By Lisa Jacobson, President, BCSE and Tom Lawler, Executive Director, Digital Climate Alliance

A big thank you to everyone who joined us for the second annual Federal Sustainability Summit in Washington, DC on October 6! This year’s event was hosted by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) and the Digital Climate Alliance (DCA), with support from Schneider Electric, and was held as day two of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce‘s 2023 Sustainability & Circular Economy Summit.

We were thrilled to convene public-private discussions on strategies for businesses to help the federal government achieve sustainability and resilience goals. As we look back on this exciting event, here are our top four insights from the Federal Sustainability Summit:

To start off the day, BCSE President Lisa Jacobson (left) sat down with Federal Chief Sustainability Officer Andrew Mayock to discuss the ability of the federal government to move markets and drive decarbonization, with the support of public-private partnerships nationwide.

Andrew reminded attendees that since the federal government is one of the nation’s largest employers and electricity buyers, it has a huge opportunity to drive emissions reductions through its own portfolio alone. He highlighted recent federal actions that are propelling progress toward the nation’s decarbonization goals, including efforts to electrify the federal fleet and decarbonize federal buildings through the Climate Smart Building Initiative. The Administration reports publicly on each agency’s progress on federal sustainability goals at sustainability.gov.

Andrew welcomes opportunities for public-private partnerships to help the Biden Administration’s sustainability goals. “My general call to action would be: ‘Join us, lend a hand,’” he concluded.