Washington University held a Carbon Neutral Climate Dialogue in conjunction with the City of St. Louis Office of Sustainability and the Post Carbon Cities of Tomorrow project, Oct. 22.

Photo by Morad Suliman

The event included a panel of representatives from the nations of Slovenia and Poland, along with Catherine Werner, the sustainability director for the city of St. Louis.

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson was also present at the event; she suggested a call to action for the community and encouraged the city to “strive to become carbon neutral.”

“I think it’s a challenging goal, but if we don’t set these goals we have no chance of making a real difference,” Krewson said.

Graduate students, undergraduate students, faculty, staff and the public attended the event. Senior Janelle McAfee attended a previous event on the circular economy, which prompted her to attend this panel.

“[The speakers presented] interesting insights about how Europe is adapting to climate change as an issue in positive ways. We can benefit as an entire country from improving our systems and making it more of a global economy,” McAfee said.

Each EU representative shared the initiatives that they have been working on in their respective countries. Niko Korpar, a project manager at Circular Change in Slovenia, spoke of the impact of a circular economy on reducing impact on climate change.

“Circular economy and research management is a key part of climate change mitigation and it’s a viable path for a city to take, or a company or a country,” Kopar said.

Nina Sankovich, the Head of PR at Voka Snaga, the largest waste management company in Slovenia echoed Korpar and discussed waste reduction and how to manage food waste.

“We are not a very typical waste management company in Europe, but we just woke up one day and realized that we have power and responsibility in our hands, so we encourage our citizens to be better in any way but mostly better consumers,” Sankovich said.

The founder of urban development firm Skwer, Grezegorz Gadek, discussed his company’s initiatives in Poland. Skwer focuses on creating sustainable public spaces for people of all backgrounds to enjoy together. Skwer is also working to reduce the effect of heat waves by lining paved streets with trees.

The final EU climate panelist to speak was Justyna Krol, the founder and CEO of Urban Workshop in Poland. Krol addressed her company’s approach to creating carbon-neutral cities, specifically working with Krakow.

Werner left attendees with a final message.

“[St. Louis] can learn from our colleagues around the world and draw inspiration and apply them here, even though our situation is a little bit different,” Werner said.

Senior Dugan Marieb, president of the Student Environmental Council, argued that searching for sustainable solutions is not enough.

“They really want to get at where the solutions come from and especially making that a community-driven process,” Marieb said. “I’m thinking that we can bring that kind of engagement as a University.”

The discussion following the event allowed attendees to voice any concerns—and the solutions to these problems—that they may have had in terms of the city’s progression into being more sustainable.

“Our [the United States’] problems tend to affect the third world countries instead of us, so if we’re able to fix our problems, we’re actually going to save the world instead,” McAfee said.