Bridging divides to maintain corporate progress on material social and environmental initiatives amidst rising social & political risk
January 27-28, 2026 | Houston, TX
Where: The C. Baldwin Hotel, 400 Dallas St, Houston, TX 77002
When: January 27-28, 2026
We begin with a casual dinner on the 26th for corporate participants arriving the night before. The formal meeting begins with breakfast on the 27th, concluding on the 28th at 1pm at the latest.
Registration: Register here. Registration price will increase on December 16th. Complimentary for Future 500 CAN members.
Who: Senior corporate and civil society leaders interested in constructive cross-sectoral engagement across a host of environmental and social issues.
What: Future 500 has conducted this intimate working group for over eight years. Our discussions are confidential, facilitated under the Chatham House Rule, and designed to foster constructive engagement between companies and advocates to illuminate important issue trends and best practices.
Our working group seeks to empower our delegates to speak up, teach others, respectfully disagree, and ask tough questions. Please bring your ideas and challenges, and come prepared to participate actively.
Dress code: Business casual–emphasis on the casual!
Sessions
Corporate Climate Adaptation and Resilience: A C2ES Perspective
In this session, companies will hear from Verena Radulovic, Vice President of Business Engagement at Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). Verena will present the findings of the C2ES Corporate Climate Resilience Pathways Initiative, sharing the complex challenges—and critical benefits—of building climate resilience into corporate governance and operations. Verena will ask participants to share their perspectives on how they are beginning to address climate resilience across their companies, supply chains, and local communities, and to provide feedback on proposed ideas for how NGOs and other stakeholders can create a framework to scale climate resilience action and outcomes.
Texas as Ground Zero for Environmental Advocacy
Texas, home to the nation's hydrocarbon core, is grappling with existential threats around permitting, pollution, and economic development. Luke Metzger, the Executive Director of Environment Texas, will share how he works to build coalitions and make change in the Lone Star State, including defending clean energy, investing in state parks, and tackling plastic pollution. He will share his work building a transpartisan coalition to address plastic resin loss and pollution of waterways and oceans, one pathway towards successful collaboration in a red state at the front lines of the globe's energy challenges. Understanding Luke’s pragmatic—and proven—approach to making progress in Texas can help companies understand burgeoning issues across geographies, and provide ideas for how corporate leaders can engage their companies as forces for good.
Panel: Methane as a locus of cross-sectoral engagement
Methane management has emerged as a promising, multifaceted climate mitigation strategy, becoming a notable area of collaboration between corporations, the public sector, and advocacy groups. Innovations in monitoring technology to inform scientific analysis and data transparency continue to emerge, fueled by targeted grantmaking and unique cross-sectoral partnerships, in turn shaping corporate practices.
This panel will bring together players across the methane value chain to discuss progress, the strategic drivers of both funders and grantees, and how companies across sectors can successfully embed methane mitigation into their operations to drive profitability and sustainability.
You’ll hear from
Kimberly Karol, Director of Development and Impact at the Global Methane Hub
Kenzie Huffman, Director of Strategy and Impact at Carbon Mapper
and more speakers on the forefront of the methane issue: TBA
Future 500 launches our 15th Annual Force for Good Forecast for 2026
From growing greenhushing to supply chain disruption, business leaders are navigating a constellation of ever-evolving and inter-related issues. In this session, the Future 500 team will share our 2026 Force For Good Forecast, highlighting the key stakeholder trends that we believe will affect companies in the coming year, equipping companies to “see around the corner” into the emerging environmental and social interventions that civil society may expect from corporate leaders in 2026 and beyond.