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Nature in The Race to Zero

Welcome to Exponential Climate Action Summit V

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Nature in The Race to Zero

Welcome to Exponential Climate Action Summit V

Earth Day, April 22, 2022

We Don't Have Time is, together with our partners, proud to announce the fifth Exponential Climate Action Summit, exploring the role of nature in the race to zero. We need to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century to keep the global temperature below 1,5°C. While the focus has primarily been on reducing fossil fuel dependency, there is no viable route to limiting global warming and building resilience without urgently protecting, managing, and restoring nature. Join us to learn how nature-based solutions can help us deliver a third of the greenhouse gas reductions needed by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement.

Part I

Part II - Washington, D.C. Session


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Program Highlights

All times in Central European Summer Time (CEST) / Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Find your local time zone here

Join the dialogue and ask questions directly to the speakers. Just click on the speaker's name below or go to their profile in the We Don't Have Time app.

Section I: Global action for the environment — past, present & future

14:00 / 08:00 AM — Welcome to the broadcast

Introduction: 

14:10 / 08:10 AM — Where we are, how we got here, and the road ahead of us

Keynotes:

Panel:

Section II: Natural carbon capture starts with seeds

14:35 / 08:35 AM —  Restoring nature at speed and scale

Keynotes & Panel:

15:10 / 09:10 AM —  Examples from the ground

Keynote:

Q&A:

15:15 / 09:15 AM — Seeds for the future

Keynote:

Panel:

15:35 / 09:35 AM — Wrap-up

Panel:

Section III: Business, Nature, and The Race to Zero

15:40 / 09:40 AM — Business, Nature, and The Race to Zero

Keynotes & Panels:

Section IV: Stockholm+50: It's time for urgent action

16:30 / 10:30 AM – Stockholm+50: It's time for urgent action

Keynotes:

Panel:

Section V: The legacy of global action for the environment

17:25 / 11:25 AM — The legacy of global action for the environment

Music:

17:45 / 11:45 AM — Summary and End of Stockholm studio session

18:00 / 12:00 PM — Start of Washington, D.C. studio session

Section I: Environment in Time of War

18:00 / 12:00 PM

  • Kathleen Rogers, President of EARTHDAY.ORG
  • Iryna Stavchuk, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine for European Integration, Ukraine
  • Carl Bruch, Director of International Programs, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)
  • Stefan Smith, Senior Programme Manager, Disasters & Conflicts, UNEP
  • Michael Bothe, Professor Emeritus of Public Law, J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main
  • José R. Allen, International Environmental Lawyer, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)

Section II: Regenerative Agriculture

19:00 / 1:00 PM

  • John Piotti, President & CEO, American Farmland Trust
  • L. Hunter Lovins, President, Natural Capitalism Solutions
  • Anthony Myint, Executive Director & Co-founder, Zero Foodprint
  • Elizabeth Pearce, CEO, SymSoil Inc
  • Merlin Yockstick, Founder, Blue Planet Science Group & RegenIOWA

Section III: Investing with intent

20:00 / 2:00 PM

  • Niall O'Sullivan, AMEA Chief Investment Officer, Investment Solutions, Mercer
  • Dr. Klaus Kunz, Head of ESG / External Engagement and Performance Reporting, Bayer
  • Max Messervy, Senior Sustainable Investment Consultant, Mercer
  • Inge West, Senior Sustainable Investment Specialist, Mercer Investment Solutions
  • Elizabeth McGeveran, Director of Investments, McKnight Foundation
  • Cara Williams, Senior Partner, ESG Strategy Leader, Mercer

21:00 / 3:00 PM

Special fireside chat with Andy Karsner, Senior Strategist at X & Former Assistant Energy Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Section IV: Nature needs circularity

21:15 / 3:15 PM

  • Pär Larshans, Director of Sustainability, Ragn-Sells
  • Linnéa Sellberg, Project Leader and Owner Representative at Ragn-Sells
  • Eva Hunnius Ohlin, Senior Advisor for Energy and Environment at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC

21:50 / 3:50 PM — End of Earth Day broadcast

Nature in The Race to Zero

Hosts

Catarina Rolfsdotter-Jansson

 (
)

Host, We Don't Have Time & EU Climate Pact Ambassador

Catarina Rolfsdotter-Jansson is an expert moderator, lecturer, and devoted workshop leader in facilitating sustainable development. Catarina moderates for the EU Commission, the Swedish Government, corporations, local municipalities, and universities. She is also content director at A Sustainable Tomorrow and co-founder of the global climate NGO Our Kids´Climate.

Nick Nuttall

 (
)

Host, Strategic Communications Director, We Don't Have Time

Previously with the Times Newspaper London, the U.N. Environment, and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Nick was the Director of Communications and Spokesperson for the Paris Agreement of 2015. More recently, he has served as the Director of Communications for the Global Climate Action Summit that took place in San Francisco in September 2018.

https://www.earthday.org

Dr. Sweta Chakraborty

 (
)

Climate Behavioral Scientist, CEO of North America, We Don't Have Time

Dr. Sweta Chakraborty is the CEO of North America, We Don’t Have Time. She is a partner at Pioneer Public Affairs. She is also the founder and principal of Adapt to Thrive, a venture that seeks to better inform individuals, businesses, and government entities on the complex, interconnected challenges, such as food insecurity and disease, already existing and emerging from a warming planet.

http://swetachakraborty.com

Patrick Kiarie

 (
KE
)

Representative of We Don't Have Time Kenya

Patrick Kiarie is an Eco-Warrior, and the Representative of We Don't Have Time Kenya and a small scale businessman. He is passionate about climate change and how to transform small business enterprises into circular and green businesses. Patrick won last year's WDHT Climate idea - Borrowing from the future. Borrowing from the future is an idea based to be a model program for educating young people on climate change and building a platform for the youth to contribute to innovations in climate change. Recently, Patrick was nominated among the top 10 most influential youths in Kenya.

Selected speakers

Inger Andersen

 (
DK
)
Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Inger Andersen is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. Ms. Andersen has more than 30 years of experience in international development economics, environmental sustainability, strategy and operations.

https://www.unenvironment.org/people/inger-andersen

Ivo Mulder

 (
NL
)
Head - Climate Finance Unit, UNEP

Ivo Mulder has over sixteen years of professional experience working for UNEP, private consulting firms, and with non-governmental organizations. He has published more than fifty reports, blogs and articles and sits on the Steering Committee of a number of initiatives. Ivo is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and a member of the Dutch Association of Sustainable Investors (VBDO). Ivo leads UNEP’s Climate Finance Unit (CFU), and oversees a growing portfolio of various initiatives and finance facilities that actively unlock public and especially private capital towards sustainable land use with positive impacts for the climate, nature, and people.

Kehkashan Basu

 (
CA
)
Founder-President, Green Hope Foundation

Kehkashan Basu, M.S.M. is an iconic global influencer, environmentalist, champion of women and children’s rights, TEDx speaker, Climate Reality Mentor, author, musician, peace, and sustainability campaigner. She is the recipient of Canada's Meritorious Service Medal and the only Canadian to win the International Children’s Peace Prize. Kehkashan is the Founder-President of global social innovation enterprise Green Hope Foundation, which works at a grassroots level in 26 countries, empowering young people and women, especially those from vulnerable communities, in the sustainable development process and she has spoken at over 300 United Nations and other global fora. She is the youngest Trustee of the Parliament of the World's Religions, Co-Lead of UN Women Generation Equality Forum's Action Coalition on Feminist Action for Climate Justice, the Co-Chair of the University of Toronto's SDG Student Advisory Council, Council Lead of the Toronto-St. She continues to work tirelessly to amplify the voices of young people, women and girls in decision-making processes.

Johan Falk

 (
)
CEO & Co-founder, Exponential Roadmap Initiative

Johan Falk is a leader and entrepreneur in exponential strategies for climate and business. Falk is the CEO and Co-founder of Exponential Roadmap Initiative, with the mission to accelerate exponential climate action. Falk is the co-lead author of Exponential Roadmap and 1.5°C Business Playbook. Falk is a former Senior Innovation Fellow at Stockholm Resilience Centre and Future Earth. Falk was one of the initiators of the Global Carbon Law idea, together with Owen Gaffney and Johan Rockström, inspired by Moore's Law. Further, Falk was part of Intel Corporation 2006-2018, responsible for Intel IoT Ignition Lab and heading up the Intel Edge Cloud Game Changer program for 5G networks. Falk received the Intel Global Design Win of the Year 2010 for accelerating the telecom business exponentially to a multi-billion dollar business.

https://exponentialroadmap.org/https://exponentialroadmap.org/1-5c-business-playbook/

Ingmar Rentzhog

 (
)
CEO and Founder of We Don't Have Time

Ingmar is serial entrepreneur within financial communication and nominated for a DI Gasell Award, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year, Sweden’s Environmental Influencer 2018, and International Gamechanger of the Year 2020, and Green Warrior 2021. Ingmar Rentzhog has been the chairman of the environmental think tank Global Challenge. He is on the board of Naventus Corporate Finance. He’s a member of Al Gore’s Climate Reality and European Climate Policy Task Force and he was in 2022 appointed a European Climate Pact Ambassador by the European Commission.

https://www.wedonthavetime.org

Yee Lee

 (
US
)
Chief Growth Officer, Terraformation

Former executive, engineer, and product designer at many of the most impactful companies in the tech industry, including Facebook, Google, TaskRabbit, Skype, and Paypal. At Terraformation, Yee is focused on rapidly growing a transformative solution to solve climate change.

Stephen Smith

 (
GB
)
Managing director, Bankers without Boundaries

Steve spent 27 years at Morgan Stanley, a large investment bank, in London, working within global equity sales and covering some of the major institutions and hedge funds. He worked very closely with the Capital Markets division to help with capital raising for companies, including being involved with 150 IPOs in Europe. He worked with the ESG group at the firm to enhance the profile of the banks efforts in this area. Since leaving Morgan Stanley has has completed a Sustainable Finance course at CISL at Cambridge University, and is a graduate of University of York, where he studied Economics, Politics and Public Choice.

Åsmund Asdal

 (
NO
)
Seed Vault coordinator, Nordic Genetic Resource Center, NordGen

Åsmund Asdal is a Norwegian horticulturist and ecologist who, for the past 25 years, has been working with projects on the conservation and use of plant genetic resources (PGR) on a national and Nordic regional level. Before that, he was working as a researcher, project manager, and through the 1990ties head of a research station in the now called Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research. From 2000 to 2015, he was in charge of the Norwegian national program for conservation and use of plant genetic resources, from 2006 organized through the Norwegian Genetic Resource Center. Asdal has been involved in Nordic plant genetic resource activities from the mid-1990s. He has been a board member and conducted projects and working groups within the Nordic Gene Bank, from 2008 re-organized into the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen). From 2015 he has been employed at NordGen as Coordinator of Operation and Management of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Dr. Anja Gassner

 (
DE
)
Senior Scientist and Science Advisor

Anja is a Senior Scientist at World Agroforestry and policy and science advisor to the Global Landscape Forum (GLF). The GLF is the world’s largest knowledge-led platform on sustainable land use, dedicated to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement. Anja has worked for 25 years on rural development programs in the tropics that aim at both livelihood and natural positive outcomes. Together with colleagues and partners her aim is to accompany governmental agencies to achieve their commitments to international conventions and treaties through mainstreaming Agroforestry interventions into national and sub-national policies and planning.

