The Indiana Sustainability and Resilience Conference will boast its highest-ever attendance this Friday, with 450 people concerned about climate change coming together to share information and propose solutions. Historically hosted in Indianapolis, the conference will take place at Bloomington’s Monroe Convention Center for the first time.
Registration for the event is now closed.
IU’s Environmental Resilience Institute hosts the ISRC each year with additional support from the Indianapolis Airport Authority and the McKinney Family Foundation. Gabriel Filippelli, the institute’s executive director and Chancellor’s Professor of Earth Sciences at IU-Indianapolis, said the annual gathering is meant to shine light on the many avenues available to address climate change in Indiana — and to do so democratically.
“The content of the conference itself is dictated by the people who show up: we open up a call for proposals of session ideas from people from the community, nonprofits and academic partners, and we build an agenda around that,” Filippelli said.
This crowdsourced agenda-setting process produced a diverse slate of panels throughout the day. The conference will cover topics from climate education strategies to sustainable transportation and agriculture to funding resiliency projects and equity in the renewables transition.
The issues the ISRC addresses reflect the varied array of concerned parties that attend. Figures in local governments, owners of small businesses, nonprofit workers, academics and students regularly attend the ISRC, all seeking to play a role in positive climate action. The conference, focused on community engagement, seeks to bring all these individuals into the sustainability fold, Filippelli said.
“Anybody can go,” Filippelli said. “We need a space in Indiana for great passion to come together. Our climate challenges year on year become more daunting, but there’s so much passion in the community — that’s how we’re going to get it done.”
The conference’s featured speakers similarly hope to emphasize the value of action beyond government spheres in curbing climate change. Conference speaker Alex Crowley used to work at the City of Bloomington’s Department of Economic and Sustainable Development. He now serves as executive director of the Indiana Energy Independence Fund, a nonprofit green bank providing clean energy financing to individuals or organizations seeking to fund sustainability projects. To Crowley, governments are not alone in their environmental responsibility — or in their ability to effect meaningful progress on climate change.
“It’s easy to get drawn into the headlines at the federal level, but while the federal government absolutely has a role, there’s also a tremendous amount of work being done on the ground at the state, local and individual levels,” Crowley said. “It’s important to remind everyone of that work, of the importance of that work and the concrete benefits that are being created by that work.”
Fellow featured speaker Stephanie Goodrid Lawson, executive director of the McKinney Family Foundation — a funder of sustainability projects across Indiana — also highlighted the role of non-government forces, such as the private sector, in propelling climate progress.
Goodrid Lawson cited the Northern Indiana Public Service Company’s work to reduce homeowners' energy expenses while transitioning toward renewables as an example of how markets can be a tool in curbing the climate crisis.
“If you look at states that level the energy playing field instead of giving coal and gas nonstop tax breaks and financial incentives, clean energy is much more economical,” Goodrid Lawson said. “The future is in clean technology. That’s where the consumers are going, and that’s where the money is.”
Ultimately, the conference intends to empower citizens to know that they can help create tangible steps forward on climate. Conference speakers and organizers hope the ISRC’s illumination of Indiana’s options for climate solutions will allow individuals to push the state forward and celebrate progress that is already unfolding.
“I hope that people can leave the conference with a sense that there’s a lot of really positive stuff happening even in a state that’s not necessarily known for its sustainability work,” Crowley said. “Together, I think we can really do something special here for Indiana. I hope the conference can shine a spotlight on that.”
More information on the conference is available here.
