Canada

What do a symphony orchestra and two exciting new toolkits from The Natural Step Canada have in common?

Both require a collection of diverse talents, a tremendous amount of preliminary practice, and are meant to move their audiences so that they leave forever changed.

Over the past eight months, I have helped develop two new resources for Alberta organizations. To me, the Sustainability Primer and Planning for Sustainability: A Starter Guide represent an extraordinary collective achievement that has drawn on the expertise of TNS’ sustainability advisors, communications team, top management, administrative staff, as well as that of an external editorial committee.

We regret to inform you that we are postponing the launch of the TNS Network, Working Toward a Sustainable Future, in Whistler June 4 and 5th. This means the peer dialogue sessions, workshop with Bryan Smith, networking dinner with keynote from Nike’s Lorrie Vogel, and sustainability site visits are cancelled. We will, however, still be proceeding with two municipal workshops – on Sustainable Community Planning and Sustainability, Governance and Organizational Change to take place June 4th .

Today I had the pleasure of watching the students of the University of Western Ontario’s Masters progam in Environment and Sustainability present to their peers, partners and other community guests the output of their 6-week consulting projects.

All of the student projects used The Natural Step Framework as the guiding structure for their analyses and recommendations to clients ranging from the the university, the city, a neighboring First Nation community,

A recent article by Thomas Friedman in the International Herald Tribune reminds us of the tremendous challenge and opportunity represented by our current economic situation.

“What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession?” Friedman asks. “What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall – when Mother Nature and the market both said ‘No more.’”

From February 3-13, 2009, I participated in the Hållbarhet Australia Learning Journey, along with 25 other sustainability practitioners who share a common Masters in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) from the Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden. It was an absolutely extraordinary experience that clearly highlighted the invaluable roll a strong network can play in the personal and collective impact of sustainability change agents.