The Net Zero Conference convenes climate leaders to collaborate on global solutions for change in the built environment. The event is a hub for people in our industry to gather, bridge knowledge gaps, and inspire a net zero future.
World-Class Education Sessions
Featuring content on: Biomimicry, Biophilia, Built Environment, Design, Energy, Health & Wellness, Materials, Technology, Transportation, Urbanism, Waste, Water
Networking Opportunities
Past attendees have come from 56 countries and 45 U.S. states spanning all industries. Mingle at our Happy Hour in the Hall, Women in Net Zero Mixer, and more.
Inspiring Keynotes
Impactful speakers from multidisciplinary backgrounds hold our conference stage. Previous Keynote speakers from XPRIZE, Edison International, NASA, Seventh Generation, Zero Hour, and more.
Take Part in Climate Action
There’s never been a more exciting time to join the ranks of those taking climate action.
World-Class Education Sessions
Featuring content on: Biomimicry, Biophilia, Built Environment, Design, Energy, Health & Wellness, Materials, Technology, Transportation, Urbanism, Waste, Water
Networking Opportunities
Past attendees have come from 56 countries and 45 U.S. states spanning all industries. Mingle at our Happy Hour in the Hall, Women in Net Zero Mixer, and more.
Inspiring Keynotes
World-class speakers from multidisciplinary backgrounds hold our conference stage. Previous Keynote speakers from XPRIZE, Edison International, NASA, Seventh Generation, Zero Hour, and more.
Take Part in Climate Action
There’s never been a more exciting time to join the ranks of those taking climate action.
CLIMATE ACTION TOGETHER Our History
The latest 2023 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report reinforced and accentuated the challenge that we face and the urgency that is necessary concerning the climate crisis. Over the last 12 years, the Net Zero Conference has brought together those who understand it takes all of us to overcome climate change.
2025 Net Zero Conference
LOS ANGELES, CA — OCTOBER 1
The 12th annual Net Zero Conference will be hosted at the Los Angeles Convention Center on October 1, 2025.
The conference convenes climate leaders to collaborate on global solutions for change in the built environment. The event is a hub for people in the industry to gather, bridge knowledge gaps, and inspire a net zero future. It will feature inspiring keynotes, educational sessions, an expo hall featuring leading decarbonization technologies, and the Trailblazer Awards Ceremony.
This year’s keynotes include Joel Cesare (Growth Lead, Cambio), Leah Thomas (Environmentalist), and Nalleli Cobo (Environmental Activist), and Michael Ford (Founder, The Hip Hop Architecture Camp).
The Trailblazer Awards celebrate interdisciplinary leaders making a positive impact on people and the environment. This year’s ceremony will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center as part of the Net Zero Conference.
The Net Zero Conference is produced by Verdical Group, a sustainability consulting firm that specializes in decarbonizing the built environment.
As Drew Shula, Founder & CEO of Verdical Group and the Net Zero Conference said, “We can stand up and raise our voices. We can focus on creating positive change in our buildings, our businesses, and our cities. We can advocate to build a net zero future for everyone!”
For press release inquiries, please email netzerofuture@verdicalgroup.com.
EXPLORE THE 2025 Transparency Report
We’re committed to making a positive impact through the Net Zero Conference each and every year. In line with that goal, we are pleased to introduce the NZ25 Transparency Report, which shares insights on our attendees, speakers, environmental impact, and more.
We’re committed to making a positive impact through the Net Zero Conference each and every year. In line with that goal, we are pleased to introduce the NZ25 Transparency Report, which shares insights on our attendees, speakers, environmental impact, and more.
MEET OUR PREVIOUS Keynote Speakers
Wawa Gatheru
Founder & Executive Director, Black Girl Environmentalist
Wawa Gatheru
Founder & Executive Director, Black Girl Environmentalist
Wawa Gatheru is a Kenyan-American climate storyteller passionate about cultivating a climate movement that is made in the image of all of us. In 2019, Wawa made history as the first Black person in history to receive the Rhodes, Truman, and Udall scholarships. She is the founder and Executive Director of Black Girl Environmentalist, an organization dedicated to addressing the pipeline and pathway issue for Black girls, women, and non-binary people in the climate sector. Under her leadership, BGE has grown as a trusted, national organization that has worked with 56 corporate and non-profit partners and hosted 43 events across 10 HUB cities - in less than a year. In 2023 alone, BGE has been recognized in Vogue, the New York Times, NPR, Forbes, Essence, Teen Vogue, Axios, and more.
