COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The 2023 Summit on Sustainability happened Thursday in downtown Columbus. It’s the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission’s annual environmental conference, and hundreds of community leaders came together for it.

The goal is to celebrate the successes in sustainability over the last year and look ahead to future projects.

The summit’s theme this year was “Collaborate. Innovate. Inspire.” and featured breakout sessions on topics like climate pollution, water infrastructure, clean energy and environmentally-friendly transportation.

“Sustainability really means how do we make sure that every person in central Ohio can live a good, prosperous life while we also take care of the environment around us,” said Kerstin Carr with MORPC.

The keynote speaker was Todd Brady, the chief sustainability officer for Intel. He said sustainability is something the company is very committed to.

As construction at their future site in central Ohio continues, Brady said Intel is building everything to be sustainable from the ground up.

“Sustainability means not only making the products in a sustainable manner, reducing the amount of carbon emissions, reducing the amount of water, recycling our waste but also making products that help the world become more sustainable,” Brady said.

Carr with MORPC said the sustainability summit is education every single year and MOPC wants as many people as possible to contribute, especially as the population of central Ohio continues to grow with Intel and other big companies coming to our area.

“Central Ohio is expected to become a region of 3 million people by 2050, so how do we make sure as we grow, we grow well and grow sustainably,” Carr said.

To learn more about what was accomplished at the summit click here. To learn more about MORPC’s ongoing and future projects click here.