Anders Wijkman

 (
SE
)
Opinion leader, author & Honorary president Club of Rome

Anders Wijkman is a Swedish opinion leader and author. He is honorary chairman of the global think tank Club of Rome and chairman of the Governing Board of Climate-KIC – a major public-private partnership at EU level for the promotion of innovation of a low-carbon society. He has served as a Member of the European Parliament, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Policy Director of UNDP.Since 2015 Anders is a member of the International Resource Panel (IRP) – a UN appointed expert body” to build and share the knowledge needed to improve the use of our resources worldwide”.

Yishan Wong

 (
US
)
CEO, Terraformation

Yishan is bringing Silicon Valley’s expertise in scaling to the climate movement. Dedicated to restoring the planet’s forests to solve climate change, Yishan leads the company to build and deploy tools to tackle the largest bottlenecks to mass-scale reforestation. Terraformation’s technology includes off-grid seed banks that process and stores millions of seeds, tracking and monitoring platforms to enable project transparency, solar-powered desalination, and more. Terraformation’s goal in 2022 is to establish the world’s largest decentralized native seed banking network. Prior to founding Terraformation in 2020, Yishan served as the CEO of Reddit, and Director of Engineering at Facebook and was part of the engineering team that led to the exponential growth of Paypal. Yishan studied computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He lives on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi with his family and dogs.

Maria José Iturralde

 (
EC
)
CEO & Founder, Humans for Abundance

María José (Chochi) Iturralde has dedicated much of her life to bridging her experiences as an educator and innovator with her passion for environmental sustainability. She is an experienced and highly creative entrepreneur and the visionary behind Humans for Abundance, the social enterprise that she founded in 2019. She began her career in school settings and, before fully transitioning to environmental work, she led a primary school in Quito and founded four other companies mostly focused on the well-being and growth of humans and their relationships with themselves and with nature. She uses her understanding of the emotional drives that shape human behavior to design and implement successful human-to-human connection models and systems.

Kirsty Shaw

 (
UK
)
Head of Ecological Restoration & Tree Conservation, Botanic Gardens Conservation International

Kirsty is Head of Ecological Restoration and Tree Conservation at Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). She has worked at BGCI since 2012, and established the BGCI Africa office in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2017. Since joining BGCI, Kirsty has been working with botanic gardens and other partners across Africa on tree conservation and forest restoration projects, particularly focused on getting a broader mix of native species, including threatened species, into restoration and tree planting projects.

Dr. Marian Chau

 (
)
Head of Seed Banking, Terraformation

Dr. Marian M. Chau is the Head of Seed Banking for Terraformation and the founder and Co-Chair (2016-2024) of the IUCN Seed Conservation Specialist Group, a collaboration of over 100 specialists worldwide that provides expertise to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. For over 5 years, Marian served as the Seed Conservation Laboratory Manager at Lyon Arboretum and Research Leader for the Hawai‘i Seed Bank Partnership, and was lead author on a publication summarizing over 20 years of seed storage research in Hawai‘i. She completed a sponsored Technical Training Attachment at the Millennium Seed Bank - the world’s largest seed bank for native species, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England; and her mentors also include leading experts at the USDA National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation.

https://www.terraformation.com/blog/dr-marian-chau-head-of-seed-banking

Dr. Kate Hardwick

 (
UK
)
Conservation Partnership Coordinator at Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens

As a Conservation Partnership Coordinator in the Seed Conservation section, my job is to develop and maintain Millennium Seed Bank partnerships, projects, and networks, particularly in Asia. We aim to secure the safe storage of seeds from the world’s bankable plant species, whilst promoting plant conservation, sustainable utilization of plant resources, habitat restoration, and the improvement of livelihoods. I am also involved in several research projects that explore the use of seeds in ecological restoration, with an emphasis on tropical forests and temperate grasslands.

Emma Stewart

 (
US
)
Netflix Sustainability Officer

Emma Stewart, Ph.D., is Netflix’s first Sustainability Officer, where together with teams from across the company, she seeks to bring Netflix's carbon footprint to net zero, raise environmental awareness through film and television series, and spur conversation on climate action among our hundreds of millions of members in 190 countries. She previously led World Resources Institute’s global work on urban efficiency, climate, and finance. She served on the Board of the U.S. Green Building Council and software company Ecomedes. She has been a member of the professional faculty at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Stanford Graduate School of Business where she taught “Intrapreneurship for Sustainability”. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Reuters, The Guardian, Tribune, The Huffington Post, Environmental Law Journal, among others. She is a contributing author to Corporate Responses to Climate Change and The Encyclopedia of Sustainable Business, and her work is featured in books Frugal Innovation and The Big Pivot. Emma was rated a “Badass Woman in Sustainability” by GreenBiz, a "top 3 speaker" by The Economist Summits, and has been named a “one of the most powerful women under 45” and an “urban pioneer” by FORTUNE Magazine, a “sustainability insurgent” by MIT Sloan Management Review, and one of the “Top 10 Women in Sustainability” by American Builders. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Reuters, L.A. Times, and Environmental Law Journal, among others. She is a contributing author to Corporate Responses to Climate Change and The Encyclopedia of Sustainable Business, and her work is featured in 3 books: Frugal Innovation, The Big Pivot, and Chief Sustainability Officers at Work. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Management from Stanford University and a B.A. with Honors in Human Sciences from Oxford University.

María Mendiluce

 (
ES
)
CEO, We Mean Business Coalition

María Mendiluce is the CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition and has 25 years of experience in sustainable development, energy, and climate action. The Coalition brings together seven leading international organizations: BSR, The B Team, CDP, Ceres, CLG Europe, Climate Group, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). She sits on the Executive Board of the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) which has over 2,800 companies engaged. She actively took part in the founding and is a member of the Board of the Mission Possible Partnership that works to develop decarbonization roadmaps for seven hard-to-abate sectors including cement and steel. María also co-founded the SME Climate Hub which is building a one-stop shop for smaller companies for their net-zero commitments. Formerly being the Managing Director and member of the Senior Management Team at WBCSD, María established transformative industry projects. She has also held senior positions at the Economic Bureau of the Spanish Prime Minister, in the CEO’s office of Iberdrola, and at the International Energy Agency.

Eva Karlsson

 (
SE
)
CEO, Houdini Sportswear

Houdini Sportswear has worked with the circular and regenerative business for many years and has become a source of inspiration for other companies. The inspiration is taken from nature and the goal is to have 100% circular products already in 2022. Houdini works according to the motto "reimagine everything" and strives for a change of system to a regenerative way of living and working.

Catarina Paulson

 (
SE
)
Head of Sustainability, Alfa Laval

Born in Mexico City, Catarina Paulson has worked within sustainability since 1994 in companies such as Volvo Cars, Volvo Group, AkzoNobel, and TetraPak before joining Alfa Laval in 2014. A graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania she holds a B.A. in Political science/international relations, a diploma in Marketing with a focus on environmental communication and has studied human technology and personnel administration. At Alfa Laval she has been instrumental in the development of the sustainability strategy for 2030 and in ensuring a road map for zero scopes 1&2 and halving scope 3 emissions by 2030 is established.

David Collste

 (
SE
)
Post-doctoral researcher, Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University

Collste is a postdoctoral researcher at the Planetary Boundaries Research Lab. He studies feedback between human development, the economy, and planetary boundaries. Collste has a background in system dynamics, economics, political science, and resilience thinking. Collste co-leads the module on systems thinking at Stockholm Resilience Centre’s Master’s program, and lectures on ecological economics and system dynamics modeling. In his Ph.D. thesis, he studied different approaches to assessing the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Before joining Stockholm Resilience Centre, he worked at the United Nations on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. He has also worked at the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (Naturskyddsföreningen). Collste holds a joint Ph.D. degree in Sustainability Science from Stockholm University and Economics from CERDI at Université Clermont Auvergne in France.

Dr. Lewis Akenji

 (
)
Managing Director, Hot or Cool Institute

As Managing Director, Lewis oversees strategic development, program implementation, and staff management at Hot or Cool. Previously, Lewis has served as Executive Director of SEED, founded as a UN partnership at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development to promote entrepreneurship for sustainable development. Prior to that, he was Director for Sustainable Consumption and Production at the think tank Institute for Global Environmental Strategies. He has consulted with organizations including United Nations agencies, the Asian and African Development Banks, the European Commission, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and has served as technical or science-policy adviser to several national government delegations, including Finland, Japan, Sweden, Indonesia, Hungary. Lewis conceived and led the 1.5-Degree Lifestyles project, analysing potential contribution of lifestyle changes to the aspirational 1.5 °C target under the Paris Agreement on climate change. He co-lead the United Nations One Planet programme on Sustainable Lifestyles and Education. He has an M.Sc. Sustainable Resource Management (Technical University Munich, Germany) and a Ph.D. Political Economy (University of Helsinki, Finland).

Mattias Frumerie

 (
SE
)
Climate Ambassador & Head of Delegation to the UNFCCC, Sweden

Ambassador Frumerie is also Sweden's Head of Delegation to UNFCCC. Previous positions include head of EU policy, EU single market, Strategic communications, postings in Budapest and Brussels as well as EU advisor in the Prime Minister's Office.

Kristina Persson

 (
SE
)
Senior Advisor, FAIRTRANS

Kristina Persson has all her grown-up life in various ways tried to improve how society functions, including pushing for the green transformation. When she worked at the secretariat for future studies at the Prime Ministers (Olof Palme) Office, she understood the magnitude of threats facing mankind if political decisions continue to be taken without a long-term and holistic view on society. She has since then tried party politics, worked in civil society, and had leading positions in the public sector. Not until now, 50 years later there is beginning to be an understanding among both the general public and our political leaders of our dependency on nature and on each other. She is afraid, however, that it will take too long until this is put into practice, which makes her both sad and angry.

Stanley Johnson

 (
UK
)
International Ambassador, Conservative Environment Network

Educated, Oxford, Iowa, and Columbia, Universities. Joined of World Bank in 1966. Worked with Maurice Strong as part of the preparatory team in the run-up to the first UN Conference on Human Environment and attended the Conference in Stockholm on June 1072 as a delegate for International Planned Parenthood Federation. Author of a dozen books on environment and population, including UNCED 1992; World Population and the United Nations; and UNEP: first forty years. Former MEP and Vice-Chairman of European Parliament Environment Committee. Senior environment officer at EU Commission, Brussels. Holder of awards from WWF, Greenpeace, RSPB, RSPA, etc. Winner of Newdigate Prize for Poetry. Author of 11 novels.

