Improving Lives Is Focus of Climate and Sustainability Summit

Regan and Steelman talked about how climate leadership, environmental justice, innovation, and public-private collaborations intersect to build a more sustainable future. They also identified areas that could connect better.

“What I have found is that there are really two silos that we should bring together: Main Street and Wall Street,” said Regan. “People in communities understand the challenges best, and Wall Street is looking for places to invest.”

Regan pointed out that the impacts of climate change are forcing discussions that we have never had before. 

“Clean air, clean water, housing, poverty and hunger … people are having these conversations around the kitchen table,” he said.

From disaster recovery to corporate responsibility to individual and community resiliency, speakers revisited the concept that climate issues are not isolated. They are integrated within social, economic and human systems.

How Climate Is Integrated

That message came into focus during an afternoon session titled “Holy Ground,” in which Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Trymaine Lee discussed with environmental justice activist Catherine Coleman Flowers what it means to stand on land marked by both harm and opportunity.

Lee recounted a visit to a farm in the woods of northern Durham, land now used for sustainable practices by Urban Community AgriNomics, a nonprofit local agriculture organization with a mission to reduce food insecurity, reduce and reverse preventable health issues, increase academic success, and increase exposure to career opportunities in the field of agriculture. The farm is also the site of a former slave plantation. 

For Lee, that history of human exploitation is directly connected to environmental harm. “It’s braided together with the exploitation of the land,” he said.

Coleman Flowers, a 2020 MacArthur Fellow and former practitioner-in-residence at Duke, picked up on Lee’s framing to share that she looks at environmental justice through her personal experiences visiting communities affected by environmental crises.

“The way I look at environmental justice is that we are all in harm’s way,” said Flowers. Speaking from her recent award-winning book, Holy Ground, Flowers told stories about the injustices of the recent past and present along with the transformative power of finding common ground and conveying mutual respect – often in the most unlikely places – that can lead to solutions.  

Building Community-Level Resiliency

Other panelists discussed the connection between community and climate in the context of increasingly severe weather events. 

Chapel Hill Mayor Jessica Anderson outlined the town's disaster resilience challenges and progress following Tropical Storm Chantal in the summer of 2025.

Her message emphasized the inequity of disaster impacts. 

“The communities that can afford it the least are always the ones that experience it the most,” she said, noting that resilience must be built locally. “In the end, resilience is built or lost on the local level.” 

Panelists from government, nonprofits and philanthropy echoed that resilience cannot simply be delivered from the outside. 

“Resilience, believe it or not, cannot be imported,” said Reese May of the nonprofit SBP.  Instead, the work depends on sustained partnerships and long-term commitment – something often missing after the immediate aftermath of disasters fades.

After Hurricane Matthew devastated the small town of Fair Bluff, N.C., “the mayor and the town manager worked from the front seat of a pickup truck for two years,” said Kathie Dello from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. 

Following Hurricane Helene, recovery began with “neighbors helping neighbors,” she said. 

Panelists focused on community solutions for the future.

Sara McTarnaghan, climate and communities co-lead at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, pointed to a shift toward proactive planning: “Businesses have enough experience that they're open to doing things differently.” 

Dello highlighted North Carolina’s investment in the state’s Flood Resiliency Blueprint, which aims to increase community resilience to flooding throughout North Carolina’s River basins.

She also emphasized the value of smaller, collaborative projects because “they go farther when they're in partnership with the local government and the local partners who are bringing something else to the table.” 

The Private Sector’s Role in Climate Action

The private sector’s role in climate action came into focus with corporate leaders. Panelists discussed how sustainability becomes effective when embedded in everyday operations. 

“We calculate savings from sustainable products,” said Laura Kohler, Global Business Ambassador for Kohler Co. “When investors see capital projects delivering real savings, they are willing to continue investing.” 

Others argued that sustainability does not need to stand alone. It is more than just climate. “Sustainability just needs to be embedded in everything,” said agribusiness executive Rob Coviello. 

Looking to the future of cities and communities, gaps in sustainability need to be addressed, said Robin Zeigler, founder and CEO of MURAL Real Estate Partners.

Building such a community takes time and private-public partnerships in markets that have been under-invested in. “Your dollars have to be patient enough to be able to see those returns,” she said.

Throughout each panel, the summit focused on upward opportunities for people’s lives – clean air, clean water, sustainable housing and better communities. 

“Climate will have an amplifying effect on all the societal and economic challenges we face and have addressed at this summit,” said Steelman. “We need to draw on our common humanity if we are going to find solutions that matter and can stand the test of time.”