The 12th Annual Dallas College Sustainability Summit will be held Friday, Nov. 4.

Oct. 21, 2022

Dallas College wants to help you to become an agent of sustainability.

The 12th Annual Dallas College Sustainability Summit will be held Friday, Nov. 4, at 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Brookhaven Campus Performance Hall at 3939 Valley View Lane in Farmers Branch. 

The title for this year's summit is Be the Change: Conscious Action Creates Purposeful Change.

According to organizers, the event is open to anyone who wants to live, work, travel, eat, shop and vote in a way that ensures that the planet remains a beautiful and thriving habitat for people, plants and animals. 

Admission is free.

SPEAKERS

The two keynote speakers for the summit are 22-year-old activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and author Seth Godin. The pair will present their unique perspectives on the topic of sustainability and advocating for the planet.

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez“Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is a youth activist and has been since he was six years old,” says Georgeann Elliott Moss, senior director for sustainability at Dallas College. “He has spoken in front of the United Nations multiple times. He is passionate about saving the environment, and he's been working toward that goal since the age of six. He also was a co-founder along with his mother of a youth activist nonprofit. And so he will be with us live, in person. He's also a hip hop artist, and we think that our students are really going to relate to him.

Meanwhile, Seth Godin is a world renowned marketing expert, said Moss. 

Seth Godin“He realized that sustainability and the climate crisis had a marketing problem. And he is a marketer, and he realized he could help with that. And so he pulled together volunteers from all around the world to produce this book called The Carbon Almanac,” Moss said. “And it is a fabulous, fabulous book. They produce it as a nonprofit agency because they want people to understand that we can do something to reverse the climate crisis, and we have to do it now. And so it's incumbent upon everyone in our community to take the steps that they can.”

WORKSHOPS

In addition to the speaking presentations, the summit will offer several breakout sessions throughout the day during which attendees can learn more about specific sustainability topics such as how our food choices affect the environment; the consequences of our travel and shopping choices; and how we can hold elected officials at all levels of government accountable for the integrity of our natural resources.

Moss says both the speakers along with the breakout sessions will inspire attendees to be agents of sustainability in their homes, workplaces and communities.

“What we're asking people to do is be the change in their life, and everyone has different ways and venues in which they can be the change,” she says.

HYBRID SUMMIT

This is the 12th sustainability summit that Dallas College has hosted. In 2020 as a response to the pandemic, organizers took the conference wholly online. This is the first year that the conference will return to in-person attendance. Additionally, the conference will be live-streamed for attendees who wish to view the event online, making it a hybrid summit open to both local participants and those abroad.

“For the people who attend in person, the first 500 people will get two copies of the Carbon Almanac. The first copy is from Dallas College, and then the second copy is from the Carbon Almanac,” Moss says.

Moss says she is excited to see the summit return to being in-person, both because of the chance to mingle with others who share similar values and the opportunity to learn more in-depth about the resources available for those who wish to tread lightly on the planet.

“We're going to have about 20 exhibitors, and we're really excited about that because they're going to be good, hands-on interactive exhibitors,” she says. “What I enjoy the most is gathering together with like-minded people — it is so energizing because sometimes those of us who are concerned about the climate crisis, we feel like we're the only ones, and when we have gatherings like this, we realize that we are not and we realize that we all have the power and the agency to make a difference.”

Dallas College Sustainability Summit

About: 12th annual event is hosted by Dallas College. This year's theme is Be the Change: Conscious Action Creates Purposeful Change. Keynote speakers are youth activist and hip-hop artist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and author Seth Godin. The event includes breakout sessions. The first 500 people will get two copies of the Carbon Almanac.

When: Friday, Nov. 4, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: Brookhaven Campus, 3939 Valley View Lane, Farmers Branch. The event will also be available live-streamed online.

Cost: Free. Register on website.

Website


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