Karma Barfungpa

 (
UK
)
Head Of Operations, tve (Television for the Environment)

tve is a UK-registered charity founded by the United Nations Environment Programme, WWF-UK, and Central Television (now part of ITV) in 1984. Our mission is to use the power of storytelling to drive real world change for a more sustainable future. We work with filmmakers and partners worldwide to run media projects, make films and work to promote effective, evidence-based storytelling about environmental issues

Altanbagana Bayarsaikhan

 (
MN
)
planetGOLD Mongolia

Altanbagana Bayarsaikhan is National Project Manager at the Global Environment Facility-supported planetGOLD project in Mongolia. He has decades of experience in managing a number of international development projects funded by SDC and USAID, and worked in the small scale and large scale mining sector for the last several years.

Mats Pellbäck Scharp

 (
SE
)
Chair, We Don’t Have Time

Mats has over 20 years’ experience in digitalization and sustainability. Under his leadership Ericsson was the first manufacturer in the telecom sector to have science-based targets on a Net Zero trajectory and also the first company in the sector to renew targets after successfully concluding their first SBTi commitments. The conviction to base decisions and plans on science and facts is manifested by being part of the initiation and steering of the Exponential Climate Action Roadmap report as well as leading the joint project with Columbia University on ICT and SDGs. Mats has been spearheading industry in sustainability both as a consultant and in global companies such as Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Nobia.

Owen Gaffney

 (
)
Project Lead, Earth4All

Owen is a global sustainability writer, analyst and strategist. He is based at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Stockholm Resilience Centre. He is also a Future Earth Senior Fellow, an Edmund Hillary Fellow (New Zealand) and he is on the faculty of Singularity University. He is interested in big-picture narratives of the past and future of people on Earth (and beyond). He has published in Science and Nature and is a regular contributor to New Scientist. He co-founded the Future Earth Media Lab and Rethink magazine and is on the editorial board of the Anthropocene magazine.

Fredrik Jejdling

 (
SE
)
Executive Vice President and Head of Business Area Networks, Ericsson

Fredrik Jejdling is Executive Vice President and Head of Business Area Networks at Ericsson since November 7, 2017. He runs the company’s largest business area with full P&L responsibility and brings to this role years of experience with customers in diverse markets. He also oversees the global production and progress of Ericsson’s radio and transport products and services across all mobile technology generations.

Sara-Elvira Kuhmunen

 (
SE
)
President, Sáminuorra

Sara-Elvira Kuhmunen, a 21-year-old from Jokkmokk, is the President of the Sami youth organization Sáminuorra since 2001. She is passionate about the Climate issue and Sami self-determination.

Pär Larshans

 (
SE
)
Co-host, Director of Sustainability, Ragn-Sells

Pär is an award winner in communication, social sustainability, and intrapreneurship, listed multiple times by Trust Across America as one of the Top Thought Leaders in Trust. He is the current appointed expert for setting environmental targets for sea and coastal regions in Sweden and for the coalition group for climate-neutral Swedish industry by 2045.

Eva Hunnius Ohlin

 (
SE
)
Senior Advisor for Energy and Environment at Embassy of Sweden

Eva Hunnius Ohlin works in the Trade and Economic Affairs section at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington DC since 2011. In her role as the embassy’s advisor for energy and environment, she reports on US energy, climate and environment policy as well as transportation policy and promotes Swedish green technologies.

Linnéa Sellberg

 (
SE
)
Section manager, Ragn-Sells Sweden

Linnéa Sellberg has a Bachelor of Business Management and an Agronomist degree from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and works as a project leader at Ragn-Sells. Furthermore, Linnéa is an owner representative and one of the fourth generation family members working within the company.

Dr. Anders Berger

 (
SE
)
Public Affairs Director, Volvo Group

Dr. Anders Berger, Director Public Affairs, is a transport solution specialist at Volvo Group with extensive engagement in the public discourse of transport efficiency, e-mobility, automation and connectivity related to the environmental and efficiency challenges of the road transport system.

Susan Chomba

 (
)
Director of Vital Landscapes at World Resources Institute

Dr. Susan Chomba is the Director of Vital Landscapes for Africa at the World Resources Institute (WRI). She leads the institution’s work on Forests, Food systems and People which includes forest landscape restoration, sustainable agriculture/food systems and thriving rural livelihoods in Africa.

Cara Williams

 (
UK
)
Global Head of ESG and Sustainability, Mercer

Cara Williams is the Global ESG Strategy Leader for Mercer. Located in London, Cara works to articulate and amplify Mercer’s ESG value proposition and positioning, embed sustainability in the journey to a bright future, and drive highly-practical, relevant and value-added outcomes both internally and externally. Cara oversees the Mercer’s Private Wealth businesses in Canada and India, and also works with Mercer’s multinational clients to deliver the best of Mercer’s broad Wealth solutions to assure positive financial outcomes for organizations and their employees. Cara presents regularly on global ESG, sustainability, diversity and investment trends.

Niall O’Sullivan

 (
IRL
)
AMEA Chief Investment Officer, Investment Solutions, Mercer

Niall is responsible for the design, implementation and ongoing supervision of Mercer Investment Management’s fund solutions for all AMEA clients, and Discretionary Management services. He joined Mercer in 2010 from QED in Dublin, where he developed solution-driven investment opportunities with banks and insurance companies. Prior to this, he created derivative-based solutions at Bank of Ireland Global Markets, including the bank’s LDI product range.

Max Messervy

 (
)
Head of Sustainable Investment Americas, Mercer

Max Messervy leads Mercer’s Sustainable Investment team in the Americas region. Max provides advice on sustainable investment strategies, climate change, and impact investment approaches throughout investment processes. Max advises institutional investors across a range of segments, including pension funds, endowments, insurers, multi-lateral development finance institutions, and other stakeholders in the investment value chain. Max was a lead and/or co-author of reports on increasing institutional investors’ impactful allocations to African infrastructure and private market assets in 2018 and 2021, as well as a guide for integrating sustainable investment approaches into corporate retirement plans in a project with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Prior to joining Mercer, Max spent nearly four years working in the Insurance practice at Ceres in Boston, a leading non-profit sustainability advocacy organization. In that role, he worked with a range of stakeholders across the industry in making the business case for the sector to address climate and ESG risks and opportunities both as underwriters of weather risk and investors in physical infrastructure. This involved engagement with re/insurers, regulators, non-re/insurer investors and NGOs. Previously,Max worked in various capacities with Canadian federal and provincial governments, and with other environmental and sustainability entities as an independent consultant. Max holds a Master of Public Policy from the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA, and an Honors Religious Studies degree from McGill University.

Dr. Klaus Kunz

 (
GER
)
Head of ESG / External Engagement and Performance Reporting, Bayer

Dr. Klaus Kunz holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry and a degree in economics. He joined Bayer in 2001 and has gained 20 years of experience directing business strategic topics in R&D at a global level, taking leadership roles in research, R&D project management, regulatory and public / governmental affairs, sustainability and business stewardship. Since February 2022 he is leading ESG Strategy. Klaus is passionate about driving innovation and change, cross-cultural collaboration, politics and history, also holding a lectureship for chemistry at the University of Aachen. He is married with three children.

Inge West

 (
UK
)
Senior Sustainable Investment Specialist, Mercer Investment Solutions

Inge West is a Senior Sustainable Investment Specialist in Mercer’s European Investment Solutions business, based in London. She is responsible for advising and driving the implementation of sustainable investment practices across the Mercer Investment Solutions offerings with a focus on integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, sustainability trends, climate change, and stewardship within the investment process. Prior to this Inge spent three years in Mercer’s dedicated Global Sustainable Investment team, advising institutional investors on and contributing to intellectual capital in sustainable investment.

John Piotti

 (
US
)
President & CEO, American Farmland Trust

John Piotti has worked at the forefront of sustainable agriculture since the early 1990s, first in Maine, and now nationally. In 2016, he became President of American Farmland Trust, bringing new energy to this storied organization that launched the conservation agriculture movement. Under John’s leadership, AFT has engaged in the most comprehensive study of American land use ever conducted, helped secure billions of dollars in federal funding to protect farmland and promote climate-smart agriculture, and launched new initiatives that advance regenerative farming practices and support next generation farmers. Prior to joining AFT, John served as President of Maine Farmland Trust, which during his tenure became recognized as one of the most innovative and impactful farm-support groups in the nation. John has also served in the Maine State Legislature, where he chaired the Agriculture Committee and was later elected House Majority Leader. In 2013, John was named to Maine Magazine’s inaugural list of one of the 50 people who have done the most for the state. In 2005, he received a prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship, which he used to study agricultural policy in Europe. John holds three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: in engineering, public policy, and systems management.

Anthony Myint

 (
US
)
Executive Director, Zero Foodprint

Anthony Myint is a chef-turned climate crusader and Zero Foodprint is a non-profit leading public private collaborations with state agencies in CA and regional governments in CO to scale regenerative agriculture. ZFP is building a regenerative economy through which businesses and citizens can directly change how food is grown to restore the climate. A few cents per purchase funds compost application, cover crop planting and other healthy soil practices, overseen and validated by Conservation Districts, Cooperative Extensions and other local experts. The long term goal of the public-private collaborations is to mirror the transformative collective action of CCA policy for renewable energy, but applied to climate beneficial agriculture. (and if you want more detail) Since 2020 ZFP has awarded over $800k to 53 regenerative agriculture projects on 5000 acres expected to sequester a modeled 32,000 tons of CO2e. Anthony is known in the restaurant industry as the Co-Founder of Mission Street Food (SF Chronicle's Most Influential Restaurant of the Past Decade", Mission Chinese Food (NYTimes Restaurant of the Year - 2012) and The Perennial (Bon Appetit's "Most Sustainable Restaurant in the Country").

Iryna Stavchuk

 (
UKR
)
Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine for European Integration

Mrs. Stavchuk is currently serving as the Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine for European Integration. Before assuming this role, she was the Deputy Minister of Energy and Environmental Protection of Ukraine. Prior to joining the Ukrainian cabinet, Mrs. Stavchuk worked at the National Environmental Center of Ukraine, where she coordinated work in the development and implementation of climate protection policy in Ukraine and participated in UN International Negotiations on climate change. Mrs. Stavchuk graduated with honors from the Faculty of Heat Power Engineering of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Computer Environmental and Economic Monitoring. She received her second higher education at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (Lund, Sweden) with a degree in Environmental Management and Politics.

Carl Bruch

 (
US
)
Director of International Programs, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)

Carl Bruch is the Director of International Programs at the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and the founding President of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association (EnPAx). His work focuses on environmental peacebuilding (especially after conflict), environmental governance, adaptation, and environmental emergencies. He has helped dozens of countries— including in many conflict-affected countries—throughout Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe strengthen their environmental laws, institutions, and practices. He has edited more than ten books and authored more than 80 journal articles, book chapters, and reports. He is an adjunct professor at American University School of International Service. He holds a JD from the Northwestern School of Environmental Law of Lewis & Clark College, an MA in physics from the University of Texas-Austin, and a BS in physics (with additional majors in mathematics and anthropology) from Michigan State University.

