This need to better work together is echoed increasingly throughout the sustainability community. For instance, at the EPA’s March Climate Leadership Conference, a discussion on how communities can create a resilience strategy quickly turned to the need for cities to more effectively cooperate with the private sector. Despite the wondrous technologies we humans continue to devise, it seems we still haven’t learned some basic lessons—like how to play in the sandbox.

The lack of effective collaboration is exacerbated by the fact that the players are changing. Former climate supporters, such as the federal government, are stepping back. In their place, are new environmental advocates including Big Business and the Armed Forces. While these new allies understand the risks of climate deterioration, we don’t necessarily understand how best to work with one another toward a common goal.

This panel discussion will bring together representatives from various sectors in order to elicit a better understanding of their unique needs, the incentives and rewards that motivate them and the ways they operate and think. The aim is to formulate some principles from which we may be better able to collaborate for climate resilience.

Moderator: Ann Goodman, Ph.D, CUNY Advanced Science Research Center

Panelists: Lou Ferretti, Project Executive, Product Environmental Compliance and Supply Chain Social Responsibility, IBM; Kimberly Hill Knott, Policy Director, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice; Nilda Mesa, Director, Urban Sustainability and Equity Planning, Urban Design Lab, Columbia University; COL. Mark Read, Head, Department of Geography & Environment Engineering, United States Military Academy