Regional Connect Chicago

As our official tour host, Patagonia will welcome attendees into its unique retail and Rewear space, where sustainability, circularity, and community come together. Located in Chicago's historic Fulton Market district, just blocks from Steelcase, the 2-in-1 Patagonia and Worn Wear store serves as both a retail destination and a community gathering space, designed to extend the life of products through repair, resale, and reuse while supporting environmental action. Learn more about Patagonia's Chicago Fulton Market store.

As part of this exclusive attendee experience, you'll enjoy:

• Guided access to Patagonia's retail and Worn Wear space
• Light refreshments
• Dedicated networking with fellow Regional Connect attendees before the conference
• A private shopping experience and exclusive attendee discount on Patagonia retail purchases

Best of all, this experience is included with your Regional Connect registration at no additional cost!

Rush is leveraging its purchasing power to create positive change upstream and downstream of its facilities and in the process, across its value chain. It is estimated that over 70% of healthcare’s greenhouse gas emissions come from our supply chain. Rush purchases and uses thousands of products to deliver award-winning care, with products coming from all around the world. This can also come with significant environmental impact from manufacturing and delivery. The organization is building processes to measure and address this impact with dedicated, collaborative partnerships both internally and externally.

Presenters:

Ian Hughes, Director of Environmental Sustainability

Ian Hughes is a passionate sustainability advocate with over 20 years of experience and impact across a variety of sectors. He currently serves as the Director of Environmental Sustainability at Rush University System for Health, where his award-winning team leads system-wide initiatives across climate change mitigation and resilience, resource conservation, landfill diversion, and sustainable procurement. Ian's work is grounded in a simple but powerful conviction: that environmental stewardship is preventative medicine.

Jinia Sarkar, Sustainability Manager

Jinia Sarkar is a Sustainability Manager at Rush University System for Health and an Adjunct Instructor at Rush University. She specializes in healthcare decarbonization, sustainable procurement, and clinical sustainability, with a focus on advancing environmental and health equity outcomes. Prior to Rush, she worked at Advisory Board, where she helped develop sustainability resources for health systems nationwide. She is passionate about advancing planetary health through education, collaboration, and systems change.

Allison Watson, Sustainability Coordinator

Allison Watson is a Sustainability Coordinator at Rush University System for Health, where she supports initiatives that reduce waste, improve resource efficiency, and strengthen sustainable food systems across the health system. She is committed to advancing practical sustainability solutions that improve environmental outcomes while supporting the health of patients, staff, and communities. Allison is passionate about building healthier, more equitable communities through environmental stewardship and collaborative approaches that connect human and planetary health.

Presenter:

Angela Foster-Rice, Commercial Climate Executive

Angela Foster-Rice has more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of aviation decarbonization and sustainability, SAF, carbon markets, and climate policy. She has helped shape the evolution of both SAF and carbon markets—from early airline adoption and investment, to fuel production, policy development, and market creation.

Most recently, she served as Vice President of Government & Regulatory Affairs at LanzaJet, where she helped advance commercialization of the world’s first commercial-scale ethanol-to-SAF refinery.

Angela began her SAF journey during her 16 years at United Airlines, where she served as Managing Director of Global Environmental Affairs & Sustainability and Managing Counsel, Environmental. There, she led pioneering SAF initiatives, including the airline’s early commercial-scale SAF deployment (at LAX with World Energy) and the first U.S. airline investment in a SAF producer. She worked both with United’s suppliers and with their customers in implementing ways to reduce emissions across the value chain.

Between United and LanzaJet, Angela held senior leadership roles in the voluntary carbon markets, where she closed landmark transactions and helped shape emerging frameworks on carbon market integrity and corporate climate claims.

What does it look like when both services and goods providers align around the same sustainable procurement goals? In this session, IA and Steelcase will share how their ESG journey is shaping a more responsible, transparent, and actionable procurement approach across the value chain.

Through real-world examples, the session will explore how design services, material specifications, and product decisions can work together to reduce Scope 3 emissions while also advancing climate, equity, and ethical sourcing standards. Attendees will gain insight into how organizations are responding to evolving RFP requirements, engaging suppliers in science-based targets, and leveraging tools and resources to drive measurable progress.

This conversation brings together two complementary perspectives, services and goods, to demonstrate how integrated approaches can better support clients in meeting their sustainability goals and embedding sustainable procurement practices into everyday decision-making.

