Filed Under Communities

Does Canada Need a Sustainability Literacy Month or a Decade? A Look Back at 2012 and ahead at 2013

Chad Park — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 12:30:32 -0500

Did you know that November is financial literacy month? My trusted friend Wikipedia tells me that financial literacy is “the ability to understand finance.” More specifically, it refers to the set of skills and knowledge that allows an individual to make informed and effective decisions through their understanding of finances. Clearly, this is an important capacity to cultivate.

I think we need a sustainability literacy month – or perhaps more realistically a sustainability literacy decade. As hard as it is for those of us who work in this field to believe, many more people need to realize the seriousness of the sustainability crisis we face, the integrated nature of our social, environmental and economic challenges, and the fundamentals of sustainability science. Sustainability professionals still operate in a relatively small bubble of like-minded individuals and/or face major challenges in engaging their colleagues, customers, employees, investors and others who are often not as sustainability literate.

I’ve come to realize that this is The Natural Step’s core capability. Through our learning programs and within our advisory service engagements, we have proven over the years to be extremely effective at helping individuals with diverse worldviews to see the sustainability challenge differently and to understand its relevance to them. Suanne DeBoer, the past GM of DeBoer’s Furniture, expressed her experience of this just this week in an article she wrote for the Sustainability Learning Centre’s newsletter about The Natural Step’s Sustainability 101 eLearning course.

It has been a terrific year for our sustainability learning programs at The Natural Step Canada. Together with our partners at The Co-operators and supported by dozens of other partners in five cities across Canada, we’ve established a fantastic youth sustainability leadership program, IMPACT! Sustainability Champions, which is making an enormous difference in the lives of the 150 young people who have participated to date and the dozens of mentors and community partners who are supporting them. Two successful MBA Sustainability Leadership Bootcamps have had a profound effect on 70 young and mid-career professionals who are now better equipped to play a sustainability leadership role wherever their careers take them. We have run sustainability leadership courses in cities across Canada, and helped raise sustainability literacy levels for hundreds of individuals through training components in our various advisory engagements with businesses and municipal governments. Leaders in two of our best partner companies, The Landmark Group of Builders and The Co-operators, were even recognized for their sustainability leadership at the Clean 50 awards this year. Those two individuals, Barbara and Reza, are terrific examples of what it means to build sustainability literacy. Five years ago, neither of them would have considered themselves a sustainability leader. Barbara had risen up the ranks of a large insurance company and was a specialist in the insurance business. Reza was a home-builder, having built one of the most successful home building companies in Alberta. And yet, each of them in their own way has become highly “sustainability literate” to the point that this insurance expert and home builder are now being recognized as sustainability leaders. Reflecting back to the definition of financial literacy above, Barbara and Reza have developed “a set of skills and knowledge that allows them to make informed and effective decisions through their understanding of… sustainability.” We need many more like them.

So, what is even more important than what The Natural Step has accomplished in sustainability literacy in 2012 is where we plan to go next. We believe that raising the level of sustainability literacy in Canada is both vitally important and an area where The Natural Step can provide issue leadership and build partnerships and coalitions. In doing so, we will put our learning programs and core capability toward the service of a bigger collective mandate. In practical terms, this means that we will seek partnerships that will create opportunities to build sustainability literacy in strategic domains, such as professional associations, corporate boards, and certain high-profile public contexts. We will also be guided by the collective impact philosophy in how we evolve the model for delivering our courses; for example, by creating real opportunity for regional and local NGOs to benefit by offering the courses in their communities. Further details on all of this will be provided in our next newsletter in early 2013.

Since this is our final newsletter of the year, I close my message the same way we do every year – with a humble request for your support. The Natural Step Canada is a charitable not-for-profit organization that accomplishes its goals in part through the financial contributions of many individuals who care about its mission and support its programs. If you believe in the importance of raising sustainability literacy rates in Canada and in The Natural Step’s capacity to play a leadership role in doing so, please consider making a year-end donation to us. Thank you to those of you who have given in the past and who give regularly. Your support makes a big difference for a small organization with big goals.

Canada

A “Golden Standard” develops from collaboration in Dublin

Jennifer Reid — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:56:21 -0400

Caroline Nolan, Mary Ostafi and Mélina Planchenault

In January 2008, Dublin City Council (DCC) began working with RealEyes Sustainability Ltd. and The Natural Step to move toward strategic, organisational sustainability using The Natural Step Framework.

In November 2008, Dublin City Council kicked-off its new “Sustainable Dublin” effort with Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, founder of The Natural Step, providing inspiration through the keynote address. To date, the City of Dublin has already made significant strides with strategies to improve energy efficiency, waste management and protect biodiversity.

This past spring, Caroline Nolan, Mary Ostafi and Mélina Planchenault joined this collaboration as a thesis dissertation team from the Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) program at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden. Their goal was to help the city envision an optimal planning and governance process, referred to as the “Golden Standard”, for achieving long-lasting cultural change from within the local authority. The “Golden Standard” acts as a process based on principles of success to lead local authorities through a transformational process while moving toward a sustainable vision. Backcasting from the ideal “Golden Standard” planning process, the team was able to analyse the current planning practices and generate key recommendations to help DCC move Dublin towards sustainability.

Feedback on the research results from Dublin City officials has been positive thus far:

“The City of Dublin was fortunate on two counts, firstly to have such competent ambassadors for The Natural Step who chose the Dublin City Development Plan as the practical focus for their master’s dissertation,” noted Dick Gleeson, DCC’s Lead City Planner, of the students’ work. “Secondly through a rigorous application of the Framework, the development of the Golden Standard establishes an inspirational and legible blueprint, which exploits the central role of a City Development Plan in forging a sustainable city.”

“In moving towards a sustainable Dublin we are committed to exploiting fully the platform provided by The Natural Step,” added Michael Stubbs, DCC’s Assistant City Manager. “The Catalytic City Development Plan dissertation is particularly timely and helpful in tackling the challenge of extending a set of principals into a strategic framework and implementation methodology.”

