Buildings Program
Enabling the transition to smarter, healthier, net-zero buildings, campuses and factories.

The Buildings Program galvanizes the built environment community to spur forward next-gen buildings that are smarter, more efficient and healthier. Join us to dive into the technologies, financing models and partnerships needed to empower tenants, facility managers and owners to achieve net-zero emissions and tackle embodied carbon.
Key Topics:
-
The Power of Data
-
Financing Upgrades
-
Healthy Buildings
-
IoT, AI and Predictive Buildings

Participants include professionals in:
-
Construction managers
-
Facility managers
-
Real estate professionals
-
Energy management experts
-
Procurement professionals
-
Human resources leaders
-
Financiers

Past Speakers

Amath Gomis

Amath Gomis is a sustainability leader that brings a diverse skill set to solve many of the environmental, social, and governance issues leading companies in commercial real estate, telecommunications, and information technology face. He’s a Director of ESG in the Americas at CBRE. Amath’s hobbies include collecting art, home renovation, gardening, and collecting orchids. He has an ESG podcast called ESG Matters, where he interviews ESG leaders and professionals about Sustainability, their programs, and the struggles we face implementing ESG activities. Amath has a M.R.P. from Cornell University, and a B.A. from George Mason University.

Julia Raish

Julia leads Amazon's global sustainable building program, working with its business units to decarbonize their various building portfolios, and work with industry partners to scale solutions more broadly.

Raman Tanwar

Raman is the General Manager for Healthy Buildings at Honeywell. He leads a global team developing offerings in Indoor Environmental Quality and building sustainability space. He has been in the buildings industry for around a decade, and launched an IoT based smart buildings start-up with his previous employer

Becca Rushin


Amanda Von Almen

As Director, Emissions Reduction, Amanda leads a cross-functional team focused on the decarbonization strategy across Salesforce's key business units to deliver on Salesforce's Climate Action Plan and public sustainability commitments. Amanda's team is also responsible for the annual forecasting and carbon foot printing process while maintaining alignment with key stakeholders to drive organizational alignment. As part of the sustainability leadership team, Amanda leads strategic customer conversations and works on the broader corporate sustainability strategy. As an expert in integrating impactful sustainability programs into critical business process, Amanda loves to build programs and fully operationalize them. Under her leadership, Salesforce has committed to pursuing LEED Platinum and ILFI Zero Carbon certification (by 2030) for all new major offices and helped lead the introduction of Salesforce's sustainability exhibit, integrating binding sustainability contract requirements for all suppliers.

John Picard


Lindsay Baker


Claire Bonham-Carter

Claire Bonham-Carter is a Principal with AECOM with over 20 years of experience leading climate change planning and sustainability strategy projects for public and private sector clients in the US and internationally. She is an AECOM Fellow, leads AECOM’s Global Center of Excellence for Sustainability and Resilience for the Buildings and Places business line, and is ESG Technical Lead for the US West Region. She led AECOM’s work for 100 Resilient Cities on over 30 cities globally within the network including for the cities of San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, as well as Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle and Honolulu in the US. She also specializes in city climate action planning, and has been a long term collaborator with C40 cities, most recently supporting their Climate Action Planning Technical Assistance Program. She specializes in climate vulnerability and risk assessments and adaptation plans for cities and transportation agencies. In the San Francisco Bay Area she has supported BCDC, MTC and Caltrans in their adaptation planning work for over a decade, with her team most recently contributing to ART Bay Area, the regionwide vulnerability assessment and the Bay Adapt process. She has led teams developing adaptation plans for some of California’s critical regional transportation assets including the San Diego International Airport, Ports of Oakland and Long Beach, and Metrolink, South California’s commuter rail network. Making sure communities are inspired to act and that their voices are integrated into climate projects a key focus for Claire. She is co-chair of the Bay Area Council Water and Climate Resilience Committee. Claire cycled over 500 miles from London to Glasgow in 2021 to raise awareness for climate action, representing AECOM at the COP26 global climate change talks.

Panama Bartholomy

Panama is the Director of the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a multi- sector forum advocating for and creating solutions to our pollution- intensive building stock. Panama Bartholomy was the Director of the Investor Confidence Project where he worked to unlock capital markets for energy efficiency project development. Previously, Panama was the Advisor on Energy and Natural Resources to California Assembly Speaker John A. Perez. He has served as Deputy Director of the California Energy Commission’s Efficiency and Renewables Division and advisor for Chairwomen Douglas and Pfannenstiel. He has worked for the California Conservation Corps on vocational environmental education, and ran the Sustainable Schools program for the Division of the State Architect. Panama served on the City of Sacramento Planning Commission and the County of Sacramento Environmental Commission, and is a former board member on the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and past president of the Northern California Chapter of the USGBC. He has worked on climate solutions in over 30-countries, presented at and collaborated on products from the United Nations, the International Energy Agency, the European Commission and is a Gemini.

Sara Neff

Sara Neff is Senior Vice President, Sustainability at Kilroy Realty Corporation. Sara took Kilroy from having no sustainability program to being named the #1 publicly traded real estate company on sustainability in North America by GRESB, and under her leadership the company recently committed to becoming the first carbon neutral real estate company in North America by the end of 2020. At Kilroy, she oversees all sustainability initiatives such as solar and battery dealmaking, the implementation of energy and water efficiency initiatives throughout the existing and development portfolios, the integration of sustainability standards into annual financial reports, the launch of the Kilroy Innovation Lab, and the award-winning green leasing program. She holds a BS from Stanford and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Scott Hiller

Scott Hiller is the Head of Sustainability and Energy Infrastructure at Adobe, where he oversees the company’s goals to reduce energy usage, improve equipment efficiencies, and run its various campuses on 100% renewable energy.
From camping with his family at a young age that evolved into outdoor activities with his wife and children to his present role at Adobe, Scott has always maintained a passion for making a positive impact on the environment. His involvement with Adobe’s upcoming North Tower at its San Jose headquarters is a crowning example of how his team helped create the first fully all-electric building of its scale in the Silicon Valley.
Scott has more than 30 years of experience managing corporate facilities and leading corporate sustainability initiatives, including past roles at Juniper Networks and Crystal Technology (acquired by Gooch & Housego). Previously at Adobe, he led site operations at its headquarters and western region overseeing major campus renovation projects to accommodate employee growth – including new workspaces, food and wellness facilities, and other updates to foster a collaborative and more open office environment.

Katie Ross

Katie Ross leads Sustainability for Microsoft's global Real Estate portfolio. She is responsible for developing and implementing sustainability strategy across their office portfolio of more than 33 million square feet, enabling Microsoft’s commitment to be a Carbon Negative, Water Positive, Zero Waste company by 2030. Katie's career has been dedicated to the adoption of high performance, healthy, sustainable buildings. She oversees Microsoft’s commitments such as fleet electrification, zero carbon campuses, sustainability design standards, and zero waste certified campuses and develops sustainability strategy for Microsoft's new campuses including Puget Sound, Israel, Silicon Valley, and Atlanta. Katie prides herself on being a 'sustainability translator' - ensuring that Microsoft's employees and the public understand the nuances and importance of each commitment and how they can be part of the solution.

"The built environment is a tremendous contributor to climate change, accounting for nearly 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the vessel that will carry us into an unpredictable climate future. The buildings Program is where stakeholders across the built environment share the technologies, financing and partnerships emerging to transform where we work and live to become more resilient, connected and part of a safe climate future."