As part of USC’s Green Week programming, the University hosted the Los Angeles Business Council’s 20th Year Sustainability Summit at Town and Gown Thursday. The event brought together figures in business, policy, technology and academia to discuss the climate crisis and clean energy in the L.A. area and across California.

Speakers at the summit focused on sustainability efforts and environmentally friendly innovations in business and policy that support both the climate and economy. President Beong-Soo Kim opened the summit with a speech that emphasized USC’s commitment to sustainability.

“At USC, we are 100% committed to playing our part,” Kim said.

Kim pointed to the collaboration between the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ Public Exchange program’s California Solar Canal Initiative with researchers at other universities. Kim said this was a clear indicator of how university research and support can help reach broader sustainability goals.

Through the Dornsife Public Exchange, researchers collaborate with private-sector partners and other universities to meet California’s goal of reaching 100% clean energy by 2045. The initiative would install solar panels over parts of the 4,000 miles of California canals to generate renewable energy while reducing water lost through evaporation.

“At scale, solar canals could conserve an estimated 63 billion gallons of water,” Kim said.

He also noted that Public Exchange could generate enough renewable energy to support 2 million California homes.

Kim closed his speech by emphasizing that the climate crisis is a joint battle.

“No single institution or sector can meet the sustainability challenge alone, but when we all work together, we can and we will develop solutions equal to the scale and urgency of this moment,” Kim said.

Kim’s speech was followed by California Sen. Alex Padilla, who spoke about sustainability initiatives at a federal level. Padilla said that at a time when President Donald Trump has rolled back renewable energy efforts, California’s climate leadership is more important than ever.

Padilla said that despite rising energy costs for California families, the state must keep investing in clean, affordable energy and reliable transportation.

“California shouldn’t have to choose between a strong economy and a healthy environment. We can, and we must, have both,” Padilla said.

Following Padilla was a panel titled “California Climate Policy Driving Market Innovation.” The panelists discussed Assembly Bill 32, which sets renewable energy standards in California, and how these policies stimulate business and innovation.

California Energy Commission Commissioner Nancy Skinner said that state policy created a huge market for energy storage. She recalled that in 2010, California leaned heavily into renewable energy; however, no industrial energy storage market existed to meet that demand other than scarce and scattered pumped hydro storage. This is when the private sector for industrial energy took off, thanks to collaboration among the legislature, researchers and investors, she said.

For the commissioner, this was a “game changer” for renewable energy, and she said California now has access to “22 gigawatts of installed storage capacity.”

Another panelist, GAF Energy Senior Vice President Jason Barrett, said the push for renewable energy also created attractive investment and business opportunities. Through GAF’s work in solar panels, he said renewable energy markets are “economically viable and very attractive.”

In an interview with the Daily Trojan, California Sen. Henry Stern said he is trying “to make California the rule, not the exception.” He said he believes making California a “model that people will actually want to follow” is better than creating an isolated “island.”

Elle Walters, founder of the sustainable fashion brand ELLERALI, said the summit and conferences like it are positive steps to increasing climate and sustainability awareness, but getting these ideas into the mainstream is the real challenge.

“For some reason, I feel that we’re talking to the choir,” she said. “What does it look like to come into spaces that have no idea [about such efforts] but make it very interesting to them and get them wanting to make a change?”

Stern said sustainability is a shared responsibility and that the movement needs everyone.

“We need the advocates and people who care and are going to put their foot down and be like, ‘No more fossil fuel’ and protest and march, but I’m actually the most interested in everyone who doesn’t care,” Stern said. “We need business students. We need engineers. We need everybody else too.”