Sustainability Symposium 2026: Systems Reckoning

The Affordability Reckoning: Reframing the Solution

Sara Gutterman, CEO, Green Builder Media

Affordability didn’t break overnight, and it won’t be fixed by tweaking at the margins. The crisis is the result of how we define value, what we measure, what we subsidize, and what we ignore. Sustainability, resilience, and wellness aren’t cost drivers, they are the missing variables in a system obsessed with first cost and blind to long-term consequence. This session will question existing paradigms and offer innovative solutions that blend sustainability and profitability to address our pressing economic, social, and environmental challenges.

Power Shift: Rethinking Energy in a World at Risk

Bill McKibben, Founder 350.org and Third Act, Educator, Environmentalist, Author

Energy is no longer just a commodity. It is a source of risk, a driver of inequality, a lever of resilience, and a defining factor in how we measure security, affordability, and long-term prosperity. From volatile utility costs and grid instability to climate disruptions and insurance upheaval, energy has moved from the background to the center of the conversation. In this session, McKibben will explore how our relationship with energy is being fundamentally rewritten, and what that shift demands from all of us. The transition to distributed, renewable, and electrified systems isn’t just technological, it’s also cultural and economic, challenging long-held assumptions about growth, independence, and what it means to build systems that truly serve people.

Designing Demand

Lena Hansen, Chief Program Officer at RMI

In a world where supply chains are constrained and capital is tight, the strategic question isn’t how much energy we’ll need. It’s how we’ll design the whole system to deliver the services and human comforts we value. In this session, Hansen will speak about the opportunity of energy efficiency, demand response, digitalization, and innovation to reshape demand dramatically, like never before, and what it means for this moment in the energy transition.

New Rules and Risk Models: Fixing the Math

Andrew Winston, Sustainability Expert, Author

If we want different outcomes, we need modern metrics that abandon outdated thinking and adopt frameworks that reflect real value. This session will explore topics like net positive strategic planning; cost certainty vs. cost volatility; and redefining success so that sustainability becomes a systems outcome. Winston will investigate how leading companies integrate performance seamlessly into systems, and what happens when the market rewards long-term thinking.

Resilience Is the New Affordability

Laura Sullivan, Correspondent, NPR Investigations

Resilience isn’t about fear, it’s about physical protection, financial durability, and emotional security. In this session, Sullivan will offer observations from the frontlines and uncover the real price of failure when our homes, communities and economic systems don’t protect us from a changing world.

Land, Capital, and the Long View: Rethinking Value from the Ground Up

Neal Collins, Founder, Latitude Regenerative Real Estate; Founding Partner, Hamlet Capital

Land has been treated as a commodity—subdivided, optimized, and monetized for short-term gain. But that model is showing its limits. As climate pressures intensify, capital tightens, and communities seek deeper connection and resilience, a new approach to land use is emerging that prioritizes stewardship, regeneration, and long-term value creation. In this session, Collins will explore how regenerative real estate is redefining the relationship between land, capital, and community. Drawing from his work at the intersection of conservation, development, and investment, he will examine how place-based strategies can unlock new forms of financial, ecological, and social value.

Sara Gutterman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Green Builder® Media, North America’s leading media company focused on green building and sustainable living. A visionary thought leader and passionate advocate for sustainability, Sara is considered an expert in leading-edge decarbonization technologies, climate solutions, and housing market insights. She has a unique focus on data, trends, and intelligence in areas like net zero, electrification, healthy home, resilient building, connected living, renewable energy, and generational marketing. Prior to founding Green Builder Media, Sara was a venture capitalist and was involved in the life cycle (from funding to exit) of over 20 companies. Sara graduated from Dartmouth College, and she holds an MBA in entrepreneurship and finance from the University of Colorado.

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Bill McKibben is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, and a founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org, and serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel,’ in the Swedish Parliament. He's also won the Gandhi Peace Award, and honorary degrees from 19 colleges and universities. He has written more than twenty books about the environment, including his first, The End of Nature, published in 1989, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened, and his latest book is Here Comes The Sun.

Lena Hansen is RMI’s Chief Program Officer for Geographies and Strategy. A member of the senior leadership team, she leads RMI’s geographic portfolio of programs, strategic insights team, and overall organizational strategy, helping connect work across the organization to accelerate the global energy transition. Lena brings more than 20 years of experience developing, testing, and scaling high-impact efficiency and clean energy solutions. Prior to her current role, Lena served as Chief Strategy Officer, chaired RMI’s Strategy Council, and served on the board of Canary Media. She served as Managing Director of RMI’s China program, leading a team that advised China’s energy transition. Lena also led RMI’s US electricity program, focusing on utility business models and the integration of renewable and distributed energy resources into the grid. Lena has co-authored many reports and articles at RMI, including RMI’s 2011 book Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for a New Energy Era, a roadmap for an economically grounded transition to a low-carbon US energy system.

Andrew Winston is a globally-recognized expert on megatrends, sustainable business, and how to build companies that profit by contributing to a thriving world. He was ranked #1 on the Thinkers50 list of the most influential management thinkers in the world. Andrew’s books on strategy – including Green to Gold, The Big Pivot, and Net Positive, which was co-authored with legendary CEO Paul Polman – have sold well over a quarter million copies in 15 languages. The Financial Times selected Net Positive as one of the Best Business Books of the Year. Andrew writes regularly for the Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. His views on strategy have been sought after by many of the planet’s leading companies, including 3M, DuPont, J&J, KimberlyClark, Marriott, PepsiCo, and Unilever. Andrew is a dynamic and inspiring speaker, reaching audiences of thousands at executive meetings globally. He received degrees in economics, business, and environmental management from Princeton, Columbia, and Yale.

Laura Sullivan is an NPR News investigative correspondent whose work has cast a light on some of the country's most significant issues. Sullivan is one of NPR's most decorated journalists, with three Peabody Awards and three Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Batons. She joined NPR in 2004 as a correspondent on the National Desk, covering crime and punishment issues. She joined NPR's investigations unit in 2010. Her investigative reports air regularly on All Things Considered and Morning Edition. She is also an on-air correspondent for the PBS television show FRONTLINE. Before coming to NPR, Sullivan was a Washington correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, where she covered the Justice Department, the FBI and terrorism. Sullivan, who was born and raised in San Francisco, loves traveling the country to report radio stories that "come to life in a way that was never possible in print."

Neal Collins works at the intersection of land, capital, and long-term stewardship. He is the founder of Latitude Regenerative Real Estate, a brokerage and advisory platform focused on land, conservation, and place-based development, and a founding partner at Hamlet Capital, which invests selectively in agricultural and conservation-centered community projects. Neal also hosts The Regenerative Real Estate Podcast, where he explores the practical realities of regenerative development, land use, and long-term value creation.