{"id":226602,"date":"2025-03-07T14:37:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T19:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=226602"},"modified":"2025-03-07T14:37:43","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T19:37:43","slug":"equity-now-lecture-series-asks-is-sustainability-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/03\/equity-now-lecture-series-asks-is-sustainability-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Equity Now Lecture Series Asks: \u2018Is Sustainability Dead?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor John Mandyck, the CEO of the Urban Green Council and the former Chief Sustainability Officer at United Technologies, will speak on the topic, \u201cIs Sustainability Dead?\u2019\u2019<\/strong> next month.<\/p>\n

The presentation is part of the Equity Now<\/a> speaker series and it will be livestreamed at 6 p.m. March 27. Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the university are welcome to participate. Pre-registration is required.<\/p>\n

With the United States again out of the Paris Climate Treaty and the Trump administration favoring fossil fuels, it\u2019s easy to wonder if the sustainability movement is over. It\u2019s definitely not, according to Mandyck.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate disruption now impacts everyone, everywhere,\u2019\u2019 Mandyck said. \u201cThere\u2019s no escaping it and the trillions of dollars of damage from fires, floods, and extreme weather. Climate denialism and political short-termism cannot wish away these impacts that are shifting markets and investments as they scramble to manage growing risk.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Mandyck Highlights Three Reasons for Optimism<\/h2>\n
\"Portrait
John Mandyck (contributed photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mandyck will discuss his recent article, published in The Harvard Business Review, that predicts that despite strong headwinds, sustainability efforts will grow, for three key reasons.<\/p>\n

States and cities will lead the way. Mandyck argues that history has shown that U.S. cities and states step up to fill sustainability voids. In 2019, for example, New Yor City passed a law that places carbon caps on large buildings, as a counter-response to Trump\u2019s first-term environmental policies. More recently, 350 U.S. mayors recommitted to climate action in anticipation of changing national policy.<\/p>\n

China will drive sustainability demand. Although it is the world\u2019s largest carbon polluter, China\u2019s growth in the sustainability arena continues to lead the world, Mandyck said. Almost half of the world\u2019s solar and wind capacity already resides in China, with more renewable energy technology under development. China\u2019s leadership will yield more affordable clean-energy technology for the world and China may possibly emerge as a stronger diplomatic force for climate negotiations as the U.S. turns its attention elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Climate risk, extreme weather, will move markets. Climate denialism will not slow the growing disruption of extreme weather, Mandyck said. The news has been filled with articles about floods, fires, and other weather-created disasters, which are causing economic hardship and human disruption at a rapid pace. In Florida alone, the average homeowner\u2019s insurance costs rose close to 60 percent from 2019 to 2023. This has further focused the business community in favor of addressing climate change, and lenders are looking closely at the sustainability risks associated with each big investment.<\/p>\n

Students Still Face A Bright Future in Sustainability Careers<\/h2>\n

Mandyck\u2019s advice to students interested in pursuing careers in sustainability is to stay-the-course.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe global need for sustainability grows every day, and so will careers,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cTerminology and semantics may change in the short-term, but the long-term direction is clear. Even the federal government cannot pull the full nation in retreat, with the state and local governments pressing forward and filling voids.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Mandyck leads the Urban Green Council, a nonprofit organization based in New York City, dedicated to decarbonizing buildings for healthy and resilient communities. Since 2018, he has helped triple the organization\u2019s reach with research, public policy development and education, shaping some of the world\u2019s foremost climate laws for real estate and buildings.<\/p>\n

He retired as the global Chief Sustainability Officer for United Technologies after a 25-year career there. He\u2019s an adjunct professor for sustainability at the School of Business and served as a visiting scientist at Harvard University. He\u2019s the co-author of the book Food Foolish, which explores the hidden connection between food waste, hunger, and climate change.<\/p>\n

The Equity Now speaker series is produced by the UConn School of Business in coordination with the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, Virginia Tech, Indiana and Temple universities. This is the fourth of five programs offered during the 2024-25 academic year. To register for the program, please visit: the registration page<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Expert Says Climate Denialism Won\u2019t Erase Growing Need for Change<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":226605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1862],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-226602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-busn"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 09:27:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226602"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226607,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226602\/revisions\/226607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/226605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226602"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=226602"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=226602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}