Aquidneck Island Earth Week Workshop for Businesses: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint - Improving Resiliency & Profitability

 Please join us virtually for an opportunity to hear about changing consumer expectations, the revolution in how we are producing and using energy, and the programs and policies that will support and affect how you do business in the future. Share your concerns and start thinking about your future so that you profit from change rather than suffer from it.

Workshop Leader:
Kevin O’Neill, together with 195,000 other Citizens Climate Lobby volunteers is helping to accelerate the transition from our old ways of using energy to a cleaner, safer, more sustainable world.  He worked for many years as a consulting chemical engineer and manufacturing manager before starting a software company in 1996.  That company has been creating new jobs in Rhode Island ever since while enabling hundreds of large conferences every year, in cities around the world before COVID, online during the pandemic, and soon combining the onsite and online worlds.

Panelists:
Ken Filarski, Chair of US Green Building Council Rhode Island, is founder and principal of FILARSKI/ARCHITECTURE+PLANNING+RESEARCH, an integrated design and planning, ecology studio and research workshop.  His presentation will focus on how owners of new and existing the buildings it can take advantage of new heating and cooling technologies, and new design approaches, to become more resilient in the face of a changing economic and natural environment.

Kai Salem, Policy Coordinator at Green Energy Consumers Alliance, advocates for ambitious energy policies to meet Rhode Island’s climate goals. Kai also serves as Policy Chair of the Environment Council of Rhode Island, a member of the RI Clean Water Action Electoral Advisory Board, and a member of Providence’s West Broadway Neighborhood Association Board.  Her remarks will focus on policy changes likely to affect businesses for decades and on programs that can help businesses and ordinary consumers use energy more efficiently.

Paul Marshall is Founder and Principal of Tightline Consulting, a member of The Greater Newport Chamber of Commerce, which is a small firm that works with businesses to develop and execute community based corporate social responsibility strategy and environmental best-practices. His presentation will explain why "progress over perfection" is essential when addressing urgent issues around climate change and showcase how every business can be part of the climate solution.