First Green Growth Summit at CIS2025 celebrates Guam’s role in expanding movement across Micronesia

At the first Green Growth Summit, Austin Shelton, PhD, director of the University of Guam Center for Island Sustainability and Sea Grant, talked about how the Guam Green Growth (G3) initiative began.

 

What started as a local sustainability effort has now grown into an expanding regional movement, according to Shelton, who spoke at the Summit on the third day of the 16th UOG Conference on Island Sustainability (CIS2025).

 

Shelton noted that G3 started when Guam was invited to join as a founding member of the Local2030 Islands Network in 2019 after forming a partnership with Hawai’i Green Growth and its CEO, Celeste Connors.

 

At that time, Shelton was still working to establish support for G3 on the island and heard from Connors about the launching of the Local2030 Islands Network at the 74th UN General Assembly.

 

In a determined push he rallied Guam’s leadership, even personally intercepting Lt. Gov. Josh Tenorio, who later became the G3 steering committee co-chair, as he was leaving his house to speak at a government event to present the idea of becoming a founding member.

 

“Guam can be a leader in this. We have an opportunity to be founding members of this network. And he (Tenorio) said, OK,” Shelton said.

 

Two weeks later, Tenorio was on board a plane for New York, where he would represent Guam at the Local2030 Islands Network and commit to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

 

Soon after, Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero signed Executive Order 2019-23, which established G3 and appointed representatives from government, academia, the private sector, and civil society.

 

UOG was designated as the lead facilitator to ensure that the effort transcends political transitions—this strategy is modeled after the long-standing Micronesia Challenge, which has endured changes in leadership across the region, according to Shelton.

 

With the support of the Governor and UOG President Anita Borja Enriquez, DBA, G3 expanded and became the largest public-private partnership in Guam, inspiring change throughout Micronesia and fostering new green growth movements among neighboring islands.

 

“They really bring this all together and elevate Guam Green Growth and the movement for our sustainable future here on our island, and we’re getting attention worldwide because of their efforts and the efforts of the Guam Green Growth Working Group,” Shelton said.

 

Last year, with support from the US Department of State through the NOAA National Sea Grant College Program, G3 has assisted Palau and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in starting their own initiatives, while also backing new coordinators in the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, as reported by Shelton.

 

At the closing of CIS2025, the Marshall Islands formally joined the Green Growth movement.

 

Today, Shelton said the G3 initiative is anchored by a public dashboard that tracks progress not only in environmental areas such as tree planting and renewable energy, but also in health, education, economic development, and cultural preservation.