A climate content creator with a following of over 90,000+ across platforms, Wawa has been named a Climate Creator to Watch by Pique Action and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
She sits on boards and advisory councils for the Environmental Media Association, Climate Power, Sound Future, National Parks Conservation Association, and EarthJustice. For her work, Wawa has been recognized as a Glamour College Woman of the Year, a 2020 Grist 50 fixer, a Young Futurist by The Root, a Young Changemaker at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards, and was featured on the January 2023 cover of Vogue alongside Billie Eilish.
Panama Bartholomy
Founder & Executive Director, Building Decarbonization Coalition
Panama Bartholomy
Founder & Executive Director, Building Decarbonization Coalition
Panama is the Director of the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a multi- sector forum advocating for and creating solutions for our pollution-intensive building stock. Previously, Panama was the European Director of the Investor Confidence Project where he worked to unlock capital markets for energy efficiency project development. Panama was the Advisor on Energy and Natural Resources to California Assembly Speaker John A. Perez. He has served as Deputy Director of the California Energy Commission’s Efficiency and Renewables Division and advisor for Chairwomen Douglas and Pfannenstiel. He has worked for the California Conservation Corps on vocational environmental education, and ran the Sustainable Schools program for the Division of the State Architect. Panama served on the City of Sacramento Planning Commission and the County of Sacramento Environmental Commission, and is a former board member on the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and past president of the Northern California Chapter of the USGBC. He has worked on climate solutions in over 30-countries, presented at and collaborated on products from the United Nations, the International Energy Agency and the European Commission.
Kate Williams
CEO, 1% for the Planet
Kate Williams
CEO, 1% for the Planet
Kate Williams is CEO of 1% for the Planet, a global movement that inspires action and commitment so that our planet and future generations thrive. 1% for the Planet’s global network of thousands of businesses and individuals have donated $100s of millions to environmental partners to date. Kate has led significant growth in the community’s scale and impact, as well as deep work on best practices for implementing high impact giving strategies, growing a network brand, and operating as a thriving workplace with an incredible staff team. Kate earned a BA at Princeton University and an MS at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and has served on a variety of Boards throughout her career. Kate is a Mom, a trail runner and hiker with her dog, and a kitchen gardener.
Lakisha Ann Woods
CEO, American Institute of Architects
Lakisha Ann Woods
CEO, American Institute of ArchitectsLakisha Ann Woods, CAE, is the Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), a dynamic network of more than 94,000 architects and design professionals throughout 200 chapters committed to enhancing the built environment. Woods previously served as President & CEO of the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) from 2018 to 2022. She led efforts to expand the organization’s programs and markets while growing and strengthening its membership base. Prior to joining NIBS, she was the Sr. VP & Chief Marketing Officer at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), where her team was responsible for all marketing and revenue-generating programs – including marketing the International Builders Show, sponsorship sales, and partnerships with major national companies. Woods is the author of the book Never Get Their Coffee: Empowering Fearless Leadership and currently serves on the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Board of Directors as Chair of the Foundation and Chair-Elect of the ASAE Board. She also previously served as Vice-Chair of the U.S. Green Building Council Board of Directors and is a global speaker. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland in College Park and lives with her husband and daughter in Howard County, Maryland.
Lindsay Baker
CEO, Living Future
Lindsay Baker
CEO, Living Future
As CEO of the International Living Future Institute, Lindsay Baker is the organization’s chief strategist, charged with delivering on its mission to lead the transformation toward a civilization that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative. Lindsay is a climate entrepreneur, experienced in launching and growing innovative businesses. Her introduction to the green building movement began at the Southface Institute in Atlanta, where she interned before entering Oberlin College to earn a BA in Environmental Studies. She was one of the first 40 staff members at the U.S. Green Building Council, working to develop consensus about what the LEED rating system would become. She then earned an MS from the University of California at Berkeley in Architecture, with a focus on Building Science, and spent five years as a building science researcher at the UC Berkeley Center for the Built Environment. Lindsay applied her experience around the study of heat, light, and human interactions in buildings to a role with Google’s Green Team, and later co-founded a smart buildings start-up called Comfy, which grew over five years to 75 employees and a global portfolio of clients. She was the first Global Head of Sustainability and Impact at WeWork, where she built the corporate sustainability team and programs from scratch. Lindsay is a Senior Fellow at the Rocky Mountain Institute, and a lecturer at UC Berkeley. She serves on several non-profit boards, and is an advisor and board member for numerous climate tech startups.
