Bloomberg's annual summit focuses on a greener future

Attendees at the 2023 Bloomberg Green Summit in New York were encouraged to listen to the trees after a full morning of listening to a diverse collection of speakers discuss ways to address climate change.

It was about noon during the April 26 event when Zurich Insurance Group unveiled a new video, “Listen to the Forest,” celebrating the Zurich Forest Project in Brazil.

The video outlines the progress made since Zurich launched the project with Instituto Terra in 2020, explaining that the effort is about much more than just planting trees — it’s about local people restoring a biodiverse ecosystem.

“When people get to know what we do, they start to understand the importance of conservation, preservation and restoration,” Elis, a lab and nursery supervisor at Instituto Terra, said in the video. “The ultimate goal of the Zurich Forest Project is to help restore a delicate, precious ecosystem rich in wildlife, insects and flora and fauna that had largely been destroyed by humankind.”

The five-minute video followed a series of live, in-person discussions about financing climate solutions, investing in biodiversity, the future of clean energy and the future of professional auto racing with electric vehicles.

Zurich was a presenting sponsor of the Bloomberg Green Summit for the third year. In addition to the video, several of Zurich’s leaders in climate resilience attended the event, including Tom Fioretti, Head of Zurich Resilience Solutions, North America; Stephan Hillert, Global Head of Climate & Sustainability Solutions; and Lisa Leftwich, Head of Sustainability Services, Zurich Resilience Solutions, North America.

Sandwiched between the Zurich Forest Project video and a 30-second version of the video was a discussion with John Podesta, Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation & Implementation at the White House and Chair of National Climate Task Force. The interview with Francine Lacqua of Bloomberg News was the first of six televised episodes of “Leaders with Lacqua Goes Green.”

Podesta said that people on both sides of the political spectrum are beginning to see climate change as an urgent problem and are also seeing the benefits of transforming the economy to address climate change. But it wasn’t always that way. He compared the current divide with the advent of the internet and how global interconnectivity both divided and connected people.

“I lived through seeing the power of what the internet did, and what communications and information technologies are impacting,” Podesta said during the interview with Lacqua. “I think this (climate change) is even more profound than that. And it’s at a global scale to transform an energy system that is huge, incumbent and it’s got to happen fast if we’re going to have a planet that’s livable and have a secure future for our children and grandchildren.”

The Bloomberg Green Summit presents itself as the “preeminent gathering of climate champions meeting at the crossroads of sustainability, science and culture … highlighting the solutions needed to address the planet's most pressing climate challenges.” The full-day program was centered around four themes: climate economy, greener living, global changemakers and cleaner tech.

Attendees also heard Jon Moore, CEO, BloombergNEF, who shared a trove of statistics about climate trends; a panel discussion about funding biodiversity efforts in Belize; and Formula-E world champion and UN Environment Programme Clean Air Advocate Lucas di Grassi, who talked about the intersection of sustainability, technology and sports, and how he is working to advance net-zero initiatives in his native Brazil and beyond.