Four industry leaders tackling climate issues outlined their visions for advancing environmental solutions during a panel at the TIME100 Summit in New York City on April 23.
Moderated by TIME chief climate officer Shyla Raghav, the conversation featured Kara Hurst, chief sustainability officer at Amazon, which is a sponsor of the Summit; Catherine Coleman Flowers, founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice; Anousheh Ansari, CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, which is a sponsor of the Summit; and actor and advocate Rainn Wilson, co-founder of Climate Basecamp.
Opening the discussion, Ansari explained how XPRIZE helps support breakthroughs in areas like energy, biodiversity, health, space, and food waste by funding teams working on tangible solutions. She emphasized that meaningful progress often emerges when these disciplines intersect. “Cross-collaboration is essential,” she said. “The best ideas come when we bring them all together because they all interact and have effects on each other.”
Hurst spoke about Amazon’s efforts to leverage its size and influence to accelerate progress. The company has pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions across its global operations by 2040 and has invited others to join. According to Hurst, more than 550 companies have committed to the initiative so far.
Flowers warned that rural communities have long been excluded from major environmental conversations, despite being among the hardest hit. She cited Lowndes County, Alabama, where many residents were exposed to raw sewage because of inadequate access to sanitation systems.
Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ) reached a settlement with Alabama, saying that it had engaged in a pattern of neglect. But the DOJ recently announced that it was ending that settlement agreement, following President Trump’s executive order barring federal agencies from pursuing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
“We shouldn’t have people in positions making rules and regulations [who] don’t know what raw sewage on the ground looks like [and] have never been to a rural community,” Flowers said. “We have to make sure that as we seek these solutions, we don’t leave rural communities out.”
Wilson, who described himself as “incredibly passionate” about climate change, said much of the public disengagement stems from how the topic is communicated. Too often, he argued, the messaging is either aimed at people who are already convinced or at those who flatly deny the science.
“How do we reach the people in the middle?” he said. “You do that through the arts, with music, with comedy, using social media—online activations, in-person activations that are memorable and sticky and help deliver a message in a way that doesn’t feel preachy and tragic.”
In closing, the panelists shared what gives them hope. Flowers pointed to a potential collaboration with NASA to adapt its space-based wastewater treatment technologies for use in rural areas.
“The solutions are out there,” Hurst said. “We need to get them into our rural communities, we need to provide access, we need to scale them up and make them available to everybody because we can do this. We don’t have a lot of time on this planet and so we need to act now.”
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The TIME100 Summit convenes leaders from the global TIME100 community to spotlight solutions and encourage action toward a better world. This year’s summit features a variety of speakers across a diverse range of sectors, including business, health and science, AI, culture, and more.
Speakers for the 2025 TIME100 Summit include human rights advocate Yulia Navalnaya; Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; comedian Nikki Glaser; climate justice activist Catherine Colman Flowers; Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, and many more, plus a performance by Nicole Scherzinger.
The 2025 TIME100 Summit was presented by Booking.com, Circle, Diriyah Company, Prudential Financial, Toyota, Amazon, Absolut, Pfizer, and XPRIZE.