Speakers
Keynote Speakers
Former President Bill Clinton
Greenbuild is honored to present former President Bill Clinton as the keynote speaker of our opening plenary
William Jefferson Clinton was born on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. As a delegate to Boys Nation while in high school, he met President John Kennedy in the White House Rose Garden. The encounter led him to enter a life of public service. Clinton graduated from Georgetown University and in 1968 won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University. He received a law degree from Yale University in 1973, and shortly thereafter entered politics in Arkansas.
Elected President of the United States in 1992, and again in 1996, President Clinton was the first Democratic president to be awarded a second term in six decades. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed the strongest economy in a generation and the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.
President Clinton’s core values of building community, creating opportunity, and demanding responsibility resulted in unprecedented progress for America, including moving the nation from record deficits to record surpluses; the creation of over 22 million jobs—more than any other administration; low levels of unemployment, poverty and crime; and the highest homeownership and college enrollment rates in history. His accomplishments as president include increasing investment in education, expanding access to technology, encouraging investment in underserved communities, protecting the environment, and promoting peace and strengthening democracy around the world.
After leaving the White House, President Clinton established the William J. Clinton Foundation with the mission to strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence. To achieve this, the Clinton Foundation is focused on four critical areas: health security, with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS; economic empowerment; leadership development and citizen service; and racial, ethnic and religious reconciliation.
Building on his long-term commitment to preserving the environment, President Clinton launched the Clinton Foundation’s Climate Initiative (CCI) in August 2006 with the mission of applying the Foundation’s business-oriented approach to the fight against climate change in practical, measurable and significant ways.
Paul Hawken
Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, and best-selling author. His practice has included starting and running ecological businesses, writing and teaching about the impact of commerce on living systems, and consulting with governments and corporations on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy. He is the founder and executive director of the Natural Capital Institute, a non-profit committed to the restoration of the earth and the healing of human culture. Hawken also heads the Pax Group, a collection of companies using biomimicry and fluid dynamics to create energy-saving rotors, fans, and turbines.
Hawken's books include the seminal work Natural Capitalism, co-authored with Amory Lovins, which President Clinton called one of the five most important books in the world today. His newest book, Blessed Unrest, reveals the diversity and innovation of a worldwide grassroots movement of hope and humanity.
Mayor’s Roundtable on Sustainable Cities and Green Communities
The futures of the world's greatest cities are being shaped by sustainability. With innovative programs such as the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, the Clinton Climate Initiative, and LEED adoptions, cities are leading global action against climate change.
Join a distinguished panel of our most visionary mayors to learn how they are using sustainability to deliver immediate and measurable improvements in their cities' economies, environment, and quality of life.
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has earned a reputation for innovative, community-based programs to address the many challenges facing American cities. Since his election in 1989, Daley's quality-of-life focus has emphasized delivery of basic services, from graffiti removal to a citywide recycling plan. On his watch, the city has planted 500,000 trees and spurred construction of rooftop gardens on major buildings, including City Hall.
Daley’s numerous honors include American City and County magazine’s Municipal Leader of the Year, the National Arbor Day Foundation’s J. Sterling Morton Award, and the Urban Parks Institute’s Catalyst Award for Urban Park Leadership.
Albuquerque Mayor Martin J. Chávez
Albuquerque Mayor Martin J. Chávez’s 1993-1997 term featured a citywide cleanup, reduced crime, and the start of a highly successful water-conservation campaign. Chávez returned to the Mayor’s Office in 2001 and has restored fiscal discipline, supported well-planned growth, rebuilt the public safety infrastructure and broken ground on an historic surface-water project.
Under Chávez’s leadership, Albuquerque’s water use has reduced by 33%. The city has gained national prominence in reports and studies praising its business climate and cultural amenities. Chávez has expanded partnerships with public education and initiated social-service reforms to more effectively serve the community’s most vulnerable members.
Austin Mayor Will Wynn
Austin Mayor Will Wynn serves as chairman of the Board of Directors for Austin Energy. As such, Wynn presides over the nation's most successful utility-sponsored green power program, an award-winning energy-efficiency program that has eliminated the need for a 500-megawatt coal-burning power plant near Austin, and a green-building program that was the first of its kind in the world.
Wynn has risen to a position of national leadership on energy and climate issues. Since 2004 he has chaired the Energy Committee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and is a key member of the U.S. Mayors Council on Climate Protection.
Convener Susan S. Szenasy
Susan S. Szenasy has been editor-in-chief of METROPOLIS, the award-winning magazine of architecture, culture, and design, since 1986. She is internationally recognized as an authority on sustainability and design.