George Bandy Jr.
Head of Worldwide Circular Economy, Amazon
George Bandy Jr.
Head of Worldwide Circular Economy, Amazon
George Bandy, Jr. currently serves as Head of Worldwide Circular Economy at Amazon. He believes that looking at opportunities to position environmental, economic and socially responsible solutions for customers can set the standard for other businesses to follow that will result in a brighter future for us all.
Ashley Orgain
Global Director of Advocacy and Sustainability, Seventh Generation
Ashley Orgain
Global Director of Advocacy and Sustainability, Seventh GenerationAs the Global Director of Advocacy and Sustainability for Seventh Generation, Ashley serves as a senior leader for the company’s mission at global and regional levels. She also leads the U.S.-based Corporate Consciousness team and all key facets of the work articulated in Seventh Generation’s mission – To Transform the World into a Healthy, Sustainable, and Equitable Place for the Next Seven Generations. She is responsible for the overall vision and strategy to achieve success against the company’s long- and short-term sustainability goals. Ashley serves on Seventh Generation’s senior leadership team, contributing to company policy development, direction, and sustaining a culture of mission-orientation. In 2010, she became the first President of the Seventh Generation Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to promoting social and environmental progress through education, conservation, research, and advocacy.
Marcius Extavour
Vice President, Energy & Climate, XPRIZE
Marcius Extavour
Vice President, Energy & Climate, XPRIZEAs leader of the XPRIZE Energy team, Marcius combines his experience in partnership building and strategy with his training in physics and engineering to help lead the transition to a clean energy future. This work includes leading the $20 million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, a global competition to recycle CO2 into valuable products. Before joining XPRIZE, Dr. Extavour served as Director of Government and Corporate Partnerships in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto. He has held positions at the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resource and at the Council of Canadian Academies. In the private sector, he has developed risk management software for North American electric power markets at Ontario Power Generation, and designed and fabricated optoelectronic devices at Nortel Networks Research Labs. Dr. Extavour received a PhD and MSc in Physics and a BASc in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto.
Winona LaDuke
Executive Director, Honor the Earth
Winona LaDuke
Executive Director, Honor the Earth
Winona LaDuke is a rural development economist and author working on issues of Indigenous Economics, Food, and Energy Policy. She lives on the White Earth reservation Minnesota, where she founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation-based non-profit organizations in the country. She is the Executive Director of Honor the Earth (HtE), which she co-founded with the Indigo Girls to raise awareness of and money for indigenous struggles for environmental justice. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for vice president as the nominee of the Green Party of the United States, on a ticket headed by Ralph Nader.
In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. In 1994, LaDuke was nominated by Time magazine as one of America’s 50 most promising leaders under 40. She was awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, Ms. Woman of the Year (with the Indigo Girls in l997), and the Reebok Human Rights Award. LaDuke was a co-founder and Board Co-Chair of the Indigenous Women’s Network for fifteen years, and maintains a significant role in international advocacy for Indigenous people. This has included numerous presentations at United Nations forums. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, she has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She is the author of six books.
Diandra Marizet Esparza
Co-Founder & Executive Director, Intersectional Environmentalist
Diandra Marizet Esparza
Co-Founder & Executive Director, Intersectional Environmentalist
Jedidiah Jenkins
New York Times Best Selling Author & Founder, byta
Jedidiah Jenkins
New York Times Best Selling Author & Founder, bytaJedidiah Jenkins is a travel writer and public speaker. He has written two books, ‘To Shake The Sleeping Self’ a memoir about cycling 14,000 miles from Oregon to Patagonia, and ‘Like Streams to the Ocean,’ a collection of essays about love, family, friendship and career. He is Executive Editor of Wilderness Magazine. He is also co-founder of Byta, a travel mug designed to change the way we drink and promote a reusable economy.