Stefan Smith

 (
KEN
)
Senior Programme Manager, Disasters & Conflicts, at UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Stefan is a senior programme manager with the United Nations Environment Programme working on resilience and response to disasters & conflicts, strategic planning, programme delivery reporting, and operations management and oversight. He has a background in international news agency journalism and news analysis, editorial and operational management in multiple fragile and conflict contexts and under state and non-state actors. He has covered themes including electoral processes, human rights, genocide and international justice, displacement and refugee crises, environment, nuclear proliferation, humanitarian interventions, complex militant attacks, intelligence operations and the operations and dynamics of several Islamist and other non-state militant groups.

José R. Allen

 (
US
)
International Environmental Lawyer, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)

Jose has been practicing law for 45 years. For over 30 years he was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and represented clients in a wide range of environmental litigation matters as well as in a broad variety of other matters. Before entering private practice Jose worked as an Assistant Attorney General in the then newly-formed Environmental Protection Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. He then joined the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where he represented the United States and its agencies in environmental enforcement and defense matters throughout the country. While at Justice he served as chief of the Environmental Defense Section, representing EPA in matters arising under all the federal statutes administered by the agency including, CERCLA, RCRA, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the Federal Insecticide and Rodenticide Act. He later became chief of the Natural Resources Section which is responsible for representing federal agencies such as the Department of Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Defense in litigation arising under NEPA and other federal natural resources laws. Jose also served as a Commissioner on the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) which was created in the aftermath of the First Gulf War to require Iraq to pay reparations to national governments, companies, and individuals who had suffered monetary losses as the result of Iraq’s unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait. As a member of the panel appointed by the UN Security Council to review claims by governmental entities for environmental and natural resources damages resulting from the war, Jose and his co-commissioners recommended that Iraq pay over $4 billion in reparations to affected states for environmental and natural resource damages. The panel’s report and recommendations were adopted in full by the UN Security Council. This was the first time in international law where a country was required to pay reparations for environmental and natural resource damages resulting from war. The United Nations recently announced that Iraq had fulfilled its obligations to pay all claimants compensation awarded by the UNCC, which totaled $52.4 billion. Jose was lured out of retirement over a year ago to resume the representation of a client in two of the longest running Superfund cases in the country. Jose is a graduate of Yale College and Boston College Law School.

Dr. Michael Bothe

 (
GER
)
Professor Emeritus of Public Law, J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main

Michael Bothe is Professor emeritus of Public Law at the J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt/Main. He held a Chair in Public International Law at the Universities of Hannover and Frankfurt (where he also was Dean), and served as a visiting professor in many universities around the world. He was a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, later served as chair of the Institute’s Scientific Advisory Board and is currently a member of the Kuratorium. He was president of the German Society for International Law and of the European Environmental Law Association as well as President of the International Humanitarian Fact-finding Commission and Chairperson, and still is a member, of the German Committee for International Humanitarian Law. He served as a delegate or adviser in a number of international conferences (including the Diplomatic Conference for the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law 1974-1977) and as a counsel before the International Court of Justice and the German Federal Constitutional Court. He is the author of many books and articles on questions of international law (in particular as it relates to legal restraints on the use of military force and to the protection of the environment), comparative public law, European law and constitutional law. He received the Giuseppe Ciardi Prize for he law of armed conflict, the Elisabeth Haub Prize for international and comparative environmental law, the Henry Dunant Medal of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement and the Prize of the Institute of International Humanitarian Law (San Remo).

Kathleen Rogers

 (
)
President, EARTHDAY.ORG

Kathleen Rogers is the President of Earth Day Network. Kathleen has developed Earth Day Network into a year-round policy and activist organization. Now more than 1 billion people participate in Earth Day in 192 countries. Kathleen has been at the vanguard of developing innovative financial mechanisms to support green buildings and schools. Kathleen also founded Earth Day Network’s groundbreaking Billion Acts of Green program, which has now recorded close to 3 billion individual actions to improve the environment.

Elizabeth Pearce

 (
US
)
Founder, SymSoil Inc

Elizabeth Pearce is the founder of SymSoil Inc, a soil health company created in response to soil degradation. In 2021, SymSoil began collaborating with RegenIowa to convert 1 million acres of conventional farms to regenerative farming. She became concerned with issues related to climate change and food security while a portfolio manager at Northern Trust, thinking about farmland as an asset class. RegenIowa has challenged farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture by 2025, through rapid and robust restoration of the complete soil microbiome and soil health.

L. Hunter Lovins

 (
US
)
President, Natural Capitalism Solutions

A founding professor of sustainable business management at the Bard MBA, Hunter lectures at universities around the world. Named a Master at the De Tao Academy in Shanghai, she is a founding mentor of the Unreasonable Institute that coaches social enterprises around the world. An entrepreneur, herself, L. Hunter Lovins is a founder and Chief Impact Officer of Change Finance, an impact investing firm. Hunter is founder and President of Natural Capitalism Solutions. A consultant to scores of industries and governments worldwide, including International Finance Corporation, Unilever, Walmart, the United Nations and Royal Dutch Shell, as well as sustainability champions Interface, Patagonia and Clif Bar, she has briefed heads of state, leaders of the numerous local governments, the Pentagon, and about 30 countries, as well as the UN, World Economic Forum and the US Congress. She sits on the Executive Committee of the Club of Rome, the Steering Committee of Partners for a Planetary Emergency, the Convening Committee of Colorado Regenerative Recovery Coalition and Capital Institute Advisory Board. Author of 16 books and hundreds of articles, Hunter has won dozens of awards, including the European Sustainability Pioneer award, and the Right Livelihood Award. Time Magazine recognized her as a Millennium Hero for the Planet, and Newsweek called her the Green Business Icon. Her most recent book, A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life won a Nautilus Award.

Merlin Yockstick

 (
US
)
Founder of Blue Planet Science Group, RegenIOWA, and Co-Founder of EarthRegenx

Author - Instructional Designer – Founder of Blue Planet Science Group, RegenIOWA and Co-Founder of EarthRegenx , a 501C3. Merlin is engaged in designing a 50-state initiative to develop a regenerative approach starting in Iowa and with Agriculture to help communities, and states build healthy- robust economies that are beyond sustainability. He is an activist interested in transforming America’s health care system and sits on the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative and the Committee for Community Health Improvement, powered by Wellmark. Merlin’s focus is on the fundamentals of Water, Soil/Food/Agriculture, Education and Health. He has a transformative purpose of engaging youth, community and business leaders in “building smart and regenerative communities and states, and is designing a bottom up – top-down “systemic” approach in Iowa as a model for our nation and world. Merlin is a member of Smart Growth America, U.S. Water Alliance and is an active participant in the Singularity University HUB group that is advancing the Exponential Growth of Information Technology. Merlin’s love for nature and commitment to the stewardship of our Blue and Water Planet is the central theme of his vision for business and humanitarian endeavors 2022 and beyond.

Jillian Semaan

 (
US
)
VP, Sustainability at Ketchum

.Jillian leads Sustainability at Ketchum where she drives initiatives and provides counsel related to ESGs, Food and Agriculture, Sustainability, Environmental Justice, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. She has spent much of her career advocating for both human and planetary health centered around sustainable solutions like new technologies, regenerative agriculture, alternative proteins, biodiversity, and soil health. Previously she was appointed in the Obama Administration at the United States Department of Agriculture where she created and implemented government initiatives that focused on sustainable agriculture in food deserts, disadvantaged and low-income communities throughout the United States addressing food access issues and nutrition.

Sandrine Dixson-Declève

 (
)
Co-President, The Club of Rome

Sandrine Dixson-Declève is an international and European climate, energy, sustainable development, sustainable finance, complex systems thought leader. She is currently the Co-President of the Club of Rome and divides her time between lecturing, facilitating change in business and policy models and advisory work. She holds several advisory positions for the European Commission: Chair, Expert Group on Economic and Societal Impact of Research & Innovation (ESIR); Assembly Member, Climate Mitigation & Adaptation Mission (DGR&I); TEG Sustainable Finance Taxonomy and Sustainable Finance Platform (DGFISMA); United Nations: Food Summit Action Track 5 Resilience and for companies/organisations/institutes such as BMW, UBM, Climate KIC, UCL-Bartlett School of Enviornment and the IEEP. Sandrine is also a Senior Associate and faculty member of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and a Senior Associate for E3G, Ambassador, for the Energy Transition Commission (ETC) and WEALL. In 2017 Sandrine co-founded the Women Enablers Change Agent Network (WECAN).

Elizabeth McGeveran

 (
US
)
Director of investments, McKnight Foundation

As McKnight’s director of investments since 2019, Elizabeth McGeveran oversees the team that manages the Foundation’s $3 billion endowment. With her leadership and vision, the Foundation committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across its entire portfolio by or before 2050—the nation’s first of the 50 largest private foundations to do so. McGeveran designed a market-rate solutions-oriented portfolio that aligns with the Foundation’s mission, advancing climate solutions, and equitable communities and economies. Across the entire endowment, one of every three invested dollars is mission-aligned. McGeveran first joined McKnight in 2014 to lead its impact investing program. She helped pave the way for the Foundation as a leading impact investor, identifying investment opportunities that are building the world we want to live in. As an investment leader since 1999, McGeveran with others was an early actor in developing environmental social and governance (ESG) approaches across the industry. As senior vice president for governance and sustainable investment at F&C Asset Management, a London-based commercial asset manager (now BMO Global Asset Management), she built this firm’s market-leading socially responsible investment team. McGeveran is an independent trustee of funds at Boston Trust Walden, a longtime leader in incorporating ESG into its investment approach. She an original member of the U.S. Advisory Committee for the FTSE4Good indexes, and currently volunteers on the investment committee at the University of St. Thomas in her hometown of St. Paul. McGeveran grew up outside Boston and graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota.

Andy Karsner

 (
US
)
Senior Strategist at X (Formerly Google X)

Mr. Karsner is a leading corporate innovation strategist and accomplished energy entrepreneur, policymaker, regulator and diplomat with more than three decades of global conventional and renewable energy experience, spanning every natural resource. He is Senior Strategist at X (formerly Google X), the innovation lab of Alphabet Inc., where he is part of the executive leadership team, shaping strategy for technology, policy, and commercialization at the nexus of natural resources and AI, machine learning, geospatial engineering, and high performance computing. He began his career developing large scale energy infrastructure and has led or contributed to project development, management and finance enabling significant value creation on six continents. As a private equity investor, venture partner and advisor, his portfolios have included some of the most successful clean tech startups of the past decade, including Nest (AI), Tesla (mobility), Recurrent (solar), Codexis (biotech) and Carbon (3D printing). From 2005 to 2008, he served as US Assistant Secretary of Energy, responsible for multi-billion dollar federal R&D programs and National Laboratories. In this role, he was on point to assemble significant bipartisan coalitions to implement or enact the Energy Policy Act (2005), the Energy Independence and Security Act (2007), and the America Competes Act (2008), all of which remain foundational to the framework of federal energy policy and regulation today. Mr. Karsner exercised a discrete diplomatic and security role as a principal representative of the United States in the negotiations on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and other bilateral energy and environmental technology accords. From 2016 to 2019, Mr. Karsner served as Managing Partner of Emerson Collective, an investment platform funding non-profit, philanthropic and for-profit portfolios advancing education, health, immigration, the environment, and other initiatives. Along with Emerson’s Founder and Principal, Laurene Powell Jobs, Mr. Karsner co-founded Emerson Elemental (since spun out as Elemental Labs) with a deep focus on market-based solutions and technologies addressing conservation and climate change.

