Member events
Connect Live Talks
A series of powerful conversations with Climate & Capital Connect thought leaders — members sharing practical insights and candid perspectives with other members on everything from policy and tech to investments and leading bold transformations.
Ask questions during the Q&A.
Access to Connect Live Talks is limited to members.
SEPTEMBER
Sustainable fashion:
Redesigning an industry for impact
September 17, 2024
1:00pm - 2:00pm ET
Speakers
Samata Pattinson, Black Pearl
Casey Hogue, Serotonin Creative Consultancy
Host: David Garrison, Climate & Capital Connect
There are over 8 billion people on Planet Earth. Most of them wear clothes every day. This is a problem.
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Join Samata Pattinson, CEO of Black Pearl, and Casey Hogue, founder of Serotonin Creative Consultancy for a candid discussion of fashion’s contribution to global carbon emissions and how the impact sustainable fashion is having on consumer choices offers useful insight for other industries.
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Together, Pattinson, an influential voice in cultural sustainability who works with organizations like the UN and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences across design, fashion, music, entertainment and education, and Hogue, who led SF Climate Week’s Sustainable Fashion Exhibition, will frame the fashion industry’s emissions challenge, dissect actionable solutions, and offer insight into how style and fashion can drive broader change — in consumer markets and beyond.
PAST EVENTS
2024
APRIL
Food waste: Impact and solutions
Applying systems thinking to a systems problem
April 11, 2024
1:00pm - 2:00pm ET
Speakers
Bobbie Armstrong, Stratium
Alejandro Enamorado, ReFED
Host: David Garrison, Climate & Capital Connect
No one likes the thought of food going to waste, yet 38% of all food in the U.S. goes uneaten or unsold each year. The good news is that multiple solutions to this problem exist – and implementing them can not only reduce GHG emissions and help preserve our environmental resources but also result in a five-to-one net economic benefit. So why aren’t food-system stakeholders doing more to cut the waste?
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Join Bobbie Armstrong, Managing Director at Stratium, a food waste solution provider, and Alejandro Enamorado from the Capital, Innovation, and Engagement team at ReFED, a U.S.-based nonprofit working to catalyze the food system to take evidence-based action to stop wasting food, as they discuss the extent of the food-waste problem, which solutions can have the greatest impact, and what it will take to get them adopted.
MAY
Climate storytelling
Narrative innovation and why it matters
May 16, 2024
11:00am - 12:00pm ET
Speakers
Greg Jacobs, Siskel/Jacobs
Joseph Simpson, 4800 Partners
Host: David Garrison, Climate & Capital Connect
In a hyper-politicized world, leaders need to think critically about how we tell climate stories and how they’re received. Are there ways to reach audiences who have tuned out the issue or are turned off by the message while still speaking to the committed?
Join members Greg Jacobs, Emmy-winning filmmaker and co-director of the new climate documentary, The Here Now Project, and climate branding expert Joseph Simpson, co-founder of 4800 Partners and author of Climate Tech Branding: How to Build a Sustainable Technology Brand, for a conversation about the changing landscape of climate storytelling and the daunting task of closing the “urgency gap.”
As an added bonus, The Here Now Project will be made available to Climate & Capital Connect members to stream for a limited window of time before the event.
2023
JULY
Giving and getting climate grant funds:
Increasing access for people who need it most
July 28, 2023
12:00pm - 1:00pm ET
Speakers
Emma Wendt, US Department of Energy, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Alison Kelman, Strategic Partnerships Consultant (formerly of Patagonia and The North Face)
Host: David Garrison, Climate & Capital Connect
In recent years, many climate investment programs have pledged to equitably distribute their financial support, but too often funds continue to funnel into the same programs and communities. From government programs to private and non-profit giving, how can we ensure that funding for the energy transition and urban sustainability support rural and historically marginalized communities?
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Join members Emma Wendt and Alison Kelman in a discussion of how programs and donors can improve equitable investment practices, and how applicants can best take advantage of the many new funding opportunities available for community climate projects.
MAY
What is “good business” in a turbulent world?
