About this Event
🌍 SEA Sustainability Conference 2026
Below the Surface: Uncovering the Hidden Systems of Sustainability
The Sustainable Engineers Association (SEA) at the University of Toronto proudly presents its annual Sustainability Conference, one of the largest student-led sustainability events at UofT. Each year, the conference brings together students, academics, professionals, and industry leaders to explore pressing issues at the intersection of technology, policy, and sustainability.
This year’s theme, “Below the Surface: Uncovering the Hidden Systems of Sustainability,” will spark dialogue on how less visible systems shape environmental decisions and how community-led action can drive transformative change.
Why attend?
- Hear from bold keynotes and interactive panel discussions led by top sustainability industry professionals, professors, and innovators
- Explore how innovative solutions, from green infrastructure to climate finance, are driving our sustainable transformation
- Connect with industry professionals at the Sustainability Career Fair
- Enjoy a catered breakfast and lunch to fuel you for the day
Who should attend?
Whether you're excited about green infrastructure, eager to explore how sustainability aligns with your field, or curious about what equitable sustainability solutions could look like, this conference has something for you! Every year, we welcome a diverse audience of students, community leaders, and academics to engage in important sustainability conversations and share their perspectives. The conference is open to all learners - high school, undergraduate, and graduate students - as well as professionals interested in sustainability and innovation.
Join us for a day of discovery on Saturday, October 24, 2026! Fully catered breakfast, lunch, and refreshments are available with each purchased ticket.
Each panel will have 3-4 speakers and 1 moderator. Stayed tuned for more speaker announcements coming soon!
Agenda
🕑: 08:30 AM - 09:00 AM
Registration
Info: Bring your purchased conference ticket to the venue to pick up your lanyard and register for the day. Start the day with our included breakfast!
🕑: 09:00 AM - 09:15 AM
Opening Ceremonies
Host: Lawson Climate Institute
Info: Hear from our SEA conference team, organization president, and generous sponsors who helped organize your conference day.
🕑: 09:25 AM - 10:25 AM
Visionary Communities: An Alternative Approach to Fostering Climate Action
Host: Professor John Robinson
Info: John Robinson is a Professor Emeritus at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto, where he is Senior Advisor to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability.
Prof. Robinson’s research focuses on sustainable buildings, neighbourhoods, and cities; climate change mitigation, adaptation and sustainability; participatory backcasting and scenario analysis; transdisciplinary knowledge co-production; sustainability transitions
and transformations; art and sustainability; the role of the university in sustainability transitions; and the history and philosophy of sustainability.
🕑: 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM
Panel I - Rethinking AI for Designing Sustainable and Equitable Systems
Host: Dr. Maria Vamvalis
Info: This panel will bring together diverse voices from academia, policy, and social impact to discuss how the rapidly evolving field of AI is reshaping our ecological footprint—from water consumption to energy demand—and our approach to designing equitable climate solutions. We will examine the intersection of AI technologies and literacy, climate justice, policy frameworks, and community empowerment, exploring how systems change can ensure that emerging AI technologies are rooted in the sustainability needs of communities.
🕑: 11:20 AM - 12:05 PM
Climate Finance: How Capital Decides What Gets Built
Host: Wendy Potomski
Info: Wendy Potomski is a CFA charterholder and Executive Director of the Global Climate Finance Accelerator, a not-for-profit climate finance organization that works adjacent to the University of Toronto. She is also a Sessional Lecturer in the School of the Environment, where she teaches climate finance. Her career sits at the point where climate technology meets capital, helping ventures and their investors move first-of-a-kind projects from demonstration to commercial scale. Through Brookstone Strategy, which she founded in 2013, she advises senior management, executives, and boards on navigating regulatory change, strategic shifts, and industry disruption. She has spent nearly three decades at the intersection of finance and the energy transition, bridging financial performance and sustainability goals and helping organizations manage the risks of a carbon-constrained economy.
🕑: 12:10 PM - 02:10 PM
Lunch Break & Career Fair
Info: New this year is the Sustainability Career Fair, a structured networking lunch where industry representatives and university departments connect directly with students. It is designed to create real opportunities to network with industry professionals, gain career insights, and learn about sustainability pathways. Companies/departments attending include Ecobee, Dillon Consulting Limited, the Master of Science in Sustainability Management Program (UTM), the Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences (UTSC), and many more!
🕑: 02:20 PM - 03:05 PM
Panel II - From Individual Action to Systems Design
Host: Jennifer Taves
Info: Panellists will discuss a wide range of perspectives on how community-centred solutions can strengthen climate resilience. They will explore how engineers, businesses, governments, and institutions can work together to build sustainability solutions, highlighting the role of communities in creating lasting and transformative change. By bridging individual and collective responsibility, we can create new opportunities to explore how resilient systems can be designed with greater consideration of the sociotechnical contexts in which sustainable technologies are embedded.
🕑: 03:10 PM - 03:55 PM
Sustainable Entrepreneur Spotlight
Host: Mohammad Tahvili
Info: Mo (Mohammad Tahvili) is an entrepreneur, founder, and entrepreneurship program leader working at the intersection of technology, business, and impact. Through building and operating ventures across marketing services, sustainable corporate catering, AI-powered diversity management, and SaaS for innovation ecosystems, Mo brings a hands-on perspective to entrepreneurship and sustainable innovation.
His work focuses on helping founders and small business owners turn ideas into viable, sustainable ventures while strengthening the ecosystems that support entrepreneurship. Having built businesses himself, Mo speaks candidly about the realities behind entrepreneurship, from validating ideas and finding customers to pricing, managing resources, navigating uncertainty, and making difficult decisions as a founder.
Mo is particularly interested in how entrepreneurship can create economic mobility and address complex social and environmental challenges.
🕑: 04:00 PM - 04:45 PM
Closing Keynote - Green Infrastructure and Asset Management Principles
Host: Christopher Despins
Info: Christopher Despins is the Climate Change Adaptation Advisor with the Office of Climate Change and Energy Management at the Region of Peel.
🕑: 04:50 PM - 05:00 PM
Closing Ceremonies
Host: Sustainable Engineers Association
Info: A big thank you from SEA for attending our conference!
Event venue & nearby stays
Bahen Centre for Information Technology, 40 Saint George Street, Toronto, Canada
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.