Tonight the world's leading Fortune 500 CEOs, sustainability experts and political leaders will gather in Santa Barbara to kick off the second annual ECO:nomics summit hosted by the Wall Street Journal. This invite-only event has become the premier forum for exploring the "intersection of business and the environment," and this year's poignant theme is "Creating Environmental Capital."

 

It goes without saying that the ECO:nomics event will focus largely on creating capital period, as businesses grapple with massive global recession and a dramatic political 180 in Washington. There is no doubt that the CEOs in attendance will be facing some of the toughest decisions of their careers in 2009, and the WSJ event is meant to be both a resource-exchange opportunity and a discovery of creative ways for their companies to grow and be sustainable, both fiscally and environmentally.

 

The agenda is largely enshrouded in secrecy, but I will be reporting from the floor (no video or photos, sorry) and giving up-to-date reports on MNN and via twitter @greendig. The presenters are amazing and the attendee list is an all-star line up. To name a few...

 

Al Gore

Alan Mullaly, CEO of Ford

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google

Anne Mulcahy, CEO Xerox

T. Boone Pickens, BP

Matt Rogers, DOE

Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

Bill McDonough

John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins

Vinod Khosla

 

... and many more energy, business and government leaders.