Bridging divides to maintain corporate progress on material social and environmental initiatives amidst rising social & political risk

September 9-10, 2025  |  Denver, Colorado

Logistics

Where: The Ramble Hotel 1280 25th St, Denver, CO 80205, please click here for our special room rate of $289/night (+taxes and fees).

When: September 9-10, 2025

We begin with a casual dinner on the 8th for corporate participants arriving the night before. The formal meeting begins with breakfast on the 9th, concluding on the 10th at 1pm at the latest.

Registration: Register here. Registration price will increase on July 30th.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!

Planned Sessions

Jennifer Krill, Executive Director at Earthworks, will share the critical role that NGOs serve for investors, communities, local regulators, and customers in holding companies accountable for responsible mining and oil & gas development amidst an increasingly deregulated environment. She will draw on examples from Colorado and the US West, highlighting examples where corporate-civil society engagement was constructive, where it wasn't, and how companies can improve.

Our team is honored to welcome back Dr. Cecilia Martinez, Chief of Environmental and Climate Justice at the Bezos Earth Fund, to share her insights on the state of environmental policy and how companies can approach the issue of equity in today's context. In light of recent federal actions, she will explore our evolving national priorities and the opportunities for enabling communities and local industrial companies to engage and collaborate. We will also discuss how companies can address community concerns of burdens and benefits where they have facilities.  She will also share where she sees opportunities to help advance solutions.

Corporate Peer Exchange

Two corporate leaders in our network will present case studies and share ongoing strategic challenges, their ongoing responses, how they are measuring success, and their initial learnings. They will also pose strategic questions for peer exploration, feedback, and insight sharing. Topics will include: 

• Reconciling external messaging and internal priorities

• Navigating internal political differences in the face of rising political and litigation risk

• Balance long-term sustainability and short-term financial goals

• Reporting clearly and consistently across a multitude of state and national jurisdictions

• Justifying the business value of sustainability to internal leadership

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Why Denver?

• Nestled in the stunning Rocky Mountains, Denver is an outdoor mecca, a hub for B Corps, cleantech, environmental advocates, and for the mining and oil & gas sectors. We hope that the city’s commitment to public-private collaboration around circularity, climate and energy policy, and accessible outdoor spaces inspires our participants and serves as a literal and figurative “breath of fresh air” in this time of polarized, anti-ESG thinking.

• Added bonus: Denver experiences 300 days of annual sunshine

• Another added bonus: Denver brews more beer than any other US city, a fact that is begrudgingly accepted by our CEO, Erik Wohlgemuth, who hails from Portland, Oregon, home of the nation’s “best beer, bar none.”

  Posted In: Future 500 events Tagged: CAN