Hosts

Catarina Rolfsdotter-Jansson

 (
)
Host, We Don't Have Time & EU Climate Pact Ambassador

Catarina Rolfsdotter-Jansson is an expert moderator, lecturer, and devoted workshop leader in facilitating sustainable development. Catarina moderates for the EU Commission, the Swedish Government, corporations, local municipalities, and universities. She is also content director at A Sustainable Tomorrow and co-founder of the global climate NGO Our Kids´Climate.

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Nick Nuttall

 (
)
Host, Strategic Communications Director, We Don't Have Time

Previously with the Times Newspaper London, the U.N. Environment, and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Nick was the Director of Communications and Spokesperson for the Paris Agreement of 2015. More recently, he has served as the Director of Communications for the Global Climate Action Summit that took place in San Francisco in September 2018.

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Dr. Sweta Chakraborty

 (
)
Climate Behavioral Scientist, CEO of North America, We Don't Have Time

Dr. Sweta Chakraborty is the CEO of North America, We Don’t Have Time. She is a partner at Pioneer Public Affairs. She is also the founder and principal of Adapt to Thrive, a venture that seeks to better inform individuals, businesses, and government entities on the complex, interconnected challenges, such as food insecurity and disease, already existing and emerging from a warming planet.

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Patrick Kiarie

 (
KE
)
Representative of We Don't Have Time Kenya

Patrick Kiarie is an Eco-Warrior, and the Representative of We Don't Have Time Kenya and a small scale businessman. He is passionate about climate change and how to transform small business enterprises into circular and green businesses. Patrick won last year's WDHT Climate idea - Borrowing from the future. Borrowing from the future is an idea based to be a model program for educating young people on climate change and building a platform for the youth to contribute to innovations in climate change. Recently, Patrick was nominated among the top 10 most influential youths in Kenya.

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Selected speakers

Inger Andersen

 (
DK
)
Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Inger Andersen is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. Ms. Andersen has more than 30 years of experience in international development economics, environmental sustainability, strategy and operations.

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Ivo Mulder

 (
NL
)
Head - Climate Finance Unit, UNEP

Ivo Mulder has over sixteen years of professional experience working for UNEP, private consulting firms, and with non-governmental organizations. He has published more than fifty reports, blogs and articles and sits on the Steering Committee of a number of initiatives. Ivo is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and a member of the Dutch Association of Sustainable Investors (VBDO). Ivo leads UNEP’s Climate Finance Unit (CFU), and oversees a growing portfolio of various initiatives and finance facilities that actively unlock public and especially private capital towards sustainable land use with positive impacts for the climate, nature, and people.

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Kehkashan Basu

 (
CA
)
Founder-President, Green Hope Foundation

Kehkashan Basu, M.S.M. is an iconic global influencer, environmentalist, champion of women and children’s rights, TEDx speaker, Climate Reality Mentor, author, musician, peace, and sustainability campaigner. She is the recipient of Canada's Meritorious Service Medal and the only Canadian to win the International Children’s Peace Prize. Kehkashan is the Founder-President of global social innovation enterprise Green Hope Foundation, which works at a grassroots level in 26 countries, empowering young people and women, especially those from vulnerable communities, in the sustainable development process and she has spoken at over 300 United Nations and other global fora. She is the youngest Trustee of the Parliament of the World's Religions, Co-Lead of UN Women Generation Equality Forum's Action Coalition on Feminist Action for Climate Justice, the Co-Chair of the University of Toronto's SDG Student Advisory Council, Council Lead of the Toronto-St. She continues to work tirelessly to amplify the voices of young people, women and girls in decision-making processes.

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Johan Falk

 (
)
CEO & Co-founder, Exponential Roadmap Initiative

Johan Falk is a leader and entrepreneur in exponential strategies for climate and business. Falk is the CEO and Co-founder of Exponential Roadmap Initiative, with the mission to accelerate exponential climate action. Falk is the co-lead author of Exponential Roadmap and 1.5°C Business Playbook. Falk is a former Senior Innovation Fellow at Stockholm Resilience Centre and Future Earth. Falk was one of the initiators of the Global Carbon Law idea, together with Owen Gaffney and Johan Rockström, inspired by Moore's Law. Further, Falk was part of Intel Corporation 2006-2018, responsible for Intel IoT Ignition Lab and heading up the Intel Edge Cloud Game Changer program for 5G networks. Falk received the Intel Global Design Win of the Year 2010 for accelerating the telecom business exponentially to a multi-billion dollar business.

https://exponentialroadmap.org/https://exponentialroadmap.org/1-5c-business-playbook/Read less
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Ingmar Rentzhog

 (
)
CEO and Founder of We Don't Have Time

Ingmar is serial entrepreneur within financial communication and nominated for a DI Gasell Award, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year, Sweden’s Environmental Influencer 2018, and International Gamechanger of the Year 2020, and Green Warrior 2021. Ingmar Rentzhog has been the chairman of the environmental think tank Global Challenge. He is on the board of Naventus Corporate Finance. He’s a member of Al Gore’s Climate Reality and European Climate Policy Task Force and he was in 2022 appointed a European Climate Pact Ambassador by the European Commission.

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Yee Lee

 (
US
)
Chief Growth Officer, Terraformation

Former executive, engineer, and product designer at many of the most impactful companies in the tech industry, including Facebook, Google, TaskRabbit, Skype, and Paypal. At Terraformation, Yee is focused on rapidly growing a transformative solution to solve climate change.

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Stephen Smith

 (
GB
)
Managing director, Bankers without Boundaries

Steve spent 27 years at Morgan Stanley, a large investment bank, in London, working within global equity sales and covering some of the major institutions and hedge funds. He worked very closely with the Capital Markets division to help with capital raising for companies, including being involved with 150 IPOs in Europe. He worked with the ESG group at the firm to enhance the profile of the banks efforts in this area. Since leaving Morgan Stanley has has completed a Sustainable Finance course at CISL at Cambridge University, and is a graduate of University of York, where he studied Economics, Politics and Public Choice.

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Åsmund Asdal

 (
NO
)
Seed Vault coordinator, Nordic Genetic Resource Center, NordGen

Åsmund Asdal is a Norwegian horticulturist and ecologist who, for the past 25 years, has been working with projects on the conservation and use of plant genetic resources (PGR) on a national and Nordic regional level. Before that, he was working as a researcher, project manager, and through the 1990ties head of a research station in the now called Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research. From 2000 to 2015, he was in charge of the Norwegian national program for conservation and use of plant genetic resources, from 2006 organized through the Norwegian Genetic Resource Center. Asdal has been involved in Nordic plant genetic resource activities from the mid-1990s. He has been a board member and conducted projects and working groups within the Nordic Gene Bank, from 2008 re-organized into the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre (NordGen). From 2015 he has been employed at NordGen as Coordinator of Operation and Management of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

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Dr. Anja Gassner

 (
DE
)
Senior Scientist and Science Advisor

Anja is a Senior Scientist at World Agroforestry and policy and science advisor to the Global Landscape Forum (GLF). The GLF is the world’s largest knowledge-led platform on sustainable land use, dedicated to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement. Anja has worked for 25 years on rural development programs in the tropics that aim at both livelihood and natural positive outcomes. Together with colleagues and partners her aim is to accompany governmental agencies to achieve their commitments to international conventions and treaties through mainstreaming Agroforestry interventions into national and sub-national policies and planning.

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Anders Wijkman

 (
SE
)
Opinion leader, author & Honorary president Club of Rome

Anders Wijkman is a Swedish opinion leader and author. He is honorary chairman of the global think tank Club of Rome and chairman of the Governing Board of Climate-KIC – a major public-private partnership at EU level for the promotion of innovation of a low-carbon society. He has served as a Member of the European Parliament, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Policy Director of UNDP.Since 2015 Anders is a member of the International Resource Panel (IRP) – a UN appointed expert body” to build and share the knowledge needed to improve the use of our resources worldwide”.

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Yishan Wong

 (
US
)
CEO, Terraformation

Yishan is bringing Silicon Valley’s expertise in scaling to the climate movement. Dedicated to restoring the planet’s forests to solve climate change, Yishan leads the company to build and deploy tools to tackle the largest bottlenecks to mass-scale reforestation. Terraformation’s technology includes off-grid seed banks that process and stores millions of seeds, tracking and monitoring platforms to enable project transparency, solar-powered desalination, and more. Terraformation’s goal in 2022 is to establish the world’s largest decentralized native seed banking network. Prior to founding Terraformation in 2020, Yishan served as the CEO of Reddit, and Director of Engineering at Facebook and was part of the engineering team that led to the exponential growth of Paypal. Yishan studied computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He lives on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi with his family and dogs.

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Maria José Iturralde

 (
EC
)
CEO & Founder, Humans for Abundance

María José (Chochi) Iturralde has dedicated much of her life to bridging her experiences as an educator and innovator with her passion for environmental sustainability. She is an experienced and highly creative entrepreneur and the visionary behind Humans for Abundance, the social enterprise that she founded in 2019. She began her career in school settings and, before fully transitioning to environmental work, she led a primary school in Quito and founded four other companies mostly focused on the well-being and growth of humans and their relationships with themselves and with nature. She uses her understanding of the emotional drives that shape human behavior to design and implement successful human-to-human connection models and systems.

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Kirsty Shaw

 (
UK
)
Head of Ecological Restoration & Tree Conservation, Botanic Gardens Conservation International

Kirsty is Head of Ecological Restoration and Tree Conservation at Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). She has worked at BGCI since 2012, and established the BGCI Africa office in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2017. Since joining BGCI, Kirsty has been working with botanic gardens and other partners across Africa on tree conservation and forest restoration projects, particularly focused on getting a broader mix of native species, including threatened species, into restoration and tree planting projects.

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Dr. Marian Chau

 (
)
Head of Seed Banking, Terraformation

Dr. Marian M. Chau is the Head of Seed Banking for Terraformation and the founder and Co-Chair (2016-2024) of the IUCN Seed Conservation Specialist Group, a collaboration of over 100 specialists worldwide that provides expertise to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. For over 5 years, Marian served as the Seed Conservation Laboratory Manager at Lyon Arboretum and Research Leader for the Hawai‘i Seed Bank Partnership, and was lead author on a publication summarizing over 20 years of seed storage research in Hawai‘i. She completed a sponsored Technical Training Attachment at the Millennium Seed Bank - the world’s largest seed bank for native species, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England; and her mentors also include leading experts at the USDA National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation.

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Dr. Kate Hardwick

 (
UK
)
Conservation Partnership Coordinator at Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens

As a Conservation Partnership Coordinator in the Seed Conservation section, my job is to develop and maintain Millennium Seed Bank partnerships, projects, and networks, particularly in Asia. We aim to secure the safe storage of seeds from the world’s bankable plant species, whilst promoting plant conservation, sustainable utilization of plant resources, habitat restoration, and the improvement of livelihoods. I am also involved in several research projects that explore the use of seeds in ecological restoration, with an emphasis on tropical forests and temperate grasslands.