With more than half the world’s population now living in urban areas, city governments and planning agencies are a critically important part of addressing the world’s social, economic and environmental challenges. The “Golden Standard” offers a macro blueprint for planning in today’s complex urban systems. Caroline, Mary and Mélina hope that other cities will be able to benefit from the “Golden Standard” they developed through the DCC case study and happy to answer questions about their work.

To download the team’s full thesis, please click here.
To download the full Golden Standard table synthesis, please click here.

Action for a Sustainable America - Seattle, USA

Chas Martin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:01:30 -0400

Start: Jun 10 2009 - 12:00am

End: Jun 11 2009 - 11:59pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT

Regina Hauser, Executive Director of The Natural Step Network - USA will be be moderating a panel discussion at an important conference coming up on June 10-11 in Seattle. Action for a Sustainable America will bring together leaders in corporate sustainability to examine how they are using sustainability to redefine corporate strategy and drive management practice.
Over a dozen CEO and Chairmen are speaking including senior representatives from Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Lafarge, New Belgium Beer, Kettle Foods, The Holland Inc, End Footwear, ShoreBank Pacific, Gray’s Harbor Paper, Nestle Waters North America, fymi, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, gDiapers and more.
Along with corporate case studies, Action for a Sustainable America includes a special session on mandatory GHG reporting as well as updates on other regional, national and international climate policy developments impacting business. Mayor of Seattle, Greg Nickels will be welcoming delegates to this exciting event.
Explore additional information on the complete Series of Events in other cities or contact Andrew Slavin at 604-569-1752 or email.

Alcan: Clean solutions for today and tomorrow

Kirstin Piirtoniemi — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 11:15:05 -0500

(DISCLAIMER: The work portrayed in this document was undertaken with the former Alcan, prior to its acquisition by Rio Tinto in 2007. Rio Tinto Alcan remains committed to sustainable development. As such, the work begun with The Natural Step as described below was folded into larger efforts centrally directed by Rio Tinto in London, UK. The specific partnership between The Natural Step and the former Alcan’s Bauxite & Alumina division was halted in 2007 within the above-mentioned context.)

The Opportunity

Committed to sustainability and increasingly reliant on projects based in lesser-industrialized countries, Alcan’s Bauxite & Alumina (B&A) division saw an opportunity to develop a sustainability vision that brought social and environmental concerns even more into focus for the business.

The Response

In 2007, The Natural Step principles and process were put into action at Alcan’s B&A sites in the Pacific Region to help reduce risks and increase the company’s competitive advantage in alignment with their sustainability vision.

The Process

In 2007, The Natural Step Canada advisors Chad Park and Joe Herbertson held a workshop with the Alcan management team in Montreal, Canada. The workshop had two main goals:

To develop a sustainability vision that would guide Alcan’s B&A sustainability strategy moving forward.
To align the management team with a shared definition and understanding of sustainability, and to build buy-in for the sustainability vision.

Early in the workshop, participants identified Alcan’s top sustainability challenges, two of which were viewed as critical: meeting company growth expectations and addressing the issue of emissions associated with bauxite mining and alumina production. To address these challenges, the participants proceeded to develop a sustainability vision facilitated by The Natural Step’s science-based approach to sustainability and developed through backcasting from sustainability principles.

After the success of the Montreal workshop, a second session was held in Brisbane, Australia, not only to create the space for a cross-functional sustainability conversation, but more pragmatically to operationalize the vision in Alcan’s largest bauxite mining and alumina refining operation in Nhulunbuy on the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory of Australia.

With Gove in mind, workshop participants were asked to brainstorm potential social, environmental, and management innovations that might lead them toward their envisioned future. Ideas were then discussed and divided into prospective long-term and short-term measures, some of which led to outcomes. These included: the use of sustainability metrics in monthly and quarterly reporting, research and development explicitly using sustainability to guide innovation, the integration of sustainability objectives and approaches within greenfield projects, and a cross-functional working group quantifying the business value of Alcan’s sustainability investments.

Although the specific work described in this case was halted, sustainability principles remain embedded in Rio Tinto Alcan’s current business systems and processes, ensuring that economic, social, and environmental considerations are considered in its day-to-day operations as it drives toward its vision of a sustainable future.

The Feedback

“The Natural Step Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development is useful because it provides a shared mental model and vocabulary. Sustainability doesn’t seem overwhelming and incomprehensible any more—everybody gets it!”

-Kariann Aarup, Alcan B&A Social Sustainability Team

View full case study

Learn more about The Natural Step Canada’s Service Path for Sustainable Business and how we can help your business develop a bold sustainability vision, strategy, and action plan. Please contact us to discuss your unique needs or join our next FREE Introduction to Strategic Sustainability for Business in Canada webinar.

Written by Talithea McInnis

Canada

Awesome neighbourhoods for a sustainable city: What do you declare possible?

Pong Leung — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 09:55:18 -0400

We create and re-create our neighbourhoods constantly. What do we need from our neighbourhoods? What do our neighbourhoods need from us? What do YOU declare possible?

Our cities are made by us. Most parts of cities are left to us by earlier generations, but they are still made by us. We believe that working at the neighbourhood scale is where we can make cities what we need them to be. It is at this scale where we experience the city and all it has to offer.

It’s time to name the impossible awesome dream. It’s time to experiment and find our way there. It’s time to name what the dream is for our city and our neighbourhoods.

It’s time to make the impossible possible.

Join us for an experiment…

As part of its Sustainability Transition Lab program and with the support of the Alberta Real Estate Foundation, The Natural Step Canada is hosting an experiment in Edmonton this fall.

Earlier this year, we hosted a Dialogue for a Sustainable and Prosperous Edmonton among leading citizens. At this gathering we heard that now is a key time to engage all generations in imagining a new future for our neighbourhoods.

Workshop I: Youth declare the impossibly awesome neighbourhood possible

Are you aged 18-30 (give or take) and working (paid or unpaid) to make your neighbourhood and city better?