Presenters:

Brett Gardner, Senior Director of Sustainability, IA (Interior Architects)

Brett Gardner is IA’s Senior Director of Sustainability, leading the firm's ESG initiatives and client sustainability services through Ecos Studio. With more than 30 years of experience spanning commercial interiors, environmental health, and sustainable real estate, he helps organizations create healthier, lower-carbon built environments through sustainable design, procurement, green building certifications, circular economy strategies, and materials transparency initiatives that improve environmental and social performance across real estate portfolios and supply chains. At IA, Brett created and oversees the firm's ESG program, leading greenhouse gas accounting, science-based target initiative (SBTi) implementation, ESG disclosures, supplier engagement, and decarbonization strategies across global operations. He has helped the firm achieve measurable reductions in Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions while strengthening sustainability governance, reporting, and accountability. Beyond IA's own operations, he is advancing the integration of sustainability and wellness best practices into design and delivery processes to drive broader industry impact.  Brett is a Certified Sustainability (ESG) Practitioner, Illinois Registered Interior Designer (NCIDQ), and LEED AP BD+C. He holds degrees in Interior Design and Environmental Health from Harrington College of Design and Purdue University.

Kaila Bryzgalski, Portfolio Manager, Product Sustainability Marketing, Steelcase

Kaila Bryzgalski is a sustainability and business leader with cross‑functional experience spanning supply management, product management, customer service, and marketing. The common thread in Kaila's career has been the passionate belief that long‑term business performance and sustainability are inseparable. At Steelcase, Kaila is responsible for the global development and implementation of product sustainability marketing across categories, translating enterprise ambitions into market‑relevant initiatives that help the world (both people and the planet) work better. She led the strategy and launch of Circular by Steelcase, establishing a platform for furniture carbon reduction at scale, and drove the strategy to double the recycled content across Steelcase's top‑selling, high‑performance seating portfolio. She brings a systems‑level perspective to sustainability, partnering closely with product development, supply chain, and marketing leaders to embed circularity, material responsibility, and carbon considerations into core business decisions. Kaila’s work sits at the intersection of sustainability strategy and go‑to‑market execution, helping align environmental impact with commercial relevance across changing global markets. She holds an MBA with a concentration in Sustainable Business from the University of Colorado, and a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources and Environmental Science from Purdue University.

Sustainable procurement can take on many different forms. One effective method to engage in building a resilient, local and sustainable supply chain is through exploring contracting with local suppliers. In this workshop, participants will explore successful methods to build a local purchasing strategy including identifying local suppliers, obtaining buy-in from key purchasing leaders and methodology to integrate local purchasing practices into the supply chain. Sustainability and procurement professionals will walk away with a deeper understanding of the value of local purchasing and practical next steps to bring back to their organization.

Presenter:

Sarah Chartier, MBA, PMP, Founder, Yoop Consulting LLC

Sarah Chartier is a passionate conduit and facilitator of system change, drawing on fifteen years of experience in corporate sustainability, supplier development, environmental advocacy, and public speaking. Her approach centers on community, the environment, economic resiliency, and equity, prioritizing relationships, creativity, and collaboration. As an experienced sustainability program manager within the healthcare industry, she successfully integrated sustainability and supplier development into operational and support services, including supply chain, facilities, and food services. Sarah launched her business, Yoop Consulting, in 2023 to be a conduit for sustainable business solutions. She has since consulted for state and national organizations as a subject matter expert. She received her MBA in 2020 and her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in 2018. Beyond these credentials, her wide-ranging experience includes program management, technical writing, and a TEDx speaking engagement, as well as leadership roles on non-profit boards. In 2022, Crain's Detroit Business named Sarah a “Notable Leader in Sustainability”. In her free time, she enjoys hiking with her beagle, birding, gardening, writing as a Citizen Journalist for The Rapidian, reading, and visiting the Farmers Market. A proud, born-and-raised Yooper, she lives by the adage: Proper planning prevents poor performance. Her intrinsic drive, coupled with strong organizational skills and a penchant for process, has enabled her to successfully create vision, strategy, and project plans, executing a legacy of  sustained program success.

Facilitated small-group discussions where practitioners share current challenges, lessons learned, and strategies in sustainable procurement.

Topics

• Sustainability 101 
• Human Rights
• AI
• Small Business

Organizations that procure logistics services for international freight transport, long-distance domestic trucking, or time-critical air shipments likely have material Scope 3 Category 4 Upstream Transportation emissions, but may not have access to good data or relationships to quantify, report, and reduce these emissions. By partnering with a multimodal freight forwarder focused on sustainability, logistics purchasers of all sizes can simplify the collection and reporting of high-quality Scope 3 transport emissions data; achieve immediate reductions through data-driven shipment planning; and leverage the power of demand aggregation to accelerate transport decarbonization with high-quality, reportable sustainable transport certificates. 

Presenter:

Anne Shudy Palmer, Director of Sustainability, Green Worldwide Shipping

Anne Shudy Palmer is a sustainability expert and LEED accredited professional with over 20 years of experience in certification, program development, technical project management, reporting, and communication across business, public, and nonprofit sectors. She serves as Director of Sustainability for Green Worldwide Shipping, a leading provider of international logistics services and supply chain management. Anne holds a Master of Science in Sustainability from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as a double Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.