Eamonn Store, Founder & CEO, FairShare, former CEO, The Guardian N.A.
In a period of extreme uncertainty, what is the leadership role for Corporate America? The optimists among us see this time as the start of a powerful corporate uprising in support of the emerging purpose economy, where corporate leaders put their weight behind the social and environmental issues that matter. The more cynical amongst us argue that talk is cheap and Corporate America remains very much in the hands of the lobbyists, spin doctors and corporate comms teams. Let’s get into some juicy conversation with three thought leaders who represent major interests within this debate.
3:30pm The CEO Interviews: Corporate Challenges and Opportunities in Resilience
Hosted by: P.J. Simmons, Chair, Corporate Eco-Forum
Companies are both at risk to environmental and other changes, but also can build a competitive advantage by getting ahead of these risks and turning them into opportunities. Join a land trust executive turned CEO of a resource company and the CEO whose new business model is revolutionizing consumer and seller relationships with stuff.
Laurel Sayer, President & CEO, Midas Gold Idaho
Eileen Mockus, CEO, Coyuchi
3:50pm Personal Resilience: Self-Care
P.J. Simmons, Chair, Corporate Eco Forum & ISSA Certified Personal Trainer
No More Excuses: Build your own quick workout in as little as 7 minutes when you’re traveling or have “no time.”
4:00pm BREAK
4:30pm ACTION SECTIONS
For our first round of breakout sessions, together we will roll up our sleeves to work on specific opportunities to build resilient prosperity: how to communicate to drive impact and how to build energy resilience.
I. Communicating Urgency with Inspiration: A Polar Expedition
People want to make a difference, but often they are not sure how. Or they receive messages that are downers and they’d just rather not hear anything more about the challenges we face. Together we will collaborate with expert communicators to focus on a specific opportunity to make a difference. Later this year, renowned Polar Traveler Robert Swan (OBE) will be journeying with his son to the South Pole to raise awareness about the threats facing the world’s last wilderness, Antarctica. The first such expedition to travel without the use of fossil fuels, how can we leverage this groundbreaking trip to inspire and activate citizens around the world? Join expert discussants Eamonn Storeof FairShare; Freya Williams of Futerra; writer, producer and director Peter Horton; Geof Rochester of The Nature Conservancy; psychologist Renee Lertzman, Howard Pyle of MetLife; filmmaker Louie Schwartzberg; Russell Sparkman of FusionSpark Media; and Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone.
II. Energy for Grid Edge Resilience: Sun Valley
What is the energy system of now? Building off of the energy plenary discussion, participants will together take a deep dive into smart energy solutions with a case study addressing the energy risks facing the Sun Valley area, a community at risk at the edge of the grid. Expert discussants include: Dan Elliott of EnerBlü; Jennifer Worral of Iteros; Michael Cohen of Cypress Creek Renewables; Shelley Cohen of Alpha Solar Group; Tim Willink of Grid Alternatives; Katie Bray of the Sun Valley Institute; Greg Kandankulam of NRG; Wendi Goldsmith of the Center for Urban Watershed Resilience; and Andy Castellano of the Earthshine Foundation.
6:00pm Reception: Limelight Hotel Deck
8:00pm DINE AROUND DINNERS
Day 2: Building Resilient Prosperity: Investing for Impact, Driving Innovation & Building Community
8:45am Introduction: Brooks Preston, Former Vice President for Investment Funds OPIC
Mobilizing Resources for Impact: The Social Progress Index
Matthew Bishop, Senior Editor, The Economist Group, Co-Founder, Social Progress Index
Overview: Investing for Resilience Impact
Raúl Pomares, Founder, Sonen Capital
Jay Koh, Global Adaptation and Resilience Initiative and Lightsmith Group
Resilience Investment: Minimizing Risks and Optimizing Opportunities
Daryn Dodson, Managing Director, Illumen Capital
Mark George, Founder & President, Accord Capital Management
Kristin Hull, Founder & CEO, Nia Impact Advisors
Lila Preston, Partner, Generation Investment Management
Paul Walsh, Director, Weather Strategy, IBM Global Business Services/The Weather Company
Key Sectors of Opportunity:
Investing in Closing the Carbon Cycle - A Critical Win-Win for Resilience
Nicholas Eisenberger, Managing Partner, Pure Energy Partners
Investing in The Energy Transformation
Sydney McNiff Johnson, Senior Adviser, Dentons Global Energy Practice
Nancy Pfund, Founder & Managing Partner, DBL Partners
Lila Preston, Partner, Generation Investment Management
Moderated by: Meade Harris, Founder & CEO, The Hawthorn Club
10:30am BREAK
Driving Innovation
Host: Kristin Hull, Nia Impact Advisors
11:00am Innovation for Our Common Home
Informed by the Laudato Si’ Challenge, in this session innovators present their ideas, technologies, and business models. The Laudato Si’ Challenge was inspired by Pope Francis to care for our common home and encourages early to mid-stage startups to grow their breakthrough solutions to meet the world’s boldest challenges.