This is an invitation to young people in the Edmonton area to declare what the “impossibly awesome” neighbourhood looks and feels like. What is it for? Who does it serve? How does it operate? What are the characteristics of a neighbourhood that meets the needs of today and tomorrow? What will our social, energy, economic, ecological, cultural, and government systems look like?

System change requires the participation of a wide range of perspectives and values. Join us to share yours and declare Edmonton’s future.

DATE: Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 9:00am-4:00pm (coffee & lunch provided)

LOCATION: The Older Timers’ Cabin, 9430 Scona Road, Edmonton, AB (map)

Registration Deadline: October 22

REGISTRATION CLOSED

Workshop II: Pool the intelligence of the whole city to advance the youth’s awesome declaration

Are you aged 18 – 88 (give or take)? Are you open to being influenced by the dreams of youth and accept the challenge to be responsible for the consequences of today’s actions?

It will take a whole city to respond to the youth declaration of the impossibly awesome neighbourhood. You share this dream and you believe the impossible is possible. You believe that young and old must work together to make it happen. You believe that people of various walks of life and perspectives can work together.

Join us to take action with the wisdom of our varied perspectives and multiple generations.

DATE: Thursday, November 22, 2012, 9:00am-4:00pm (coffee & lunch provided)

LOCATION: Prince of Wales Armouries, Jefferson Room, 10440 - 108 Avenue NW, Edmonton, AB (map)

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Who should attend?

For both workshops, we are inviting those who value:
**Generating new ideas for our neighbourhoods and communities**
**Getting to know Edmonton’s innovative and passionate leaders**
**Creating networks of diverse people who share your passion for this city**

Professionals, artists, activists, city staff, city builders, trades, contractors, teachers, students, educational institutions… anyone who is interested in making neighbourhoods that serve our needs now and into the future is welcome to join us for this experiment.

What to bring

Willingness to share your wisdom and networks
Commitment to support the dreams of youth
Desire to work with people of various perspectives
Comfort in creating a new path together

Our team

In this experiment, you will be hosted by two experienced sustainability practitioners:

Pong Leung, The Natural Step Canada

Pong has over a decade of experience supporting sustainability driven change processes, including in many communities across Canada. Recently, Pong was on the expert panel of Edmonton’s sustainability plan, The Way We Green.

Beth Sanders, POPULUS Community Planning Inc.

Beth works with organizations who seek to create cities that serve citizens well, and citizens that serve cities well. Beth is co-designer and co-host of the Integral City Collective’s international City 2.0 Conference.

Questions?

Please contact Kirsti Piirtoniemi at kpiirtoniemi(at)naturalstep.ca or 613.748.3001 x228.

The Natural Step Canada is a national charitable organization with a mission to accelerate the shift toward a sustainable society, where human beings live within the capacity of the Earth to sustain us. We are an entrepreneurial charity that delivers projects and programs based on our expertise in the social processes of sustainability driven innovation. Our programs build leadership capacity and develop role models for sustainable communities and businesses. Our approach is based on seeing systems, collaborating across boundaries, and creating desired futures. Learn more at www.thenaturalstep.org/canada.

View invitation as a PDF.

Canada

BOORA Archietcts, Portland, Oregon, USA

Chas Martin — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:47:08 -0400

A Natural Step Network Case Study

TNS gave us a banner to march behind. It enhanced the spirit that was already here and gave us order and direction. —Eric Miller, BOORA employee Overview BOORA Architects provides architecture, planning, and interior design services to clients throughout the United States and abroad. With one office in Portland, Oregon, BOORA currently has 85 employees and annual gross revenues in excess of $13 million. The firm’s projects include schools, theaters, museums, libraries, office buildings, and recreation facilities.

· LEED implementation: Assisting in the registration and certification of BOORA projects. Currently, four of BOORA’s buildings are LEEDä registered.

· Products library classification: “Greening” BOORA’s interiors and products library so that teams can use the best and most responsible materials available; developing product classifications which describe what makes various products green; and developing a classification form that product representatives can use to provide detailed information
about their product’s sustainability features.

Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead
· Provide leadership from the top. BOORA management communicated to the staff its commitment to the firm’s sustainability efforts through specific goals and objectives
outlined in the annual business plans.

· Commit to education and training. Strongly encouraging all staff to attend a half-day TNS training session at an early date gave everyone the same knowledge base and vocabulary.

· Take calculated risks. Believing that too much analysis can cause paralysis, BOORA did not get bogged down with elaborate cost-benefit examination or require concrete evidence of assured success before moving forward. It continues to implement ideas that intuitively seem like the “right thing to do.”

· Little successes add up. Having some tangible achievements, especially if they are recognized publicly, inspires staff to take them to the next level. BOORA has received a PGE EarthSmart Innovator Award for the design of George Fox University’s Stevens Center, and two BOORA-designed buildings were selected for the Ten Plus Northwest exhibition organized by Portland’s Office of Sustainable Development, showcasing the
latest and best in sustainable practices and technologies in the Pacific Northwest.

· Share the responsibility. BOORA created a Sustainability Coordinator position, but the position was eventually eliminated. Because the TNS framework touches every aspect of
BOORA’s practice, from architecture and interiors to specifications, marketing, and technology, the responsibility for integrating TNS was too large and undefined for one individual.

· Find quantifiable industry standards . In the United States, The LEEDä rating system of the U.S. Green Building Council is the standard for assessing sustainability in commercial and institutional buildings. Many local governments, higher education institutions, architects, and engineers are already using this standard to assess the “shades of green” of their construction and renovation projects.

BOORA’s efforts over the past several years have focused on “building” a green BOORA—its people, place, and practice. The biggest challenge BOORA will face in the future will be “marketing” green BOORA. This shift from a more “internalized” focus to an “externalized” approach will advance the practice and business of sustainable design and build BOORA’s
reputation for knowing how to do this work.