Szenasy sits on the boards of the Council for Interior Design Accreditation, FIT Interior Design, the Center for Architecture Advisory Board, and the Landscape Architecture Foundation. She has received two International Interior Design Association Presidential Commendations and is an American Society of Interior Designers distinguished speaker on the topic of ethics in design. Szenasy was a 2007 recipient of the Civitas August Heckscher Award for Community Service and Excellence.
Master Speakers
Maria Atkinson
Global Head of Sustainability, Lend Lease
Former CEO, Green Building Council of Australia
Atkinson is internationally recognized as a passionate advocate for green building and is focused on further developing Lend Lease’s capacity to deliver socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable outcomes. She has received several awards for her contributions to sustainable development, including a 2006 USGBC Leadership Award, and is the author of numerous articles on the subject.
Atkinson is the co-founder and founding CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia. She also served as the Environmental Manager for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Village and the Homebush Bay Hotel developments—projects which have received international recognition for setting new benchmarks in environmental best practices for the construction and development industries.
Dr. Prem C. Jain
President and Founder, Spectral Services Consultants
Chairman, India Green Building Council
Dr. Jain is among the world's pre-eminent engineers. The first practicing engineer in India to be named an ASHRAE Fellow in 1995, he also received ASHRAE's highest award the Louise and Bill Holladay Distinguished Fellow Award. He is also the founding president of the ASHRAE-INDIA Chapter, and is a fellow of numerous international professional societies. His firm, Spectral, designed the services systems for three LEED Platinum buildings, and his work can be seen in landmark buildings throughout India. Dr. Jain was recently elected chairman of the India Green Building Council and is a renowned professor at the Delhi School of Planning & Architecture.
Sadhu A. Johnston
Commissioner, City of Chicago Department of Environment
As Commissioner of the Environment, Sadhu Johnston is key to the success of Mayor Daley's green vision. Under Johnston’s leadership, DOE protects and restores Chicago's natural resources; reduces waste; cleans up brownfields; promotes energy efficiency; educates the public; and enforces environmental protection laws.
Before his appointment, Sadhu served as the Assistant to the Mayor for Green Initiatives, where he facilitated green efforts throughout Chicago, including the development of the city's innovative Environmental Action Plan. Previously, Johnston was Executive Director of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition.
Jaime Lerner
Principal, Instituto Jaime Lerner
Jaime Lerner is a renowned architect and urban planner from Curitiba, Brazil. In 1965 he helped created the groundbreaking Curitiba Master Plan; later, as three-time mayor of Curitiba, he instituted cutting-edge social, educational, and transit programs. As governor of Paraná, Brazil, he was awarded the Child and Peace Award by UNICEF.
Lerner has received numerous international awards, and has worked in cities from Rio de Janeiro to Seoul, South Korea. He is a Past President of the International Union of Architects and a visiting professor at universities worldwide.
Thom Mayne
Founder and Principal, Morphosis
Thom Mayne, the 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, is one of the world's most original and dynamic architects. With Morphosis, the design firm he founded in 1972, he constantly seeks new design challenges and strives to create architecture that surprises and inspires.
Currently a professor at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, Mayne founded the influential Southern California Institute of Architecture and has taught at universities worldwide. Morphosis has received 25 Progressive Architecture Awards, 60 AIA Awards, and has been the subject of numerous monographs and exhibitions.
Joseph J. Romm
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Executive Director and Founder, Center for Energy & Climate Solutions
Dr. Romm is one of the world’s leading experts on energy efficiency, green energy technologies, green transportation technologies, and problems related to global warming. He has authored six books including the recently published Hell and High Water: Global Warming-The Solution and the Politics.
Dr. Romm is the former Acting Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. In this role, he helped manage the world's largest program for helping businesses develop and use advanced clean energy. Dr. Romm also oversaw the distribution of generation technologies to cut costs, increase reliability, and reduce pollution.
Member Day Speaker
Jerome Ringo
President, Apollo Alliance
Jerome Ringo brings to his role as president of the Apollo Alliance his first hand experience of the environmental challenges we face after working for more than 20 years in Louisiana’s petrochemical industry. As he began observing the negative impacts of the industry’s pollution on local communities – primarily poor, minority communities – Ringo began organizing community environmental justice groups. In 1996, Ringo was elected to serve on the National Wildlife Federation board of directors and, in 2005, became the chair of the board. In so doing, he also became the first African-American to head a major conservation organization. Jerome Ringo was the United States’ only black delegate at the 1998 Global Warming Treaty Negotiations in Kyoto, Japan.