Thinking about the future inevitably involves taking into account the environment and the impact of climate change on the daily lives of citizens. When imagining the coming decades, no one dares to take sustainability and commitment to rural communities out of the equation. That is why PRISA Media América and Santillana have organized together with the Externado de Colombia University, the Cundinamarca Regional Autonomous Corporation (CAR) and the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) -Development Bank of Latin America, the first International Summit of Sustainability and Environmental Innovation, the most important event in the environmental sector in Latin America, which will take place this Wednesday, August 23, at the Ágora convention center in Bogotá.
The event will begin at eight in the morning, Colombian time; seven in the morning in Mexico, nine in the morning in Washington, ten in Buenos Aires and three in the afternoon in Madrid. The installation will be carried out by Sergio Díaz-Granados, president of the CAF; Joseph Oughourlian, president of the Prisa Group; Luis Fernando Sanabria Martínez, director of the CAR; Hernando Parra Nieto, rector of the Externado University; Susana Muhamad, Minister of the Environment of Colombia; and Iván Name Vásquez, president of the Colombian Congress. Some thirty high-level speakers will discuss the challenges facing the region and the transition towards a more sustainable and resilient world.
For this, six large conversations will be held. Initially, in The challenge of sustainability in the 21st century: economy, society, private business and the environment, the director of EL PAÍS, Pepa Bueno, will speak with Juan Carlos Mora, president of Bancolombia, about the responsibility of the private sector and the environmental, social and economic challenges facing the region. That conversation will serve to give a broad picture, before more specific panels.
The first of them will be The challenges of education in the face of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It will be moderated by Diana Calderón, director of the Caracol Radio news program Medio Dia and Hora 20, who will chat with Gabriela Ramos, Deputy Director General of Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO; Jean Michel Blanquer, former French Minister of Education; Rosa Junquera, director of Sustainability at PRISA; and Julio Cordero, Vice Minister of Education of the Dominican Republic. In a region with poor results in international educational comparisons and tests, the discussion will revolve around how to improve educational quality as a requirement to advance sustainability in general.
In the third talk, Positive biodiversity in the face of climate change, various solutions based on nature will be addressed, by the director of EL PAÍS America, Jan Martínez Ahrens. Laura Chinchilla, former president of Costa Rica; Rita de Cassia Mesquita, Biodiversity Secretary of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment; Alicia Montalvo, manager of Climate Action and Positive Biodiversity at CAF; Fabio Arjona, executive director of Conservation International of Colombia; and Mario Pardo Bayona, president of the Board of Directors of Asobancaria, the banking union of Colombia.
“The look to alleviate the effects of climate change has focused on ending greenhouse gas emissions. And that is important, but we must also look for the solution in biodiversity”, explains Alicia Montalvo. “Betting on sustainable development is also a different way of growing, producing and consuming.”
The discussion called Sustainable Cities and Regions will take place later. Alejandro Santos, content director of Prisa Media Colombia, will speak with Jaime Pumarejo, mayor of Barranquilla. The energy transition for the future will also be addressed, under the baton of Gustavo Gómez, the director of 6 AM of Caracol Radio. Óscar Bravo, president of Terpel; Luz Stella Murgas, president of Naturgas; Eugenio Calderón, manager of ENEL Greenpower for Colombia and Central America; and Oliverio García, president of the National Association for Sustainable Mobility.
The event will close with the panel Private sector facing the challenges of sustainable development, which will be moderated by Gabriel De las Casas, director of Caracol Sostenible and La Luciérnaga. He will speak with Gustavo Yepes, director of corporate social responsibility management at the Externado University; with Carolina Montoya, director of sustainability of Minsait Indra Company in the Andean region and the Southern Cone; with Daniela Puerta, manager of public affairs, communications and sustainability of Coca-Cola in Colombia and Venezuela; with Samira Fadul, vice president of corporate and legal affairs of the Bavaria brewery, and with María Consuelo Castro, sustainability manager of Claro Colombia.
Likewise, the executive president of Santillana, Francisco Cuadrado, will carry out a donation of school supplies for various educational institutions in Colombia, which he will deliver at the event to Aurora Vergara, Minister of Education. And there will be a speech by Ricardo Roa, president of Ecopetrol, on New energies to contain climate change. All these events will be broadcast live on the different covers of EL PAÍS America.
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