Developing marketing communications materials that reflect BOORA’s accomplishments and perspectives, presenting seminars on sustainable design, and promoting recent innovative sustainable design approaches and technical systems in trade newspapers and journals all contribute to BOORA’s reputation as one of the most knowledgeable in this specialty. Resources need to be allocated toward these efforts so they don’t take a back seat when other “billable” efforts are pressing.

Learning to become effective advocates of sustainable design will result in better buildings, more satisfied clients, and a strong referral base for future work. Clients may be wary of the benefits of sustainable design, either because they don't understand it, they think it's too expensive, and/or they don't want to take a risk on unproven technology and equipment. Design professionals need to better learn the language of the building owner, facility manager, and CFO in terms owners can understand--first-cost savings, return on investment, and enhanced productivity--to effectively champion the benefits and value of sustainable design.

This case study was prepared by Mary Van Domelen and Julie Wallis of BOORA for the The Natural Step Network.

Brown Bag Leadership Lunch Series - Declaring Your Intention

Chas Martin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:42:10 -0400

Start: Dec 12 2008 - 12:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT

Bring your lunch and join us for a series of engaging dialogues, facilitated by LionHeart Consulting, providing practical tools and insights into the real leadership that is required to implement sustainability.

While it is ideal to attend the entire series, each session will be interesting and informative as a stand alone experience.

December 12 (tentative): Declaring Your Intention – great words are at the source of great accomplishments. When you know the deepest wisdom in your heart is guiding your actions, you are no longer afraid to speak powerfully for a bold future.

These brown bag sessions are free. We will meet in the US Bank Room at the Central Library, 810 SW 10 th Ave , Portland, Oregon. We will begin at noon and end promptly at 1pm.

Business as Usual With a Coat of Green Paint?

Youth Storyteller — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:48:42 -0400

Last week The Natural Step Network-USA and Illahee hosted Boston College sociology professor and author Juliet Schor, who spoke about her most recent book Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. Schor has examined the intersection of our economic and social systems for many years. In Plenitude, she addresses the question many of us asked in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown: where do we go from here? Schor’s answer is her theory of “plenitude,” which goes hand-in-hand with a recent talk by Canadian scientist and professor Bill Rees, as well as the underlying principles of The Natural Step Framework:

…the individual principles of plenitude: work and spend less, create and connect more. In turn they yield ecological benefits- emit and degrade less- and human ones- enjoy and thrive more.

Not only has our culture of consumerism been challenged, but also our definition of wealth. What is needed for a sustainable future is a complete re-structuring of both our economic system as well as our way of thinking. The U.S. business-as-usual approach does not recognize, nor give any weight to, the social wealth that can result from realizing that we really can “get more for less.” Schor explains: “if we can admit that full-time jobs need not require so many hours, it’ll be possible to slow down ecological degradation, address unemployment, and make time for family and community.”

We have either forgotten or no longer realize that what is good for the environment is also good for people. In addressing the 4th system condition that must be met to achieve true sustainability, choosing to be sustainable does not mean we have to sacrifice our quality of life. It simply means we need to change what we consider our “needs” and stop buying in (literally) to the “more is better” lifestyle.

New technology and higher energy prices alone cannot solve our problems; what is needed is a collective effort and change of interest to become more in-tune with natural systems. Bill Rees, originator of the ecological footprint, describes the dilemma of our current situation in his speech “Is humanity inherently unsustainable?” on April 15:

Unsustainability…is the modern mind interacting with Nature. It's the way we think, in terms of the beliefs, values, and assumptions under which we operate…Our economies, are so far removed from the way in which natural systems function, that there is no way that you can compatibly integrate the two.

Rees gives the following example: if a developing country with a population similar to China’s reaches a level of consumption equivalent to that of the U.S., that single country will exceed the Earth’s total ecological output available. His solution? Not only Americans, but all of “the rich countries have to slow down” and change our habits of excessive consumption, which he calls “contraction and convergence.” Much like the Natural Step sustainability principles emphasize, we must find ways to become more efficient and effective, in addition to reducing both what we take from the earth as well as what we make. By not only changing our needs to require fewer natural resources and reduce disruption of natural system cycles, we can “create the ecological space necessary for [populations of other countries] who deserve to grow” and live at a “decent standard.” As Schor says, “business-as-usual with a coat of green paint is not enough.”

Access Bill Rees’ speech transcript and audio.

By Brooke Beadle, Intern, The Natural Step US

Calgary Level One Pilot Takes Off

Sarah Brooks — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:04:56 -0500

www.flickr.com

Last week, I, along with my colleague Pong Leung, had the privilege of joining 24 people in Calgary, Alberta, to spend two days unpacking and playing with application of The Natural Step Framework.This was the first of our Level 1 Learning Programs and as such, really the pilot of our pilot program.

Participants came from a range of backgrounds both public and private and included people experienced in using the Framework and also some that were brand new to it. There were participants who had excellent working knowledge of building and delivering sustainability initiatives, but who were not familiar with the Framework, and there were those that were new to sustainability in general. We had representatives from municipalities, small business and large corporations... Fertile ground in which to play! Click here to see the photos.

As facilitators, the challenge was to make the content relevant for a diverse audience, something that is always interesting, both as facilitator and participant-observer. What was clear, however, particularly once we dove into application of the content, was that the generic nature of the Framework – its ‘scalability’ over place and space appropriate to context – really shone. We had an opportunity to explore how the sustainability challenge and concurrent opportunities may impact organizations – everything from an energy company, to a café, to a small municipality. We explored how to use fundamental principles of sustainability to create innovation goals (a desired future) for an organization or community; confirm these goals against key sustainability challenges (identified through analysis by the sustainability principles); and how to translate that into day-to-day actions over the short- and medium- term so that the goals become operational in practice. The goal of the workshop was to add value to the great work that participants are already doing or considering doing, and to provide tools, techniques, lessons learned and advice to enable use of the Framework in their own context.

There was some excellent output from the session, and we are looking forward to seeing how participants put the Framework to use for themselves and the organizations that they represent. We’re also anticipating our upcoming sessions in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa. Stay tuned!