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Emma Stewart

 (
US
)
Netflix Sustainability Officer

Emma Stewart, Ph.D., is Netflix’s first Sustainability Officer, where together with teams from across the company, she seeks to bring Netflix's carbon footprint to net zero, raise environmental awareness through film and television series, and spur conversation on climate action among our hundreds of millions of members in 190 countries. She previously led World Resources Institute’s global work on urban efficiency, climate, and finance. She served on the Board of the U.S. Green Building Council and software company Ecomedes. She has been a member of the professional faculty at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Stanford Graduate School of Business where she taught “Intrapreneurship for Sustainability”. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Reuters, The Guardian, Tribune, The Huffington Post, Environmental Law Journal, among others. She is a contributing author to Corporate Responses to Climate Change and The Encyclopedia of Sustainable Business, and her work is featured in books Frugal Innovation and The Big Pivot. Emma was rated a “Badass Woman in Sustainability” by GreenBiz, a "top 3 speaker" by The Economist Summits, and has been named a “one of the most powerful women under 45” and an “urban pioneer” by FORTUNE Magazine, a “sustainability insurgent” by MIT Sloan Management Review, and one of the “Top 10 Women in Sustainability” by American Builders. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Reuters, L.A. Times, and Environmental Law Journal, among others. She is a contributing author to Corporate Responses to Climate Change and The Encyclopedia of Sustainable Business, and her work is featured in 3 books: Frugal Innovation, The Big Pivot, and Chief Sustainability Officers at Work. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Management from Stanford University and a B.A. with Honors in Human Sciences from Oxford University.

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María Mendiluce

 (
ES
)
CEO, We Mean Business Coalition

María Mendiluce is the CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition and has 25 years of experience in sustainable development, energy, and climate action. The Coalition brings together seven leading international organizations: BSR, The B Team, CDP, Ceres, CLG Europe, Climate Group, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). She sits on the Executive Board of the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) which has over 2,800 companies engaged. She actively took part in the founding and is a member of the Board of the Mission Possible Partnership that works to develop decarbonization roadmaps for seven hard-to-abate sectors including cement and steel. María also co-founded the SME Climate Hub which is building a one-stop shop for smaller companies for their net-zero commitments. Formerly being the Managing Director and member of the Senior Management Team at WBCSD, María established transformative industry projects. She has also held senior positions at the Economic Bureau of the Spanish Prime Minister, in the CEO’s office of Iberdrola, and at the International Energy Agency.

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Eva Karlsson

 (
SE
)
CEO, Houdini Sportswear

Houdini Sportswear has worked with the circular and regenerative business for many years and has become a source of inspiration for other companies. The inspiration is taken from nature and the goal is to have 100% circular products already in 2022. Houdini works according to the motto "reimagine everything" and strives for a change of system to a regenerative way of living and working.

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Catarina Paulson

 (
SE
)
Head of Sustainability, Alfa Laval

Born in Mexico City, Catarina Paulson has worked within sustainability since 1994 in companies such as Volvo Cars, Volvo Group, AkzoNobel, and TetraPak before joining Alfa Laval in 2014. A graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania she holds a B.A. in Political science/international relations, a diploma in Marketing with a focus on environmental communication and has studied human technology and personnel administration. At Alfa Laval she has been instrumental in the development of the sustainability strategy for 2030 and in ensuring a road map for zero scopes 1&2 and halving scope 3 emissions by 2030 is established.

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David Collste

 (
SE
)
Post-doctoral researcher, Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University

Collste is a postdoctoral researcher at the Planetary Boundaries Research Lab. He studies feedback between human development, the economy, and planetary boundaries. Collste has a background in system dynamics, economics, political science, and resilience thinking. Collste co-leads the module on systems thinking at Stockholm Resilience Centre’s Master’s program, and lectures on ecological economics and system dynamics modeling. In his Ph.D. thesis, he studied different approaches to assessing the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Before joining Stockholm Resilience Centre, he worked at the United Nations on the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. He has also worked at the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (Naturskyddsföreningen). Collste holds a joint Ph.D. degree in Sustainability Science from Stockholm University and Economics from CERDI at Université Clermont Auvergne in France.

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Dr. Lewis Akenji

 (
)
Managing Director, Hot or Cool Institute

As Managing Director, Lewis oversees strategic development, program implementation, and staff management at Hot or Cool. Previously, Lewis has served as Executive Director of SEED, founded as a UN partnership at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development to promote entrepreneurship for sustainable development. Prior to that, he was Director for Sustainable Consumption and Production at the think tank Institute for Global Environmental Strategies. He has consulted with organizations including United Nations agencies, the Asian and African Development Banks, the European Commission, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and has served as technical or science-policy adviser to several national government delegations, including Finland, Japan, Sweden, Indonesia, Hungary. Lewis conceived and led the 1.5-Degree Lifestyles project, analysing potential contribution of lifestyle changes to the aspirational 1.5 °C target under the Paris Agreement on climate change. He co-lead the United Nations One Planet programme on Sustainable Lifestyles and Education. He has an M.Sc. Sustainable Resource Management (Technical University Munich, Germany) and a Ph.D. Political Economy (University of Helsinki, Finland).

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Mattias Frumerie

 (
SE
)
Climate Ambassador & Head of Delegation to the UNFCCC, Sweden

Ambassador Frumerie is also Sweden's Head of Delegation to UNFCCC. Previous positions include head of EU policy, EU single market, Strategic communications, postings in Budapest and Brussels as well as EU advisor in the Prime Minister's Office.

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Kristina Persson

 (
SE
)
Senior Advisor, FAIRTRANS

Kristina Persson has all her grown-up life in various ways tried to improve how society functions, including pushing for the green transformation. When she worked at the secretariat for future studies at the Prime Ministers (Olof Palme) Office, she understood the magnitude of threats facing mankind if political decisions continue to be taken without a long-term and holistic view on society. She has since then tried party politics, worked in civil society, and had leading positions in the public sector. Not until now, 50 years later there is beginning to be an understanding among both the general public and our political leaders of our dependency on nature and on each other. She is afraid, however, that it will take too long until this is put into practice, which makes her both sad and angry.

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Stanley Johnson

 (
UK
)
International Ambassador, Conservative Environment Network

Educated, Oxford, Iowa, and Columbia, Universities. Joined of World Bank in 1966. Worked with Maurice Strong as part of the preparatory team in the run-up to the first UN Conference on Human Environment and attended the Conference in Stockholm on June 1072 as a delegate for International Planned Parenthood Federation. Author of a dozen books on environment and population, including UNCED 1992; World Population and the United Nations; and UNEP: first forty years. Former MEP and Vice-Chairman of European Parliament Environment Committee. Senior environment officer at EU Commission, Brussels. Holder of awards from WWF, Greenpeace, RSPB, RSPA, etc. Winner of Newdigate Prize for Poetry. Author of 11 novels.

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Karma Barfungpa

 (
UK
)
Head Of Operations, tve (Television for the Environment)

tve is a UK-registered charity founded by the United Nations Environment Programme, WWF-UK, and Central Television (now part of ITV) in 1984. Our mission is to use the power of storytelling to drive real world change for a more sustainable future. We work with filmmakers and partners worldwide to run media projects, make films and work to promote effective, evidence-based storytelling about environmental issues

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Altanbagana Bayarsaikhan

 (
MN
)
planetGOLD Mongolia

Altanbagana Bayarsaikhan is National Project Manager at the Global Environment Facility-supported planetGOLD project in Mongolia. He has decades of experience in managing a number of international development projects funded by SDC and USAID, and worked in the small scale and large scale mining sector for the last several years.

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Mats Pellbäck Scharp

 (
SE
)
Chair, We Don’t Have Time

Mats has over 20 years’ experience in digitalization and sustainability. Under his leadership Ericsson was the first manufacturer in the telecom sector to have science-based targets on a Net Zero trajectory and also the first company in the sector to renew targets after successfully concluding their first SBTi commitments. The conviction to base decisions and plans on science and facts is manifested by being part of the initiation and steering of the Exponential Climate Action Roadmap report as well as leading the joint project with Columbia University on ICT and SDGs. Mats has been spearheading industry in sustainability both as a consultant and in global companies such as Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Nobia.

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Owen Gaffney

 (
)
Project Lead, Earth4All

Owen is a global sustainability writer, analyst and strategist. He is based at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Stockholm Resilience Centre. He is also a Future Earth Senior Fellow, an Edmund Hillary Fellow (New Zealand) and he is on the faculty of Singularity University. He is interested in big-picture narratives of the past and future of people on Earth (and beyond). He has published in Science and Nature and is a regular contributor to New Scientist. He co-founded the Future Earth Media Lab and Rethink magazine and is on the editorial board of the Anthropocene magazine.

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Fredrik Jejdling

 (
SE
)
Executive Vice President and Head of Business Area Networks, Ericsson

Fredrik Jejdling is Executive Vice President and Head of Business Area Networks at Ericsson since November 7, 2017. He runs the company’s largest business area with full P&L responsibility and brings to this role years of experience with customers in diverse markets. He also oversees the global production and progress of Ericsson’s radio and transport products and services across all mobile technology generations.

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Sara-Elvira Kuhmunen

 (
SE
)
President, Sáminuorra

Sara-Elvira Kuhmunen, a 21-year-old from Jokkmokk, is the President of the Sami youth organization Sáminuorra since 2001. She is passionate about the Climate issue and Sami self-determination.

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Pär Larshans

 (
SE
)
Co-host, Director of Sustainability, Ragn-Sells

Pär is an award winner in communication, social sustainability, and intrapreneurship, listed multiple times by Trust Across America as one of the Top Thought Leaders in Trust. He is the current appointed expert for setting environmental targets for sea and coastal regions in Sweden and for the coalition group for climate-neutral Swedish industry by 2045.

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Eva Hunnius Ohlin

 (
SE
)
Senior Advisor for Energy and Environment at Embassy of Sweden

Eva Hunnius Ohlin works in the Trade and Economic Affairs section at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington DC since 2011. In her role as the embassy’s advisor for energy and environment, she reports on US energy, climate and environment policy as well as transportation policy and promotes Swedish green technologies.

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Linnéa Sellberg

 (
SE
)
Section manager, Ragn-Sells Sweden

Linnéa Sellberg has a Bachelor of Business Management and an Agronomist degree from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and works as a project leader at Ragn-Sells. Furthermore, Linnéa is an owner representative and one of the fourth generation family members working within the company.

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Dr. Anders Berger

 (
SE
)
Public Affairs Director, Volvo Group

Dr. Anders Berger, Director Public Affairs, is a transport solution specialist at Volvo Group with extensive engagement in the public discourse of transport efficiency, e-mobility, automation and connectivity related to the environmental and efficiency challenges of the road transport system.

