Alberta Real Estate Foundation (AREF)

The Alberta Real Estate Foundation is a non-profit group dedicated to serving the realtor community in Alberta.   Their funding is generated through interest on public money from realtors’ pooled accounts and must be spent on projects that benefit the realty industry and the people of Alberta.   The Natural Step Canada partnered with the foundation to provide Albertans with a tool to make sustainable household decisions.  Sustainability at Home: a Toolkit provides people with a practical resource to help them access, understand, and apply sustainable development concepts to their household decision-making. The toolkit provides an overview of sustainability, what it means at the household level, and how to think strategically about the hundreds of decisions Albertans make in their homes. The toolkit was developed by The Natural Step Canada and piloted in five communities, reaching over 5,000 households so far. The toolkit is mostly distributed online free of charge with a limited print run on 100% post-consumer, FSC paper printed with chemical-free inks.  The toolkit is now a finalist for the provincial Emerald Award.