Future 500 Corporate Working Group
Sustainability Leadership Through Engagement
September 26-27, 2024 | Austin, Texas | In-Person
Logistics
Where: Austin, TX • Hyatt Centric Congress Avenue Austin, 721 Congress Ave., Austin, TX 78701. Room: Marquee 3rd Fl.
Special room rate link has expired.Please email jhammett@future500.org for rates and reservations.
Dinner: 9/25 - The Tradition (in the Hyatt Centric) 6pm 9/26 - Arriba Abajo 6pm (506 San Jacinto Boulevard, Austin, TX)
When: September 26-27, 2024
Registration: Register here. Complimentary for Future 500 CAN members.
Who: Executives from Future 500 Corporate Affinity Network (CAN) and other select corporate sustainability leaders and advocates.
What: Future 500 has conducted this intimate working group for over ten years. Our discussions are confidential, facilitated under Chatham House Rule, and designed to foster constructive engagement between companies and advocates to illuminate important issue trends and best practices that inform business strategy and competitiveness on sustainability.
Our working group seeks to empower our delegates to speak up, teach others, respectfully disagree, and ask tough questions. Please bring your ideas and challenges, and come prepared to participate actively.
Dresscode: Business casual with an emphasis on the casual.
AGENDA
Our team will present findings from several recent stakeholder research projects related to the circular economy, chemicals management, environmental justice, and environmental disclosures. In addition, we will engage with the following three terrific leaders from the corporate, philanthropic, and advocacy sectors.
Lourdes Rodriguez, CEO of the David Rockefeller Fund, will share with us her perspectives and priorities as the leader of a national climate philanthropy, including how she and other funders collaborate to foster corporate and marketplace transformation, how that relates to environmental and social justice, and how civil society and industry can gain clarity on solutions amidst deep and seemingly adversarial disagreement – all grounded, as she says, from a place of love and respect that she instills in all her endeavors.
Marilu Hastings, EVP of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, where she will share her insights on, among other topics, the role of George P. Mitchell’s shale technology in driving today’s evolving energy landscape; opportunities and challenges of developing advanced energy in Texas, especially the Permian Basin; the difficult social dynamics around the oil and gas industry in addressing climate change; and the role of philanthropy in sparking corporate and marketplace change and what’s needed for effective collaboration.
In addition to her role at CGMF, Marilu serves as a member of the National Petroleum Council at the U.S. Department of Energy. She is chair of the University of Texas’s Energy Institute Advisory Board, chair of Environmental Defense Fund’s Texas Advisory Board, a member of the Advisory Board of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Trustee of the Regional Endowment for Sustainability Science. In addition, she is a Houston Advanced Research Center in Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability.Michelle Diggs, Director of Environmental Justice (EJ) at 3M, will be speaking about the journey to operationalize EJ across a large enterprise. Those who have met Michelle know she is an insightful, thoughtful, and humble leader, and we're honored to have her.