Reflecting on 2011, we at The Natural Step Canada are struck by the year's events that illustrate the global sustainability challenge and the growing sentiment that systemic change is required. To name but a few…

The Arab Spring saw revolution and widespread protest across the Middle East in an effort to combat dictatorship, concentration of wealth and power in few hands, corruption, human rights violations, economic decline, unemployment, and rising food prices.

The United States experienced a record of more than $12 billion of weather disaster-related damage, showing the real and immediate costs of extreme weather related to our changing global climate.

The earthquake, tsunami, and resulting nuclear meltdown in Japan prompted worldwide debate about whether nuclear power should be part of our energy mix in a sustainable future.

And, of course, the Occupy Movement demonstrated a democratic awakening that addresses corporate greed, a growing disparity of wealth, inadequate financial regulation, and corporate influence on politics.

The circumstances that preceded each of these events may seem disparate, but the responses show a growing awareness that a systemic approach will be required to achieve the desired social changes. For example, to develop solutions to the climate change issue, democracy, human rights, and energy issues will all be implicated. In other words, everything is interrelated.

The following editorial by Chad Park, Executive Director of The Natural Step Canada, appeared in the Corporate Citizens Mediaplanet Special Report in the National Post on December 28, 2011.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is outdated and counterproductive to successful enterprise and the global sustainability imperative.

CSR encourages us to incorporate environmental and social considerations into a business-as-usual scenario. This is the triple-bottom-line approach and is often depicted with three overlapping circles representing economy, society, and environment.

This is a flawed paradigm.

There has been a lot of conversation over the past couple of years around bringing sustainability and accountability into business schools. The MBA Oath for responsible value creation is a good attempt at this – the movement was started by Harvard students in 2009 and has since been adopted by over 250 schools internationally and had been broadly lauded. The oath itself underlines the responsibility of business leaders to act in an ethically responsible fashion that goes beyond compliance and speaks to future generations and building trust within their own organizations and throughout society. I would prefer more specifics on some of the definitions (specifically around sustainability and healthy planet), but I would otherwise happily jump on the bandwagon.

My question to those who take the oath and more pointedly at the schools who are churning out MBA graduates: How do you expect students to uphold the tenants of this oath when they have been explicitly trained otherwise?

One of Alberta’s largest builders and its quest for a greener world

In early 2009, Bijan Mannani was talking about work with his son, a Grade 3 student with a keen awareness of the physical environment around him. Bijan was working in Alberta’s oil and gas sector at the time and the controversial energy found in the northern oils sands was topical news.

His son posed the question around the dinner table: “Don’t you know that you are damaging the environment with the work that you are doing?” Bijan recalls.

At that moment, Bijan understood a change in his life was necessary and today he’s talking environmental sustainability as the chief operating officer of one of Alberta’s largest builders.

Re-imagining our Neighbourhoods: A vision for the future of Alberta

Ottawa and Calgary, November 30, 2011—Neighbourhoods are the building blocks of society. They are the places we call home, where we live, work, and play. But what are the characteristics of a livable, vibrant, sustainable neighbourhood? A free new report released today by The Natural Step Canada and the Alberta Real Estate Foundation (AREF), Re-imagining our Neighbourhoods: A vision for the future of Alberta, begins to answer exactly that question.

A contribution to AREF’s 20th Anniversary Thought Leadership series, the report builds on The Natural Step Canada’s experience working with dozens of communities across the country to accelerate change toward sustainability over more than a decade.

Over the past few months, The Natural Step Canada engaged people in a dialogue about what sustainability means at the neighbourhood level. The new report provides a summary of ideas gathered from Albertans through a survey and an online forum, as well as from experts from across Canada through interviews.

Embedding Sustainability into the Culture of Municipal Government

London, Ottawa, and Vancouver, November 15, 2011—A growing number of municipal governments across the country are aiming to become beacons of sustainability in their communities, but many are struggling to lead by example. A free new report released today, Embedding Sustainability into the Culture of Municipal Government, promises to help municipal change agents advance sustainability in their organizations and become role models for others in the community.

Developed as a collaboration between the Network for Business Sustainability (NBS), The Natural Step Canada, and Dr. Stephanie Bertels from the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University, the report is the result of a comprehensive review of municipal sustainability practices from across Canada. Based on leading research, the guide provides practical guidance for municipal practitioners and organizations to support a culture of sustainability in municipal governments.

Available for download and distribution for free, municipal change agents are encouraged to study this new resource, share it widely with their colleagues, and incorporate it into their municipal sustainability planning. Embedding Sustainability into the Culture of Municipal Government is available at www.thenaturalstep.org/canada/toolkits#municipalgovernment.