Canada

Canmore adopts Towards Zero Waste events policy :: The Canmore Leader

Marieke — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:55:14 -0400

The town of Canmore is continuing on the road to sustainability after adopting The Natural Step Framework in 2008. Canmore was the second Canadian community to implement The Natural Step’s community-wide engagement program. Read more about their journey in the case study here.

-----

By Hamish Maclean, The Canmore Leader. August 18, 2010.

Special events in Canmore will be moving towards zero waste.

Stemming from an Environmental Assessment and Review Committee suggestion in October 2009, council approved a Towards Zero Waste Event Policy Tuesday.

Special events in Canmore will now be asked to divert 70 per cent of "waste" from the landfill.

However, Andreas Comeau the Town's manager of public works, pointed out in council chambers that many events in town are already exceeding the bar that council has now set.

"When you look at the numbers people aren't just shooting for 70 per cent, they're doing the best they can." Comeau said. He noted that many events in Canmore are already meeting or exceeding the policy.

He pointed to some of the success had by special events prior to the formal adoption of the policy.

The Canmore Folk Music Festival began a towards zero waste initiative before the Town's policy was created, diverting 81 per cent of waste from the landfill in 2008 and 86 per cent in 2009.

But Comeau said that the policy would be useful in "rolling out" the Town's adopted The Natural Step program to the community.

Special events — those that engage the public, make use of at least one Town department, or relies on the use or rental of Town facilities — will now be required to, when applying for an event, create a unique waste management plan to be approved by public works. Further event planners will also be required to complete a final waste management report, and the success of their waste management (or their lack of success) could affect future approvals of their event.

The Bow Valley Waste Management Commission's Peter Duck told council that he has been working closely with special events already to assist the events in reducing their load to the landfill. And noted that while currently there is no fee for the waste management commission's involvement at this time, the larger events have been advised that a cost recovery program could be implemented in the future.

Comeau told council that the implementation of a towards zero waste policy ought to be considered a good example of civic leadership — administration believes that there are at this point no other similar policies in other areas.

He also said that while not all events currently meet or exceed the bar established in the policy of diverting 70 per cent of the event's potential waste, all events move forward.

He pointed to the Town's Canada Day celebrations. In 2009, the Canada Day event saw 32 per cent of waste recovered as recycled material, while the 2010 Canada Day event saw 68 per cent of the waste diverted from the landfill.

Source: The Canmore Leader

Canada

Celebrating Airdrie’s Community Vision

Anouk Bertner — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:37:05 -0500

Start: Nov 15 2008 - 12:00pm

End: Nov 15 2008 - 4:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT

You're invited to share in celebrating the City of Airdrie's Community Vision

Saturday, November 15th

Airdrie City Hall - 400 Main Street

Information Fair: local community groups & businesses working toward sustainability.

Entertainment: Bell’arte Strings from 2:30 – 4:00 p.m
Bell’arte is an ensemble praised for their vibrant performances, passionate style, and refined, musical interpretation.

Please RSVP to:
Tanis Houck
403.948.8800 ext. 466
tanis.houck@airdrie.ca

Canada

Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC)

Jennifer Reid — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:32:48 -0500

Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC) is a private non-profit housing organization that owns and operates 48 buildings around Ottawa providing over 2,000 residents with affordable housing. Their mission is to create, maintain and promote housing for low and moderate income people. In 2008, CCOC received a grant to undertake an education campaign on behaviour change to promote sustainability and achieve measurable greenhouse gas emissions reductions. As a tenant and volunteer led organization it was natural for CCOC to include the day-to-day decisions their tenants were making into their overall sustainability efforts.

PACE Consulting, EnviroEconomics and The Natural Step were all enlisted to help CCOC in creating a more holistic approach through the Go Green Initiative. EnviroEconomics delivered a detailed quantitative and qualitative footprint survey for tenants, and PACE Consulting used the results to develop targeted behaviour change strategies through contests, events and promotions.

In order to ensure that staff and tenants had a clear and common understanding of sustainability and the ways in which current practices are unsustainable, The Natural Step was contracted to conduct introductory workshops with several groups of tenants. Additionally, all CCOC staff partook in two days of training in The Natural Step Framework. By engaging tenants and staff directly, The Natural Step empowered participants to understand and respond to sustainability challenges, to take personal action and to develop capacity to change organizational practices.

“As an organization focused on the social sector, CCOC is in an exemplary position to build the capacity of their organization and tenants to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by sustainability in an accessible, results-oriented way. Their Go Green Initiative did exactly this”, said Senior Natural Step Advisor Sarah Brooks.

In 2009, CCOC signed up as one of the 25 organizations that participated in the pilot project for TNS’s “Greening Ottawa’s NGOs” project. Through this initiative they gained a valuable network of companions with which they were able to problem-solve, learn, and engage to discuss the trials and tribulations of going-green/sustainable.

Congratulations are extended to CCOC who, in November, was awarded the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association’s “Going Green award”, for their “Go Green” initiative. On the ONPHA website, this award is described as an honour to be bestowed on “a non-profit housing provider who has taken innovative steps to reduce their impact on the environment” – an award for which CCOC is certainly deserving.

Canada

Citizen & Planner Leaders for Local Sustainability, Eco-municipality Leadership Training

Anouk Bertner — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:38:30 -0400

Start: Jun 6 2008 - 12:00am

End: Jun 11 2008 - 11:59pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT

In June, 2008, a 5-day national training session will take place at Tufts University to increase citizen and planner leadership capacity in communities and their local governments to initiate and lead a change process to become a sustainable community. This sustainable communities approach has a substantial track record of successful implementation – possibly the most extensive in the world - in over 100 municipalities in Sweden, U.S., and around the world. The objective of the training is to prepare potential local leaders – including citizens, local officials, planners, or municipal staff – to be able to lead a process involving sustainability education, communication, and a strategic implementation process. Click here for more.

City of Madison, Wisconsin

Anouk Bertner — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:40:07 -0400

Madison, Wisconsin and several other progressive municipalities in the state are coordinating their efforts through the North American Eco-Municipality Movement to help cities and towns throughout Wisconsin embrace sustainability strategically.