The Innovators: Leif Elgethun, CEO & Co-Founder, Retrolux
Steve Glenn, Founder & Managing Director, Living Homes and Founder & CEO, Plant Prefab
Sumer Johal, Founder, Agralogics
Michael Leach, CEO, Aquabella
Joel Serface, CEO & Co-Founder, Catalyze
The Incubator: James McMahon, Founding CEO, The Collider
The Connector: Astrid Scholz, Chief Everything Officer, Sphaera
11:45pm Inspiring Innovators: Integrating Sustainability Into Education at Scale
Julie Ann Wrigley, President & CEO, Wrigley Investments, LLC and President, Julie Ann Wrigley Foundation
Gary Dirks, Director, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute on Sustainability, Arizona State University
Our educational institutions have the potential to be powerful levers to transform society. For two years running, Arizona State University, one of the nation’s largest universities, has been named the most innovative school in the nation. The University’s leaders and its groundbreaking Global Institute on Sustainability are integrating sustainability learning into all aspects of education, from undergraduates to MBAs, from PhDs in Sustainability to executive education. Learn from Institute Board Co-Chair Julie Wrigley and Institute Director Gary Dirks about their challenges and successes and strategies for mainstreaming sustainability education.
12:05pm Gender-Smart: Transforming the Workplace to Foster Prosperous Organizations and Resilient Communities
Cass Redstone, Co-founder, Gender Smart
Sara Sanford, Co-founder, Gender Smart
In this time in need of urgent action by all, we can’t afford for anyone to be held back. Gender Smart provides data-driven approaches for companies that aspire to excel by harnessing the full potential of all their employees, applying the principle that you get the behavior you measure to bring gender parity to the workplace.
12:20pm LUNCH
Building Community
Host: Raina Thiele, Former Associate Director, Intergovernmental Affairs, The White House
Robust communities are the underpinnings for resilient prosperity: healthy people with opportunity, equality, mutual respect, trust and resources are vital. In this session we learn lessons from Summit Series’ creation of a new community, including Hurricane Katrina recovery, strategies for investing locally, how food strengthens communities, the power of local investment in food to drive prosperity, and the potential opportunities the energy sector transformation presents for Native American communities.
1:30pm Make No Small Plans: Building Community Around Unprecedented Experiences
Langely McNeal, Director of Community, Summit Series
Lessons from Summit Series: How one Community catalyzes entrepreneurship, protects a million acres in Africa and is building a new mountain town from scratch!
1:45pm Katrina: From Disaster to Rebuilding Community
Liz McCartney & Zack Rosenburg, The St. Bernard Project (SBP)
One of the greatest national disasters to strike America, Hurricane Katrina’s damage was immediate, vast and long lasting. Many people vowed to help. After sending money and volunteering during the cleanup, Liz McCartney and Zack Rosenburg quit their teaching and legal careers and moved to New Orleans to address the travesty they saw unfolding: the poor and working-class families whose homes and communities were decimated had no clear path forward. They were unable to rebuild due to bureaucratic processes and delayed resources and a disaster recovery system that priorities process over results. SBP stepped in to address the immediate needs, rebuilding hundreds of houses, and now helping build community resilience across America.
2:00pm Doing Healthcare Differently: A Healthier Rural West and Nation
Phil Polakoff, CEO, A Healthier Me
The rural west is facing a healthcare crisis, with higher risks and fewer providers. There are solutions, from early childhood interventions to a broader concept of healthcare – beyond the system. Dr. Polakoff will share his insights from his experience at Stanford University Medical Center and Stanford’s Bill Lane Center of the American West.
2:15pm Toxic Chemicals in our Communities: Science, Advocacy, Investments, and You
Dr. Philip Landrigan, Dean for Global Health, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Lead Author of the Lancet Commission Report
Alison Carlson, Founder & Chair, Forsythia Foundation
Suzanne Price, Founder & CEO, Sprout
Rui Resendes, President & CEO, FireRein
Sarah Doll, National Director, Safer States
Moderated by Adrian Horotan, General Partner, Safer Made
Toxic chemicals are a clear and present danger to human health and the natural world. More and more people demand safer products. In the absence of reliable federal action, some states, retailers, and brands are taking the lead in eliminating materials that are dangerous to health and ecosystems. This session will explore some of the creative ways philanthropy, entrepreneurship, and investing are addressing this issue and what we can do to accelerate these efforts.
