Proof Over Promises Is Done. The Work Isn't.

Last September, my dumb brain decided that it wanted to do something big.

I wanted to host the first conference of sustainability professionals in the promotional products and branded merchandise industry. Working alongside so many people in this industry, I kept seeing the same thing: these were common challenges, and they were solvable — but only if we worked on them together.

So I went looking for help, and I was fortunate enough to find some of the smartest people in the business to build it with me. The result was Proof Over Promises, which wrapped up on Friday, and which I am genuinely proud of.

It was never meant to be a feel-good meeting

Kate Alavez, Laura Smith, Nick McCulloch, and Brian Campbell led the design of this conference around a simple idea: people should leave with work product, not warm feelings.

That meant working groups. That meant an assembly. That meant sitting in rooms and doing the hard, specific, unglamorous parts of sustainability work instead of talking around them. Real climate progress was made, in the most literal sense — things exist now that did not exist a week ago.

A working group session at Winter Park. Flip charts, sticky notes, and the actual work.

Thank you to Denise Taschereau, Emily Gigot, Elizabeth Wimbush, and my business partner William Loopesko for teaching and leading. Thank you to Auden Schendler for guidance that genuinely stirred the room. Thank you to Rachel Furlone and Kaia Pirrazini at Winter Park Resort for their hospitality. And thank you to Tyler Miller for his quiet support — the kind that doesn't get noticed unless you're looking for it.

It was a jam-packed forty hours at the end of several very busy weeks.

Much progress was made. Much still remains.

Both of those are true, and I don't want to let go of either one.

When it was over, we all took a welcome break. For me, that meant leading a backpacking trip with my family and ten other Scouts into the Holy Cross Wilderness here in Colorado.

The Holy Cross Wilderness, Colorado. A good reminder of what the work is for.

I'd recommend it to anyone who needs a reminder of why any of this is urgent. Standing in a place like that, with a group of kids who are going to inherit it, clarifies things fast. The work isn't abstract. And bringing new leaders into the habit of valuing the natural world isn't a side project — it's the same project.

We're going to keep pushing at Aclymate.

I hope you will, too.