I2c Setup Issue

I am trying to setup an Adafruit i2c temperature sensor in Python with a RaspberryPi4. The only example code for this sensor (SCD-40) sets up the i2c by importing board module:

import board
import adafruit_scd4x
i2c = board.I2C() # uses board.SCL and board.SDA
scd4x = adafruit_scd4x.SCD4X(i2c)

*** This works and runs fine on its own. My problem is that I also have 3 stepper motors which I'm controlling using RPI.GPIO:

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

*** When I try bringing my i2c temperature sensor into the stepper motor Python code, I get an error telling me I cannot use board with RPi.GPIO
ERROR: (GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BOARD) ValueError: A different mode has already been set!)

HOW CAN I SETUP AN I2C SENSOR WITHOUT USING THE import BOARD module? Is there a way to set it using RPi.GPIO

Why do you need 'RPi.GPIO'? You can use 'board' with 'digitalio' to access to GPIOs.

import board
import digitalio
import busio

pin17 = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.D17)
pin17.direction = digitalio.Direction.OUTPUT
pin17.pull = digitalio.Pull.DOWN

value = pin17.value

You can also use I2C with 'busio'

i2c = busio.I2C(board.SCL, board.SDA)

Read this link and this link.