In 2006, Sustain Dane and 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, the two local non-profits, arranged for The Natural Step Canada to provide sustainability training for senior City of Madison employees. The training involved Sustainability: Step by Natural Step, our award-winning eLearning course followed by two in-person workshops with assigned homework in between.

These workshops led to the development of ten pilot projects to implement The Natural Step Framework into City operations. The Mayor of Madison is highly committed and once the initial projects have been completed, the City will identify new projects for the future.

For more on Madison or the North American Eco-Municipality Movement, read the case studies.

City of Santa Monica, California, USA

Chas Martin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:18:42 -0400

A Natural Step Network Case Study

Overview
The City of Santa Monica is located on the western edge of the Los Angeles Basin in southern California. It is a small city of 88,000 people within 8.3 square miles that faces Santa Monica Bay and the Pacific Ocean to the west and is surrounded by other urban areas to the north, east, and south.

The City is defined largely by its relationship to the beach and ocean. Not surprisingly, it was degradation of Santa Monica Bay in the early 1980s that first galvanized action on behalf of the environment by citizens and community leaders.

Santa Monica has generally affluent citizens, high property values, and a strong economy based on high technology, entertainment, tourism, and retail. These factors mean that City government has a strong tax base with which to design and implement programs. The City government has approximately 1800 permanent employees in 13 different departments and an annual budget of $365,000,000.

Background on Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Program
Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Program (SCP) grew out of a Task Force on the Environment appointed by the City Council in 1991 to review the city’s environmental policies and programs. Seeing the concept of sustainability as a unifying theme, the Task Force recommended a program to define what sustainability means for the city, develop a plan to get there, and then implement the plan. After substantial public involvement, City Council adopted the SCP in 1994.

The Role of The Natural Step in Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Program
As part of the general land-use planning process required under California state law, Santa Monica began a review and revision of the conservation element of its general plan in 1998. The conservation element is one of seven state-required general plan elements. The city used this update as an opportunity to incorporate the systems-oriented, holistic approach of the SCP and to codify the SCP into the conservation element. This strategy would strengthen the environmental components of the City’s general plan because all elements of the plan are required by state law to be internally consistent with each other.

The company hired to help re-write the conservation element, Rincon Consulting, proposed using The Natural Step’s (TNS) system conditions as a unifying framework for the document. This was accomplished by developing four core objectives for the conservation element modeled after the TNS system conditions. Each objective is followed by a set of policies, which were taken from the SCP. The objectives in the conservation element read as follows:
Objective 1: Strive for the sustainable use of nonrenewable and limited resources such as fossil fuels, metals, minerals, and water. Related policy topics include energy, water, and others.

Objective 2: Minimize the accumulation of human-made substances in the water, air, and earth. Related policy topics include water, air, waste, and others.

Objective 3: Preserve the productivity and diversity of nature. Related policy topics include Santa Monica Bay, habitat, and others.

Objective 4: Seek to provide for the range of human needs in a fair and efficient manner, with a priority on meeting basic human needs. Related policy topics include environmental health risks to disadvantaged communities, promoting mixed use development, affordable housing, and others.

Attachment 1 is a sample page of the conservation element; showing objective 1 and specific energy policies. Finally, the conservation element charges the SCP with translating these policies into action.

During the revision of Santa Monica’s conservation element, both the City’s Planning Commission and its Task Force on the Environment received presentations about The Natural Step and discussed using it as the unifying framework. Both bodies enthusiastically approved this approach. City staff have not received any specific training in TNS framework, although the City co-sponsored, with the local Chamber of Commerce, a workshop open to the general public; several city staff attended.

TNS framework itself did not play a role in the city’s sustainability effort until after the latter was well underway. The primary role of TNS has been to provide a conceptual framework that gives clarity, elegance, and unity to what was once a complicated SCP. TNS framework is mentioned only as a footnote in the written conservation element, and there are no references to the framework per se in any SCP communications and marketing materials.

The Sustainable City Program Today
As stated above, the SCP is responsible for implementing the policies of the conservation element of the City’s general plan. It includes the following key elements:
1. Guiding principles (adopted in 1994):
    A. The concept of sustainability guides city policy.
    B. Protection, preservation, and restoration of the natural environment is a high priority for the City.
    C. Environmental quality and economic health are mutually dependent.
    D. All decisions have environmental implications.
    E. Community awareness, responsibility, involvement, and education are key
elements of successful programs/policies.
    F. Santa Monica recognizes its linkages with the regional, national, and global
community.
    G. Those environmental issues most important to the community should be
addressed first, and the most cost-effective program and policies should be selected.
    H. The City is committed to procurement decisions which minimize negative environmental and social impacts.
2. Goals in four main areas: resource conservation, transportation, pollution prevention and public health protection, and community and economic development.
3. Targets and indicators for each goal area. Eighteen targets and indicators spread among the four goal areas allow the City to measure progress. Attachment 2 is a copy of the resource conservation indicators and targets.
4. Periodic review to determine program effectiveness. A bi-annual review identifies accomplishments to-date and obstacles to future success.

Results
The SCP has achieved some impressive results:
Resource conservation
• Waste diverted from the landfill increased from 13.8% in 1990 to 55% in 2000.
• Citywide water use decreased 6.3% from 1990 to 2000.
• Greenhouse gas emissions decreased 5.2% citywide from 1990 to 2000.
• Santa Monica now purchases 100% of its energy from renewable sources, and all facilities have been retrofitted to improve energy efficiency and reduce costs.

Transportation
• Annual ridership on the City’s Big Blue Bus increased 17% from 1990 to 2000. Big Blue was ranked the number one urban transit system in the US in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 (based on a comparative study by the University of North Carolina’s Center of Interdisciplinary Transportation Studies).
• The percentage of City fleet vehicles operating on reduced emissions (natural gas and electricity) increased from 10% in 1993 to 70% in 2000.

