St. Paul, Minnesota (Jan. 15, 2019)—The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has announced that Zaria Forman will deliver the opening plenary for its annual IMPACT green building conference. IMPACT is the Midwest’s green building event of the year and will be co-located with USGBC’s Green Schools Conference & Expo 2019 (GSCE). IMPACT + GSCE will be held in St. Paul, Minnesota, April 8-9, 2019.

The IMPACT conference unites hundreds of industry leaders, experts and professionals to inspire, connect and advance sustainable building across the Midwest. Industry professionals attending IMPACT have a unique opportunity to enhance their understanding of the K-12 schools sector by also attending GSCE. GSCE is produced in partnership with the Green Schools National Network. As the largest gathering of green schools advocates in the country, GSCE offers an opportunity for attendees to learn creative strategies to support healthy, sustainable schools. The co-location of the two conferences will bring together experts from diverse industries within the green building world for a unique opportunity of collaboration and networking.

Zaria Forman documents climate change with powerful pastel drawings. She travels to remote regions of the world to collect images and inspiration for her work, which is exhibited in venues around the world. She has flown with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on several Operation IceBridge missions over Antarctica, Greenland and Arctic Canada, inspiring her art.

"I make drawings of remote landscapes at the forefront of climate change. By sharing the beauty and sublimity of these remote places, I hope to energize viewers to help preserve them,” said Forman. “I am honored and very much looking forward to sharing my work with a community that is helping to shape and inspire future generations to protect this earth that sustains us all."

Forman’s work has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, CNN and PBS. She has delivered a TEDTalk; spoken at Amazon, Google and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; exhibited in Banksy’s Dismaland; and was the artist-in-residence aboard the National Geographic Explorer in Antarctica. Her works have appeared in publications, such as The New York Times, National Geographic, Huffington Post and the Smithsonian Magazine.

For more information, visit the GSCE/IMPACT website.