May 4, 2023
11:00am - 12:00pm ET
It used to be such a simple answer: “Just follow your inner Milton Friedman.” But that no longer works, says Alison Taylor, of NYU’s Stern School of Business. Today, CEOs are rushing en masse to publicly embrace the rhetoric of ESG and corporate responsibility.
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But is it all posturing? Building on her research into what motivates business leaders, Taylor has insights to share. Join Taylor and Climate & Capital Media’s publisher, Peter McKillop, as they try to get a grip on the titanic struggle between the unfettered pursuit of wealth and a sick planet.
FEBRUARY
"But what if we miss it?"
Inclusive innovation in climate and sustainability
February 2, 2023 8:00am - 9:00am ET
Speakers
Dr. Sebastian Groh, SOLshare
Alejandro Juárez Crawford, Rebelbase
Host: David Garrison, Climate & Capital Connect
27 COPs in, are we overly dependent on the usual suspects to get us out of our shared predicament? And if so, how do we make it normal for thousands of people to introduce practical alternatives to the way we do things today, in their industries, organizations, and communities?
SOLshare’s Dr. Sebastian Groh and RebelBase’s Alejandro Juárez Crawford offer hard-won insight, informed by data and deep experience, on how we can empower a far broader base of people around the world to take on broken systems with experiments of their own.
JANUARY
ESG investing:
Fostering radical change or maintaining the status quo?
January 12, 2023 11:00am - 12:00pm ET
Speakers
Tariq Fancy, Rumie
Elizabeth Landau, GreenPortfolio
Host: Peter McKillop, Climate & Capital Media
In 2022, ESG investing became a controversial topic and many have come to recognize significant flaws. And yet, never before has there been more investment in climate tech and broad interest in ESG issues.
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Where does this leave us? How should financial firms rethink ESG and sustainability so that the products and services they offer are easier to understand and demonstrate a real and measurable climate impact?
Join former BlackRock sustainability CIO Tariq Fancy and climate fintech entrepreneur Elizabeth Landau for a discussion of where there’s potential to radically change how we invest.
2022
OCTOBER
The Better Meat Co & VegTech Invest:
Behind the scenes in plant-based meats
October 18, 2022 11:00am - 12:00pm ET
Speakers
Elysabeth Alfano, VegTech Invest
Paul Shapiro, The Better Meat Co
Host: David Garrison, Climate & Capital Connect
Plant-based meats are an important emerging space. With potential to significantly impact everything from carbon emissions and physical landscapes to supply chains and consumer behaviors, it's a complex, dynamic (and tasty!) market.
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Join two experts for a discussion of how the intersection of climate, investment, and plant-based meats is influencing markets, changing food systems, and creating opportunities.
SEPTEMBER
The power of the collective voice in climate
September 15, 2022 10:00 - 11:00am ET
Success in the climate economy increasingly requires not just a bold stance, but articulating a shared vision, new kinds of partnership, and combined action.
Join for a discussion of what it means to articulate and share your climate story through compelling brand, design, and production strategies with the founder of a women-owned creative production agency.
JULY
Climate education: Growing a generation of leaders
July 21, 2022 10:00 - 11:00am ET
You may never have considered the parallels between youth activism and your company, but there's enormous opportunity in fostering a generation of leaders. Join for a discussion of building momentum through local movements, youth climate education, and scaling action.
Speakers
Jono Anzalone, The Climate Initiative
Stephanie Rivas, The Climate Initiative
Host: David Garrison, Climate & Capital Connect
Applying water data in the climate economy
July 14, 2022 10:00 - 11:00am ET
Water plays a huge role in our economy and water-driven extreme weather events like flooding and rainfall are increasingly important topics of discussion.
Join two experts for a discussion of water data, prominent mental models in the science world and in the investing world, and how organizations might better consider water risk.
Speakers
Owen Woolcock, Climate Core Capital
Gerald Rustic, Rowan University
Host: David Garrison, Climate & Capital Connect
JUNE
System-level investing: Details and implications
June 30, 2022 10:00 - 11:00am ET
A discussion of “system-level” sustainable investing, ESG thinking and data, and expanding upon traditional investment-stewardship practices.
Speakers
Bill Burckart, The Investment Integration Project
Billy Gridley, Climate & Capital Media
Host: David Garrison, Climate & Capital Connect