Pollution Prevention and Public Health Protection
• Untreated, dry-weather urban runoff entering Santa Monica Bay from City outfalls decreased by approximately 95% from 1990 to 2000.
• Citywide wastewater flows have been reduced more than 14% between 1990 and 1999.
• The City’s Urban Runoff Reclamation Facility (SMURRF) came on-line in 2001. It treats up to 500,000 gallons per day of urban runoff that can be reused for landscape irrigation and indoor toilet flushing at various sites around the City.

Community and Economic Development
• The number of publicly assisted affordable housing units in the City increased by 47% between 1990 and 1998.
• The total amount of open space in the City increased by 10% between 1990 and 2000.
• The number of trees in public spaces increased 8% between 1995 and 2000.

Lessons Learned
• Bring TNS into the discussion as early as possible. Had TNS framework been around when the SCP was developed, it would have helped Santa Monica’s sustainability effort achieve a clarity of purpose and a simpler, more coherent organizing framework sooner. Because the framework is simple and easy to understand, it helps build consensus on the vision of where a sustainability effort is trying to go. It helps people understand the problem and defines a shared goal.

• Start small. The SCP did not try to solve every problem immediately. Instead, it focused on the obvious problems and the low-hanging fruit to demonstrate early success and then used those successes to help sell the next steps. Also, the SCP often took a pilot project approach to an issue that began with a limited scope and resources. If successful, the pilot was then replicated on a larger scale, incorporating lessons learned from the pilot.

Example: Toxics-Use Reduction Program. Santa Monica began its Toxics-Use Reduction Program as part of its effort to reduce its use of hazardous materials. It targeted custodial cleaning supplies because there was a clear risk to both employee health and public health as well as the environment. The process relied heavily on involvement of custodial staff and testing the effectiveness of alternative products. The project resulted in 1) replacement of 15 of 17 cleaning product categories with less-toxic but equally effective alternatives; 2) reduced hazardous materials use by approximately 3200 pounds per year and saved approximately 5% in costs; 3) a set of procurement specifications for custodial cleaning products; and 4) improved morale of custodial staff. Equally important, the custodian pilot served as a successful model that has now been replicated in fleet maintenance, public facilities maintenance (painting, plumbing, and woodworking), printing, and pest management.

• Start where the issues and conflicts are in your community. Don’t try to force people to pay attention to things that are not on their radar screen, especially in the beginning. This is especially true if there is a local environmental “crisis” of some sort: use the issue at the heart of the crisis to begin the process towards sustainability.

• Set specific targets. SCP staff believes that specific targets drove policy change and accelerated action. Targets make the effort more compelling to the public and elected officials. If elected officials adopt the targets, they feel responsible for achieving them. Also, targets demand periodic performance reviews and set in motion continuous improvement.

Example: Bus ridership. The initial target was to increase ridership by 10% between 1990 and 2000. By 1995, however, ridership had dropped by almost 8%. The City Council said this was not acceptable and tasked the Transportation Department to develop a strategy to meet the target. The department started a service improvement program that included hiring a technical consulting firm to review operations and survey riders on what they liked and disliked. This led to improved safety en route and at bus stops, route changes, smaller and larger buses on specific routes, and schedule changes. These changes were implemented in 1997, and ridership started increasing shortly thereafter. By 2000, the City had surpassed its target, with ridership 17% greater than in 1990, and it had been voted the number one urban transit service in the US four years in a row.

• Support from the top matters. SM received support from the top elected and appointed officials early on. The city manager incorporated meeting SCP goals into performance criteria for department heads. This level of support gets all players on board, especially those who may resist the concept of sustainability or change in general.

• Respond to the public’s specific needs. Whenever possible, talk to public audiences about specific problems and the actions needed to fix those problems. People can relate to a polluted bay and the specific actions needed to clean it up; they cannot relate to vague terms like sustainability or The Natural Step.

The Future
City staff do not see any direct threat to the SCP because it has strong support among city leadership, and the city has a strong economic base. Also, the program only has one staff person who coordinates activities with staff in other departments. This keeps program overhead low. Finally, the staff has developed a variety of partnerships with other cities and the business community in support of the program and several other general public outreach tools. The business partnerships include annual Sustainable Quality Awards for businesses that meet certain criteria as well as a Sustainable Works program that provides free technical assistance to local businesses. General public outreach tools include an environmental directory for all city residents; a “Green Map,” which includes, not only parks and green spaces, but also electric vehicle stations, green buildings, green retailers, and other environmental resources; educational programs in schools taught by local nonprofits; a web site; and publicity around is bi-annual progress reports.

The SCP faces three challenges in the future:
1. Resource use in the City is increasing, both generally and on a per capita basis, despite the success of the SCP. This is the result of a strong local economy and a high day-time occupancy rate, which is due to the strong tourism component to the economy and the large number of people who work but do not live in the City (often because they cannot afford to do so). The high day-time occupancy rate also leads to greater regional traffic congestion and pollution.

2. Affordable housing is declining. Teachers, service sector employees, and other middle income earners often cannot afford to live in the City due to high property values and high rental rates. Also, the State of California recently passed a vacancy decontrol regulation that hampers the ability of local governments to control rent.

3. Social equity and economic development concerns should be included in the SCP.
The initial focus of the SCP was on environmental concerns; the program is just now expanding to include social and economic concerns. The City has been doing significant work related to homelessness, seniors, and children and spends more per capita in these areas than neighboring cities. But it is just now starting to formally and explicitly include these areas in the SCP by educating city staff who work on social and economic issues about their role in sustainability and involving them in development of new indicators and targets.

Attachment 1

Source
Interviews with Dean Kubani, Sustainable City Program Coordinator, City of Santa Monica, in November and December 2001.