2:55pm The Power of Food Entrepreneurship to Strengthen Urban and Rural Communities Alike
Sam Polk, Co-founder & CEO, Everytable
Jonathan Webb, Founder & CEO, AppHarvest
Sam Polk left his hedge fund career to build a business solution to “food deserts.” He is not just solving the food challenges in these areas in need, he is also creating job opportunities and building community around the dining table. Jonathan Webb finished up his stint sourcing renewable energy for the Pentagon and then headed home to Eastern Kentucky to bring his expertise to help drive economic development. There he has developed a new solution: efficient, modern greenhouses that reduce food imports and miles, create quality jobs, and have the potential to scale up in coal country and far beyond.
3:15pm Connecting Community with Capital
Bill Stoddart, Founder, HomeStake Venture Partners
Kristin Hull, Founder & CEO, Nia Impact Advisors
Werner Morawitz, Advisory Board, Sun Valley Institute
Moderated by Ali Long, Director, Local Food Alliance
From Bozeman, Montana to Oakland, California to Blaine County, Idaho, how local investment can drive resilient prosperity.
3:35pm Communities at a Crossroads: The Energy Opportunity for Native American Tribes
Paulette Jordan, Idaho House Representative
Michael Healey, Director, Origination, 8minutenergy
Raina Thiele, Founder & Principal Consultant, Thiele Strategies, LLC and former Associate Director White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs
Tim Willink, Director of Tribal Programs, Grid Alternatives
Moderated by Daryn Dodson, Managing Director, Illumen Capital
The showdown at Standing Rock highlighted how resource use and energy development have often come at the expense of Native communities, endangering water, land and health, with communities paying the price while wealth is created for others. This session will explore how renewable energy -of all sizes - can instead be a powerful asset to build lasting prosperity.
4.15pm BREAK
4:45pm ACTION SECTIONS
For our second round of breakout sessions, together we will roll up our sleeves to work on three specific areas of opportunity: tapping into Native American renewable energy opportunities; investing in food and agriculture for resilience; and scaling resilience investing, from the early adopters to the main stream.
I. The Native American Renewable Energy Opportunity: From Lip Service to Scale
Join innovators and investors to grow existing projects and spark new efforts to grow renewable energy in Native American communities.
Discussants include:
Paulette Jordan of the Idaho State Legislature; Tim Willink of Grid Alternatives;
Raina Thiele, former Associate Director of Intergovernmental Affairs at The White
House; Wendolyn Holland of Holland Consulting; Daryn Dodson, Managing
Director, Illumen Capital; JC Danilovich, NatureVest; Michael Cohen, Cypress Creek Renewables; and Shelley Cohen, Alpha Solar Group.
II. Investing in Food and Agriculture for Resilience
Investing in sustainable, local food and agriculture can deliver multiple benefits – job creation and income generation, reduced food costs to local areas, reduced environmental impact – to investors, communities, and farmers. Join Ali Long of the Local Food Alliance; Jonathan Webb of AppHarvest; Sam Polk of Everytable; Sumer Johal of Agralogics; Lila Preston of Generation Investment Management; Steve Wysmuller of The Weather Company; and Bill Stoddart of HomeStake Venture Partners.
III. Scaling Resilience Investment: Moving from the Fringe to the Mainstream
The economic risks facing investors from our changing environment are great, just as are the opportunities to invest in resilience solutions. Led by the Global Adaptation and Resilience Investment Working Group (GARI) founder Jay Koh, and Confluence Philanthropy board member and Climate Solutions Collaborative (C2C) Steering Committee member, Nicholas Eisenberger, this working session will be a roll up our sleeves effort to identify how we can accelerate the adoption of resilience strategies by investors, both to reduce the vulnerability facing global capital and other assets, and to dramatically increase the capital that is seeking resilience solutions. The session will inform the work by GARI and C2C going forward.
Discussants include Jay Koh of Lightsmith Group; Brooks Preston,
formerly of OPIC; Nicholas Eisenberger of Pure Energy Partners; Mark George of Accord Capital Management; Bill Stoddart of HomeStake Venture Partners; and
Sanjay Wagle of Lightsmith Group.
5:30pm END
7:00pm DINNER AT RICKSHAW RESTAURANT