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Susan Chomba

 (
)
Director of Vital Landscapes at World Resources Institute

Dr. Susan Chomba is the Director of Vital Landscapes for Africa at the World Resources Institute (WRI). She leads the institution’s work on Forests, Food systems and People which includes forest landscape restoration, sustainable agriculture/food systems and thriving rural livelihoods in Africa.

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Cara Williams

 (
UK
)
Global Head of ESG and Sustainability, Mercer

Cara Williams is the Global ESG Strategy Leader for Mercer. Located in London, Cara works to articulate and amplify Mercer’s ESG value proposition and positioning, embed sustainability in the journey to a bright future, and drive highly-practical, relevant and value-added outcomes both internally and externally. Cara oversees the Mercer’s Private Wealth businesses in Canada and India, and also works with Mercer’s multinational clients to deliver the best of Mercer’s broad Wealth solutions to assure positive financial outcomes for organizations and their employees. Cara presents regularly on global ESG, sustainability, diversity and investment trends.

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Niall O’Sullivan

 (
IRL
)
AMEA Chief Investment Officer, Investment Solutions, Mercer

Niall is responsible for the design, implementation and ongoing supervision of Mercer Investment Management’s fund solutions for all AMEA clients, and Discretionary Management services. He joined Mercer in 2010 from QED in Dublin, where he developed solution-driven investment opportunities with banks and insurance companies. Prior to this, he created derivative-based solutions at Bank of Ireland Global Markets, including the bank’s LDI product range.

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Max Messervy

 (
)
Head of Sustainable Investment Americas, Mercer

Max Messervy leads Mercer’s Sustainable Investment team in the Americas region. Max provides advice on sustainable investment strategies, climate change, and impact investment approaches throughout investment processes. Max advises institutional investors across a range of segments, including pension funds, endowments, insurers, multi-lateral development finance institutions, and other stakeholders in the investment value chain. Max was a lead and/or co-author of reports on increasing institutional investors’ impactful allocations to African infrastructure and private market assets in 2018 and 2021, as well as a guide for integrating sustainable investment approaches into corporate retirement plans in a project with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Prior to joining Mercer, Max spent nearly four years working in the Insurance practice at Ceres in Boston, a leading non-profit sustainability advocacy organization. In that role, he worked with a range of stakeholders across the industry in making the business case for the sector to address climate and ESG risks and opportunities both as underwriters of weather risk and investors in physical infrastructure. This involved engagement with re/insurers, regulators, non-re/insurer investors and NGOs. Previously,Max worked in various capacities with Canadian federal and provincial governments, and with other environmental and sustainability entities as an independent consultant. Max holds a Master of Public Policy from the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA, and an Honors Religious Studies degree from McGill University.

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Dr. Klaus Kunz

 (
GER
)
Head of ESG / External Engagement and Performance Reporting, Bayer

Dr. Klaus Kunz holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry and a degree in economics. He joined Bayer in 2001 and has gained 20 years of experience directing business strategic topics in R&D at a global level, taking leadership roles in research, R&D project management, regulatory and public / governmental affairs, sustainability and business stewardship. Since February 2022 he is leading ESG Strategy. Klaus is passionate about driving innovation and change, cross-cultural collaboration, politics and history, also holding a lectureship for chemistry at the University of Aachen. He is married with three children.

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Inge West

 (
UK
)
Senior Sustainable Investment Specialist, Mercer Investment Solutions

Inge West is a Senior Sustainable Investment Specialist in Mercer’s European Investment Solutions business, based in London. She is responsible for advising and driving the implementation of sustainable investment practices across the Mercer Investment Solutions offerings with a focus on integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, sustainability trends, climate change, and stewardship within the investment process. Prior to this Inge spent three years in Mercer’s dedicated Global Sustainable Investment team, advising institutional investors on and contributing to intellectual capital in sustainable investment.

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John Piotti

 (
US
)
President & CEO, American Farmland Trust

John Piotti has worked at the forefront of sustainable agriculture since the early 1990s, first in Maine, and now nationally. In 2016, he became President of American Farmland Trust, bringing new energy to this storied organization that launched the conservation agriculture movement. Under John’s leadership, AFT has engaged in the most comprehensive study of American land use ever conducted, helped secure billions of dollars in federal funding to protect farmland and promote climate-smart agriculture, and launched new initiatives that advance regenerative farming practices and support next generation farmers. Prior to joining AFT, John served as President of Maine Farmland Trust, which during his tenure became recognized as one of the most innovative and impactful farm-support groups in the nation. John has also served in the Maine State Legislature, where he chaired the Agriculture Committee and was later elected House Majority Leader. In 2013, John was named to Maine Magazine’s inaugural list of one of the 50 people who have done the most for the state. In 2005, he received a prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship, which he used to study agricultural policy in Europe. John holds three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: in engineering, public policy, and systems management.

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Anthony Myint

 (
US
)
Executive Director, Zero Foodprint

Anthony Myint is a chef-turned climate crusader and Zero Foodprint is a non-profit leading public private collaborations with state agencies in CA and regional governments in CO to scale regenerative agriculture. ZFP is building a regenerative economy through which businesses and citizens can directly change how food is grown to restore the climate. A few cents per purchase funds compost application, cover crop planting and other healthy soil practices, overseen and validated by Conservation Districts, Cooperative Extensions and other local experts. The long term goal of the public-private collaborations is to mirror the transformative collective action of CCA policy for renewable energy, but applied to climate beneficial agriculture. (and if you want more detail) Since 2020 ZFP has awarded over $800k to 53 regenerative agriculture projects on 5000 acres expected to sequester a modeled 32,000 tons of CO2e. Anthony is known in the restaurant industry as the Co-Founder of Mission Street Food (SF Chronicle's Most Influential Restaurant of the Past Decade", Mission Chinese Food (NYTimes Restaurant of the Year - 2012) and The Perennial (Bon Appetit's "Most Sustainable Restaurant in the Country").

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Iryna Stavchuk

 (
UKR
)
Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine for European Integration

Mrs. Stavchuk is currently serving as the Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine for European Integration. Before assuming this role, she was the Deputy Minister of Energy and Environmental Protection of Ukraine. Prior to joining the Ukrainian cabinet, Mrs. Stavchuk worked at the National Environmental Center of Ukraine, where she coordinated work in the development and implementation of climate protection policy in Ukraine and participated in UN International Negotiations on climate change. Mrs. Stavchuk graduated with honors from the Faculty of Heat Power Engineering of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with a degree in Computer Environmental and Economic Monitoring. She received her second higher education at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (Lund, Sweden) with a degree in Environmental Management and Politics.

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Carl Bruch

 (
US
)
Director of International Programs, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)

Carl Bruch is the Director of International Programs at the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and the founding President of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association (EnPAx). His work focuses on environmental peacebuilding (especially after conflict), environmental governance, adaptation, and environmental emergencies. He has helped dozens of countries— including in many conflict-affected countries—throughout Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe strengthen their environmental laws, institutions, and practices. He has edited more than ten books and authored more than 80 journal articles, book chapters, and reports. He is an adjunct professor at American University School of International Service. He holds a JD from the Northwestern School of Environmental Law of Lewis & Clark College, an MA in physics from the University of Texas-Austin, and a BS in physics (with additional majors in mathematics and anthropology) from Michigan State University.

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Stefan Smith

 (
KEN
)
Senior Programme Manager, Disasters & Conflicts, at UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Stefan is a senior programme manager with the United Nations Environment Programme working on resilience and response to disasters & conflicts, strategic planning, programme delivery reporting, and operations management and oversight. He has a background in international news agency journalism and news analysis, editorial and operational management in multiple fragile and conflict contexts and under state and non-state actors. He has covered themes including electoral processes, human rights, genocide and international justice, displacement and refugee crises, environment, nuclear proliferation, humanitarian interventions, complex militant attacks, intelligence operations and the operations and dynamics of several Islamist and other non-state militant groups.

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José R. Allen

 (
US
)
International Environmental Lawyer, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)

Jose has been practicing law for 45 years. For over 30 years he was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and represented clients in a wide range of environmental litigation matters as well as in a broad variety of other matters. Before entering private practice Jose worked as an Assistant Attorney General in the then newly-formed Environmental Protection Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. He then joined the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where he represented the United States and its agencies in environmental enforcement and defense matters throughout the country. While at Justice he served as chief of the Environmental Defense Section, representing EPA in matters arising under all the federal statutes administered by the agency including, CERCLA, RCRA, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the Federal Insecticide and Rodenticide Act. He later became chief of the Natural Resources Section which is responsible for representing federal agencies such as the Department of Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Defense in litigation arising under NEPA and other federal natural resources laws. Jose also served as a Commissioner on the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) which was created in the aftermath of the First Gulf War to require Iraq to pay reparations to national governments, companies, and individuals who had suffered monetary losses as the result of Iraq’s unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait. As a member of the panel appointed by the UN Security Council to review claims by governmental entities for environmental and natural resources damages resulting from the war, Jose and his co-commissioners recommended that Iraq pay over $4 billion in reparations to affected states for environmental and natural resource damages. The panel’s report and recommendations were adopted in full by the UN Security Council. This was the first time in international law where a country was required to pay reparations for environmental and natural resource damages resulting from war. The United Nations recently announced that Iraq had fulfilled its obligations to pay all claimants compensation awarded by the UNCC, which totaled $52.4 billion. Jose was lured out of retirement over a year ago to resume the representation of a client in two of the longest running Superfund cases in the country. Jose is a graduate of Yale College and Boston College Law School.

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Dr. Michael Bothe

 (
GER
)
Professor Emeritus of Public Law, J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main

Michael Bothe is Professor emeritus of Public Law at the J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt/Main. He held a Chair in Public International Law at the Universities of Hannover and Frankfurt (where he also was Dean), and served as a visiting professor in many universities around the world. He was a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, later served as chair of the Institute’s Scientific Advisory Board and is currently a member of the Kuratorium. He was president of the German Society for International Law and of the European Environmental Law Association as well as President of the International Humanitarian Fact-finding Commission and Chairperson, and still is a member, of the German Committee for International Humanitarian Law. He served as a delegate or adviser in a number of international conferences (including the Diplomatic Conference for the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law 1974-1977) and as a counsel before the International Court of Justice and the German Federal Constitutional Court. He is the author of many books and articles on questions of international law (in particular as it relates to legal restraints on the use of military force and to the protection of the environment), comparative public law, European law and constitutional law. He received the Giuseppe Ciardi Prize for he law of armed conflict, the Elisabeth Haub Prize for international and comparative environmental law, the Henry Dunant Medal of the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement and the Prize of the Institute of International Humanitarian Law (San Remo).

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Kathleen Rogers

 (
)
President, EARTHDAY.ORG

Kathleen Rogers is the President of Earth Day Network. Kathleen has developed Earth Day Network into a year-round policy and activist organization. Now more than 1 billion people participate in Earth Day in 192 countries. Kathleen has been at the vanguard of developing innovative financial mechanisms to support green buildings and schools. Kathleen also founded Earth Day Network’s groundbreaking Billion Acts of Green program, which has now recorded close to 3 billion individual actions to improve the environment.

