Sustainability Leadership for the Twenty-First Century

Leith Sharp is a change leader with 30 years of practice, research, and teaching. Sharp has taught leadership for sustainability at Harvard University for over 25 years, earning numerous commendations for distinguished teaching performance. Sharp founded Harvard's Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership program in 2014, which she continues to lead at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This cross-sectoral, residential leadership program brings sustainability leadership, human well-being, purpose, biomimicry, agility, integrated business models, and organizational design together. In 2017, Sharp co-founded Leaders on Purpose to engage global chief executive officers (CEOs) in defining and scaling a new leadership paradigm and business logic with the fitness to deliver on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Global CEOs from Paypal, Siemens, Mastercard, Ikea, P&G, Sodexo, Danone, Mars, Best Buy, Phillips, SAP, BMW, and L'Oreal have contributed. Sharp is known for founding Harvard's Office for Sustainability in 2000, where over a period of nine years she led Harvard to become a global leader in campus sustainability. In 2010, Sharp became the founding executive director for the Illinois Green Economy Network, working with the state's 40 college presidents to raise $24 million for green workforce development. Sharp has consulted with over 200 organizations and has received numerous awards internationally, including Young Australian of the Year, New South Wales Environment Category and a Churchill Fellowship. Sharp has an environmental engineering degree (University of New South Wales), a Master of Education (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and a Master of Science in Biomimicry (Arizona State University).

Jack Spengler is the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Spengler's current research focuses on health and the built environment and the well-being benefits of exposure to nature. His research also relates to climate adaptation to extreme heat in cities.