Nichol Whiteman
CEO, Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation
Nichol Whiteman
CEO, Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation
With a relentless dedication to improving the lives of others, Nichol Whiteman is the Chief Executive Officer of the award-winning Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation (LADF). Under Nichol’s leadership, LADF tackles the most pressing problems facing Los Angeles with a mission to improve education, health care, homelessness, and social justice for all Angelenos.
Edward Mazria
Founder & CEO, Architecture 2030
Edward Mazria
Founder & CEO, Architecture 2030Edward Mazria, FAIA, Hon. FRAIC is an internationally recognized architect, author, researcher, and educator. He is the founder of Architecture 2030, host of the AIA+2030 Professional Education Series, and inspiration for the 2030 Districts movement in North American cities. In 2014, Mazria presented the Roadmap to Zero Emissions at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, calling for zero emissions in the built environment by 2050; he also drafted the 2050 Imperative, endorsed by professional organizations representing over 1.3 million architects in 124 countries worldwide. Recently, he developed Achieving Zero, a framework of incremental actions that cities and governments can put in place to ensure carbon-neutral built environments by mid-century, and the Zero Cities Project to implement the framework.
Jamie Margolin
Climate Activist & Co-Founder, Zero Hour
Jamie Margolin
Climate Activist & Co-Founder, Zero HourJamie Margolin is a Colombian-American climate justice activist, author, public speaker, and student. She is the co-founder of the international youth climate justice movement called Zero Hour that led Youth Climate Marches around the world. She has represented Zero Hour at international leadership events like the C40 Mayors summit and the UN Youth Climate Summit. In September of 2019, she testified before the US Congress alongside fellow youth activist Greta Thunberg, holding her leaders accountable to taking urgent climate action. She has been published in The New York Times, Teen Vogue, The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, DAZED, Refinery29, and The Guardian, and is the author of, “Youth To Power: Your Voice and How To Use It.” Jamie is one of Teen Vogue’s “21 Under 21” girls changing the world in 2018, One of People Magazines 25 women changing the world in 2018, Fuse TV’s Latina Trailblazer of 2018, one of The Today Show’s 18 under 18 Groundbreakers of 2019, MTV EMA Generation Change winner of 2019, and one of the BBC’s 100 most influential women of 2019.
Mahesh Ramanujam
Former President & CEO, U.S. Green Building Council
Mahesh Ramanujam
Former President & CEO, U.S. Green Building CouncilAs a former president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and Green Business Certification, Inc. (GBCI), Mahesh Ramanujam led a community of 13 million people that’s still growing every day. A graduate from India’s Annamalai University with a degree in Computer Engineering, Ramanujam couples a strong background in technology and innovation with his goal of building healthier communities and democratizing sustainable living. Ramanujam serves on numerous boards and advisory committees, including Bank of America’s National Community Advisory Council and the Board of Directors of GRESB. Prior to his tenure at USGBC, he was COO of Emergys Corp., and for more than a decade, he successfully led various business transformation programs at IBM and Lenovo.
Jason F. McLennan
Founder, Living Building Challenge
Jason F. McLennan
Founder, Living Building ChallengeMcLennan is the creator of the Living Building Challenge, as well as a primary author of the WELL Building Standard. He serves as the Chairman of the International Living Future Institute and is the CEO of McLennan Design, his own architectural and planning practice. He is the recipient of the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Prize, has been called a “World Changer” by GreenBiz magazine, and has been selected as the Award of Excellence winner for Engineering News Record. He is the author of 6 books, including the Philosophy of Sustainable Design, which is considered the ‘bible for green building,’ and is both an Ashoka Fellow and Senior Fellow of the Design Future’s Council. He has been selected by Yes! Magazine as one of ‘15 people shaping the world.’ McLennan’s work has been published in dozens of journals, magazines, and newspapers around the world.
OUR PAST Attendees
Since 2014, the Net Zero Conference has welcomed attendees from 56 countries and 45 U.S. states.
