There is a lot to be grateful for in the sustainability world as we head into the Fall and another Net Zero Conference at the LA Convention Center on September 15th. The passing of the timely-named Inflation Reduction Act for one, allocating $369 billion to clean energy & infrastructure projects. This mark of investment on a federal level will provide the market confidence for the continued surge in Environmental, Social, and Governance, otherwise know as ESG, corporate strategy and policy development. While many are right to point out the challenges in finding standards for measurement and elevated risk of greenwashing, we can be grateful this is not something that is going away any time soon, building on our trend of net zero commitments and leaving us breathless to see what the upcoming climate disclosure guidance for public companies will be. This is a critical moment for us, where we sustainability junkies and climate nerds go mainstream, because the money finally cares…because they need to be transparent.
This Fall we are coming back in person, memories both present and past of COVID fading, to come together at events like the Net Zero Conference (NZ22), Sept. 14-15 in downtown LA, to determine how we best tame this surge of public and private interest and funding. And this is critical, because for all of our hot air, global emissions still went up last year, will go up this year, and have yet to peak. We need to move faster, and take advantage of any opening, any crack in the armor of the establishment to take on the increasing impacts of climate change. So yes, we will figure out a better structure for ESG, where the environmental adheres to emissions benchmarks and policy while the social and governance portions of this issue become less of a smokescreen for acceptance. This is why ESG is a strong focus of NZ22 keynote speakers and a panel, and here at USGBC-LA we are launching both an ESG Training Series for Professionals as well as a capacity building workshop for small to medium sized businesses to help with emissions reporting. We need to provide the training needed to make this movement credible, leveraging the multitude of frameworks from SDG’s to GRESB to make some sense of the noise to create positive impact at the pace we need.
So join me on September 15th at the Net Zero Conference in DTLA as we bring all folks in brand new ESG roles together with our tried and true green building professionals, our clean energy partners, our community advocates and we mix it up to learn from each other, celebrate our wins, and focus on the challenges ahead. The startups from USGBC-LA’s Net Zero Accelerator will be in attendance, and this year’s diverse cohort does not disappoint, with permeable pavement materials to modular batteries and grey water, to ensure net zero homes are part of our future. We have also partnered with our friends at Verdical Group to host our mini-golf tournament on September 14th at 4:30, benefiting the Survivor’s Healing Garden in Watts which which will serve as a place of reflection and gathering for survivors of violent crime.
To sign up for Net Zero Conference, https://netzeroconference.com/.
To join us at Mini-Golf, click here.
To learn about USGBC-LA’s ESG Training series, click here.
