Conferences

Last week I attended the World Energy Engineering Congress (WEEC), a gathering of engineers focused on energy and energy efficiency.

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In a few weeks, several Cool Choices staff will attend the annual Behavior, Energy and Climate Change (BECC) conference. This will be my ninth time attending the annual BECC conference and I look forward to this event every year because for me, BECC is reinforcing, challenging and inspirational.

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In September I’ll present at the World Energy Engineering Congress in Atlanta. I’ll present on Engaging Employees to Maximize Savings: A Cool Approach as part of a session titled How to Stop Misbehaving to Save Energy and Money. The session title suggests that the priority is to stop bad behavior; here at Cool Choices, though, we focus on identifying, amplifying and multiplying good behavior.

It’s really about the frame.

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Cool Choices was proud to present at the Smart Cities Connect Conference & Expo in Austin, Texas in June, where we were selected as a 2017 Smart Cities Showcase participant. Our booth engaged with dozens of city thought leaders looking for new ways to connect community and innovation via sustainability, technology, and the Internet of Things (IoT.) The conference offered several keynotes focused on how new technology connects with sustainability effort to benefit whole communities. 

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The Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council (WSBC) hosted a terrific conversation around sustainability standards and disclosures in conjunction with honoring its annual Sustainable Business Award winners on June 23rd, in Muskego. We review key points on these topics from three prominent speakers.

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Cool Choices is proud to announce that we will be presenting our fun, easy, and social approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the Smart Cities Connect Conference & Expo in Austin, Texas this year! The 2017 conference takes place from June 26-28, at The Austin Convention Center.

The Smart Cities conference is co-located with the US Ignite Application Summit, and brings together over 200 cities leaders from around the globe to prospect and partner with innovative technology and service providers like Cool Choices.

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Cool Choices is proud to announce that we will be attending the Sustainable Brands 2017 conference this year in Detroit, Michigan!

Sustainable Brands is a learning, collaboration, and commerce community of over 348,000 sustainable business leaders from around the world. Members include business leaders from a wide variety of industries, and represent brands such as Starbucks, Target, and Nike – just to name a very few.

Launched in 2006, Sustainable Brands’ mission is to empower more brands to prosper by leading the way to a better world. Sustainable Brands provides content, events, and other learning solutions to inspire, engage, and equip their community to be innovative, sustainable, and profitable.

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Kathy Kuntz, Executive Director at Cool Choices, is speaking at the Emerging Technologies Summit in Ontario, California on April 19-21, 2017. The Emerging Technologies Summit brings together energy efficiency thought leaders to “ideate and debate the intersection of utility programs, technology, market drivers, customer engagement, policy and implementation in order to impact the advancement and adoption of emerging technologies.”

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Cool Choices recently co-hosted the Eighth Annual Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council (WSBC) Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. WSBC’s conference features businesses talking frankly about their efforts on the path to sustainability. The tales are insightful and inspiring—I always leave the event feeling a bit more optimistic about our ability to address the enormous climate challenges ahead of us.

Our event host, UW-Oshkosh, for example: the Sierra Club ranked UW-Oshkosh the third greenest university in the nation. It was terrific to hear how local officials had accomplished this, engaging the whole campus around sustainable practices, despite a tight budget. Their story was echoed in a variety of other presentations where business leaders talked about saving energy, reducing waste, measuring impacts and mobilizing employees.

Locally made coffee mugs at #WSBCC! Much more sustainable than disposable plastic cups!

And it is not just about the presentations. I also talked to a variety of attendees who were working on innovative projects to green facilities, operations and even supply chains.

The community also highlights the benefits of businesses leading on climate change mitigation. As policy leaders negotiated toward an agreement in Paris, business leaders in Wisconsin talked about their real-world efforts to reduce carbon emissions while increasing profits.

Part of the bliss of coming together each year as a community of business leaders working on sustainability is that it feels good to tell your story to someone who faces similar challenges. The congratulatory pats mean more when they come from someone who knows firsthand how hard it is to shift an organization’s orientation. WSBC has built a community of practitioners and the community is strong, supportive and inspiring.

Posted by Kathy Kuntz, Executive Director at Cool Choices

More about the WSBC Conference

One of the most compelling aspects of this event is the networking. As usual, I was able to build new relationships. I heard about some difficult challenges and about a few outstanding victories. I helped a few people make connections that will make their quests easier and I heard a story or two I will share in the coming months to inspire others. I encourage you to experience this conference in 2016 to reap the benefits of networking with other business leaders engaged in sustainability efforts.

The WSBC Conference is Designed for:

• C Suite Officers, Board Members, Senior Managers
• Small Business Owners, Plant Managers, Sustainability Coordinators
• Green Teams
• Students Interested in Sustainability