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Elizabeth Pearce

 (
US
)
Founder, SymSoil Inc

Elizabeth Pearce is the founder of SymSoil Inc, a soil health company created in response to soil degradation. In 2021, SymSoil began collaborating with RegenIowa to convert 1 million acres of conventional farms to regenerative farming. She became concerned with issues related to climate change and food security while a portfolio manager at Northern Trust, thinking about farmland as an asset class. RegenIowa has challenged farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture by 2025, through rapid and robust restoration of the complete soil microbiome and soil health.

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L. Hunter Lovins

 (
US
)
President, Natural Capitalism Solutions

A founding professor of sustainable business management at the Bard MBA, Hunter lectures at universities around the world. Named a Master at the De Tao Academy in Shanghai, she is a founding mentor of the Unreasonable Institute that coaches social enterprises around the world. An entrepreneur, herself, L. Hunter Lovins is a founder and Chief Impact Officer of Change Finance, an impact investing firm. Hunter is founder and President of Natural Capitalism Solutions. A consultant to scores of industries and governments worldwide, including International Finance Corporation, Unilever, Walmart, the United Nations and Royal Dutch Shell, as well as sustainability champions Interface, Patagonia and Clif Bar, she has briefed heads of state, leaders of the numerous local governments, the Pentagon, and about 30 countries, as well as the UN, World Economic Forum and the US Congress. She sits on the Executive Committee of the Club of Rome, the Steering Committee of Partners for a Planetary Emergency, the Convening Committee of Colorado Regenerative Recovery Coalition and Capital Institute Advisory Board. Author of 16 books and hundreds of articles, Hunter has won dozens of awards, including the European Sustainability Pioneer award, and the Right Livelihood Award. Time Magazine recognized her as a Millennium Hero for the Planet, and Newsweek called her the Green Business Icon. Her most recent book, A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life won a Nautilus Award.

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Merlin Yockstick

 (
US
)
Founder of Blue Planet Science Group, RegenIOWA, and Co-Founder of EarthRegenx

Author - Instructional Designer – Founder of Blue Planet Science Group, RegenIOWA and Co-Founder of EarthRegenx , a 501C3. Merlin is engaged in designing a 50-state initiative to develop a regenerative approach starting in Iowa and with Agriculture to help communities, and states build healthy- robust economies that are beyond sustainability. He is an activist interested in transforming America’s health care system and sits on the Iowa Healthiest State Initiative and the Committee for Community Health Improvement, powered by Wellmark. Merlin’s focus is on the fundamentals of Water, Soil/Food/Agriculture, Education and Health. He has a transformative purpose of engaging youth, community and business leaders in “building smart and regenerative communities and states, and is designing a bottom up – top-down “systemic” approach in Iowa as a model for our nation and world. Merlin is a member of Smart Growth America, U.S. Water Alliance and is an active participant in the Singularity University HUB group that is advancing the Exponential Growth of Information Technology. Merlin’s love for nature and commitment to the stewardship of our Blue and Water Planet is the central theme of his vision for business and humanitarian endeavors 2022 and beyond.

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Jillian Semaan

 (
US
)
VP, Sustainability at Ketchum

.Jillian leads Sustainability at Ketchum where she drives initiatives and provides counsel related to ESGs, Food and Agriculture, Sustainability, Environmental Justice, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. She has spent much of her career advocating for both human and planetary health centered around sustainable solutions like new technologies, regenerative agriculture, alternative proteins, biodiversity, and soil health. Previously she was appointed in the Obama Administration at the United States Department of Agriculture where she created and implemented government initiatives that focused on sustainable agriculture in food deserts, disadvantaged and low-income communities throughout the United States addressing food access issues and nutrition.

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Sandrine Dixson-Declève

 (
)
Co-President, The Club of Rome

Sandrine Dixson-Declève is an international and European climate, energy, sustainable development, sustainable finance, complex systems thought leader. She is currently the Co-President of the Club of Rome and divides her time between lecturing, facilitating change in business and policy models and advisory work. She holds several advisory positions for the European Commission: Chair, Expert Group on Economic and Societal Impact of Research & Innovation (ESIR); Assembly Member, Climate Mitigation & Adaptation Mission (DGR&I); TEG Sustainable Finance Taxonomy and Sustainable Finance Platform (DGFISMA); United Nations: Food Summit Action Track 5 Resilience and for companies/organisations/institutes such as BMW, UBM, Climate KIC, UCL-Bartlett School of Enviornment and the IEEP. Sandrine is also a Senior Associate and faculty member of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and a Senior Associate for E3G, Ambassador, for the Energy Transition Commission (ETC) and WEALL. In 2017 Sandrine co-founded the Women Enablers Change Agent Network (WECAN).

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Elizabeth McGeveran

 (
US
)
Director of investments, McKnight Foundation

As McKnight’s director of investments since 2019, Elizabeth McGeveran oversees the team that manages the Foundation’s $3 billion endowment. With her leadership and vision, the Foundation committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across its entire portfolio by or before 2050—the nation’s first of the 50 largest private foundations to do so. McGeveran designed a market-rate solutions-oriented portfolio that aligns with the Foundation’s mission, advancing climate solutions, and equitable communities and economies. Across the entire endowment, one of every three invested dollars is mission-aligned. McGeveran first joined McKnight in 2014 to lead its impact investing program. She helped pave the way for the Foundation as a leading impact investor, identifying investment opportunities that are building the world we want to live in. As an investment leader since 1999, McGeveran with others was an early actor in developing environmental social and governance (ESG) approaches across the industry. As senior vice president for governance and sustainable investment at F&C Asset Management, a London-based commercial asset manager (now BMO Global Asset Management), she built this firm’s market-leading socially responsible investment team. McGeveran is an independent trustee of funds at Boston Trust Walden, a longtime leader in incorporating ESG into its investment approach. She an original member of the U.S. Advisory Committee for the FTSE4Good indexes, and currently volunteers on the investment committee at the University of St. Thomas in her hometown of St. Paul. McGeveran grew up outside Boston and graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota.

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Andy Karsner

 (
US
)
Senior Strategist at X (Formerly Google X)

Mr. Karsner is a leading corporate innovation strategist and accomplished energy entrepreneur, policymaker, regulator and diplomat with more than three decades of global conventional and renewable energy experience, spanning every natural resource. He is Senior Strategist at X (formerly Google X), the innovation lab of Alphabet Inc., where he is part of the executive leadership team, shaping strategy for technology, policy, and commercialization at the nexus of natural resources and AI, machine learning, geospatial engineering, and high performance computing. He began his career developing large scale energy infrastructure and has led or contributed to project development, management and finance enabling significant value creation on six continents. As a private equity investor, venture partner and advisor, his portfolios have included some of the most successful clean tech startups of the past decade, including Nest (AI), Tesla (mobility), Recurrent (solar), Codexis (biotech) and Carbon (3D printing). From 2005 to 2008, he served as US Assistant Secretary of Energy, responsible for multi-billion dollar federal R&D programs and National Laboratories. In this role, he was on point to assemble significant bipartisan coalitions to implement or enact the Energy Policy Act (2005), the Energy Independence and Security Act (2007), and the America Competes Act (2008), all of which remain foundational to the framework of federal energy policy and regulation today. Mr. Karsner exercised a discrete diplomatic and security role as a principal representative of the United States in the negotiations on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and other bilateral energy and environmental technology accords. From 2016 to 2019, Mr. Karsner served as Managing Partner of Emerson Collective, an investment platform funding non-profit, philanthropic and for-profit portfolios advancing education, health, immigration, the environment, and other initiatives. Along with Emerson’s Founder and Principal, Laurene Powell Jobs, Mr. Karsner co-founded Emerson Elemental (since spun out as Elemental Labs) with a deep focus on market-based solutions and technologies addressing conservation and climate change.

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Nature in The Race to Zero

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Nature in The Race to Zero

About

The Exponential Climate Action Summits is a collaboration between We Don't Have Time, Ericsson, and The Exponential Roadmap Initiative. The summits focus on bringing together stakeholders, experts, and activists in a conversation about how to scale exponential solutions to the climate crisis. Previous instalments of the series in 2021 were ”Financing the Race to Zero” on Earth Day, ”Circularity and The Race to Zero” at Climate Week NYC in September, and ”COP26 Backdoor,” broadcast from the diplomatic zone at COP 26 in Glasgow in November.


We Don't Have Time is the world's largest review platform for climate action. Our network connects you with everyone who wants to solve the climate crisis. Read climate news in one place and join the climate dialogue with corporate and government leaders. Download our app or sign up on WeDontHaveTime.org

Terraformation is dedicated to restoring the planet’s forests to solve climate change. The company builds and deploys tools to tackle the largest bottlenecks to mass-scale reforestation. Its technology includes off-grid seed banks that process and store millions of seeds, tracking and monitoring platforms to enable project transparency, solar-powered desalination, and more. Its current partner network spans five continents, including in South America, East Africa, and Central Asia, and includes public and private sector landowners, and organizations. Terraformation’s goal in 2022 is to establish the world’s largest decentralized native seed banking network.


Ericsson is one of the leading providers of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to service providers. Sustainability is at the heart of our company purpose, “Empowering an intelligent, sustainable, and connected world” and it is integrated into Ericsson’s strategy becoming an ever more fundamental part of creating business and societal value. Read more.

Earth4All is a global collective of scientists, economists, communicators, and advocates, with the will to act. The dominant economic thinking and its underlying model are destabilising societies. And the planet. It is time for a change. Earth4All has identified five extraordinary turnarounds needed to create wellbeing for all on a (relatively) stable planet. This analysis combines the best available science with new economic thinking. Five turnarounds to rethink capitalism, move beyond GDP, and bring our societies on a safe pathway to wellbeing for all. We are ready to break with the past, old ideas, and imagine another world. Get involved via earth4all.life


The Exponential Roadmap Initiative brings together innovators, scientists, companies and NGOs which are taking action in line with the 1.5°C ambition, with the mission to halve emissions before 2030 through exponential climate action and solutions. The Exponential Roadmap highlights 36 solutions with exponential scaling potential to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. It shows how we can build a stronger, more resilient and future-proof global economy and increase human prosperity and wealth- within the planetary boundaries. All companies and organisations must halve emissions by 2030 in the Race to Zero. The 1.5°C Business Playbook is a guideline for companies and organisations of all sizes to set a 1.5°C aligned strategy and move to action. Focusing on simplicity and speed, it is anchored in the latest science.

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We Don't Have Time is the world's largest media platform for climate action—with a mission to democratize knowledge about climate solutions and inspire and mobilize global action toward a prosperous, fossil-free future. The content of the We Don't Have Time media platform is user-generated. The We Don’t Have Time organization does not automatically endorse users’ opinions and claims. All users of We Don’t Have Time have subscribed to We Don’t Have Time’s Terms of Use, which, among other things, prohibits hateful, abusive, and violent content. If you discover content that violates our Terms of Use, please notify us immediately. The platform is operated by the company WeDontHaveTime AB (publ), whose majority shareholder is the WeDontHaveTime Foundation. The Foundation’s principal purpose is to contribute to a reduced climate impact and an ecologically sustainable environment. Our headquarters is located in Stockholm, Sweden.
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