From Ideas to Action: Advancing Sustainable Development
4:00pm - 5:15pm
Closing Plenary
Turning sustainable building ideas into real-world projects takes more than innovation. It requires funding, financing, collaboration, and practical solutions to overcome barriers.
This interactive closing plenary begins with a moderated conversation featuring representatives from AREF and RBC, exploring the business case for sustainable development, challenges facing the industry, and how funding, financing, and partnerships can help move projects forward.
The session will then shift into a Living Library, where attendees can choose two of six interactive discussions with project leaders and organizations advancing innovative approaches to sustainable development, housing, infrastructure, and environmental stewardship across Alberta. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions, share ideas, and learn from real-world experiences before continuing conversations at the Symposium's closing networking reception.
Sarah Stuebing
Sarah is a communications and community investment professional with a Bachelor of Arts Degree, majoring in Communications. Hailing from Red Deer, she moved to Calgary eleven years ago to finish her degree at the University of Calgary. She promptly fell in love with the city’s downtown centre, where she now lives, spending her time wandering in search of art, culture, sarcasm, and all things caffeinated. Her work experience includes working in the Red Deer Advocate newsroom, coordinating public and private training for North America with SMART Technologies, fundraising for The Brenda Strafford Society for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, and finally to her current position with the Alberta Real Estate Foundation. She now spends her time helping connect community organizations, quality ideas, and timely funding.
Colin Guldimann
Colin Guldimann is Senior Director, Sustainable Finance in RBC’s Commercial Banking Group. He leads sustainability advisory and transaction structuring across RBC’s business banking client base, with a focus on commercial real estate and retrofits.
Prior, he was Senior Economist at RBC’s Climate Action Institute where he authored flagship reports including The $2 Trillion Transition and High Rise, Low Carbon. Colin’s research has helped inform understanding of the climate challenge, its economic impacts and opportunities, and the transition businesses will need to undertake to collectively reach net-zero.
Before RBC, Colin worked at the Department of Finance on mortgage and macro-financial policy. He holds an MA in economics from UBC and a certificate in Clean Energy from Yale University and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ottawa.