Earth Day 50: Looking Forward
UPDATE: Our 2016 Earth Day 50 Challenge Report is now published. Download it here!
A letter to all Earth Day 50 Challengers, past and future:
Our team is catching our breath after our inspiring, intense, and productive four-day Earth Day 50 Challenge summit in Dallas. We saw incredible energy from those who stayed into Saturday to help hone our action plans to advance the Challenge. Meanwhile, Dallas’s Earth Day celebration drew its biggest turnout by far– engaging 130,000 from the community and beyond in a more sustainable future. Our cowboy hats are off to Trammell Crow and his committed Earth Day Texas team.
To recap, the Earth Day 50 Challenge is bringing together change agents from across sectors and political persuasions to identify high-impact efforts we need to accelerate the protection—and ultimately restoration—of our forests, oceans, and climate.
Earth Day Texas 2017.
This year, our participants included:
46 corporate executives from leading global companies;
34 NGO executives from mainstream and activists groups;
8 policy experts and think tank representatives;
6 foundation officers;
4 academic experts;
3 socially responsible investors.
“Over the next four years, we will be applying the collective power of 50 leading global companies, investors, foundations, NGOs, and leading policy experts to help safeguard our childrens’ future.”
As a result of the session we have outlined a real plan of action. We are now synthesizing our output into a list of actionable steps that we collectively feel will have the greatest potential to yield transformative change at scale by Earth Day 50 in 2020. Serving as the Secretariat, Future is coordinating and aligning the efforts of our Challenge participants to ensure our collective plan is adequately supported and resourced.
We will be identifying complementary efforts to bring into the fold. Collectively, we’ll focus on building the ranks, and increasing participation. We encourage those who wished to join us—but who were unable to do so—to jump in. And we’ll be encouraging those who declined to participate to join us at the table.
This effort will be big, it will be bold, it will be different. Over the next four years, we will be applying the collective power of 50 leading global companies, investors, foundations, NGOs, and leading policy experts to help safeguard our childrens’ future.
We know it will succeed, because we have the right mix of people involved. So join us.
Learn more about The Future 500 Summit at EarthX (formerly The Earth Day 50 Challenge).
Future 500 is a non-profit consultancy that builds trust between companies, advocates, investors, and philanthropists to advance business as a force for good. Based in San Francisco, we specialize in stakeholder engagement, sustainability strategy, and responsible communication. From stakeholder mapping to materiality assessments, partnership development to activist engagement, target setting to CSR reporting strategy, we empower our partners with the skills and relationships needed to systemically tackle today's most pressing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) challenges.
Want to learn more? Reach out any time.
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