This case study was prepared by Mike Riley of Conservation for Central Oregon (dba The Recycling Team), Bend, Oregon, for the Oregon Natural Step Network. You can reach Dean Kubani at (310)458-2227 or dean-kubani@ci.santa-monica.ca.us. The Web site for the Sustainable City Program is http://pen.ci.santa-monica.ca.us/environment/policy/. Copyright 2002 Oregon Natural Step Network City of Santa Monica
Attachment 1
Copyright 2002 Oregon Natural Step Network City of Santa Monica

City Shifters - How on earth should we begin greening our metropolises?

Anouk Bertner — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:23:05 -0400

How on earth should we begin greening our metropolises?
By asking the right questions, says The Natural Step.

Dave Cieslewicz, the Mayor of Madison, state capital of Wisconsin, US, has a favourite ‘nuts and bolts’ story about sustainability. We could start by asking the right questions.

“We have this huge converted factory, where we store all our 240 buses overnight,” he explains. “There’s a small part of the building where we fuel them up – and, for the comfort of our employees, we’d been keeping that warm.”

What the council hadn’t registered was that they were unnecessarily heating the bus storage area as well. So in 2007 they bought a door – which cost $70,000, but would pay for
itself, through energy savings, in two years.

Like many green solutions, the Madison bus garage door seems so obvious – but, according to Cieslewicz, it didn’t come about by chance. “It was such a simple answer,” he says. “But you don’t get the right answers unless you ask the right questions.”

What got Madison asking those questions in the first place was its engagement with The Natural Step (TNS) in a radical ‘change process’ to guide it towards the goal of ‘sustainability’ – and help it become one of the first Eco-Municipalities in North America.

TNS’s ‘municipal sustainability planning’ is different from your average city-level strategic plan, explains John Purkis of TNS Canada, in that it doesn’t only involve municipal officials. > download the article below to learn more.

This feature was written by Green Futures - a partntner of The Natural Step. Sign up for free online updates from Green Futures.

Green Futures is the leading source of information, opinion and debate on progress towards sustainable development. It is published online and in print for senior decision makers in business, the public sector, environmental organisations and the media. In Green Futures, positive visions of a low-carbon, opportunity-rich future sit alongside a practical 'can-do' approach that is grounded in today's business reality.

Clearing the Air in Leeds

Anouk Bertner — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:58:14 -0400

Leeds City Council (UK) is leaving other municipalities in the dust by using a clearer, more strategic approach to reducing their air pollution.

The Natural Step in the UK (under the banner of Forum for the Future), in collaboration with consultants from the London-based engineering firm of Arup, recently delivered workshops to study the City’s new Air Quality Action Plan. While national regulations only require cities to reduce local levels of 7 common types of air pollution, this review presented a huge opportunity to broaden the conversation and take a more comprehensive approach.

The workshop brought together stakeholders from Council departments such as Transport and Spatial Planning, as well as the Environment Agency, Leeds University, two major supermarkets, and a local campaign group representing Stop Climate Chaos. The day was structured around how air quality can be addressed using each of the five levels of The Natural Step Framework.

Participants first mapped the pollutants, causes of pollutants, pathways and receptors in society and ecosystems, stakeholders, regulations, and so forth. The single biggest problem was identified as Nitrous Oxide (NOx) emissions from transport, although many other substances and sources were found to contribute to the City’s poor air quality. The workshop leaders also helped to highlight how the City’s air emissions affect soils in surrounding national parks and the international health implications of air pollution.

This more holistic view of air pollution enabled participants to develop a vision of success that was far more comprehensive than simply the regulation of seven particular substances. “Workshop participants developed a vision for future success that would go beyond transport and NOx and beyond the idea of ‘safe limits’ or acceptable levels of air pollution,” noted Tom Chambers of Forum for the Future.

“Overall the workshop was a success,” said Chambers. “Whilst national standards remain important, they can become part of a more holistic vision of working towards clean air in, and beyond, the city.” For more on Forum’s work, visit their website at http://www.forumforthefuture.org/.

Communities in Newfoundland Planning Strategically

Jennifer Reid — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:53:36 -0400

Communities in Newfoundland are very interested in creating integrated community sustainability plans (ICSPs), but have found the challenge of putting them together and the cost of training prohibitive in meeting that goal. These communities care deeply about sustainability, but have not been able to pursue that interest–until now.

In early March, representatives from eight communities were introduced to the concept of backcasting, developing descriptions and scenarios of success using sustainability principles. The intent of the workshops was to focus specifically on “Energy and Climate Change” in the context of their Region’s ICSP and informed by The Natural Step Framework. To that end, workshop participants envisioned a desirable and sustainable future where their region has successfully anticipated, mitigated, and adapted to the impacts of climate change, while at the same time significantly reduced their region’s direct and indirect contributions of climate changing greenhouse gas emissions. Actions and strategies to support the region’s transition towards that desirable and sustainable future for energy and climate change were brainstormed and prioritized. Prior to the workshop, participants completed a current reality survey to help establish a baseline to assist with tracking progress over time.

The workshops had representatives from several communities including: Bauline, Flatrock, and Pouch Cove located on the east coast of Newfoundland; and Forteau, L’Anse au Clair, L’Anse au Loup, Red Bay, and West St. Modeste located on the Straits of Labrador. The workshops were hosted by the Conservation Corps of Newfoundland and Labrador, with financial support from the Newfoundland and Labrador Green Fund. They were facilitated by Mike Purcell from The Natural Step Canada.

Information collected from the one day workshop was synthesized into a chapter on “Energy and Climate Change” (comprising a “Description of Success,” “Description of Current Reality,” and “Strategies and Actions”) that will be included in each region’s ICSP document.

“For me, this workshop demonstrated that a one-day session is sufficient for participants to gain enough capacity around the Framework to be able to explore their community’s current reality and then create desirable and sustainable goals, objectives, and actions for a particular aspect of their community or region,” said Mike. “Further, the participants can use that same approach to focus on other aspects of their regions (i.e. transportation, food, water, arts and culture, etc.).”

Canada

Corporate Knights Sustainable Cities Rankings

Alaya Boisvert — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 07:45:24 -0500

With our global economy in crisis, increasing food shortages in the developing world and reports of unprecedented ecosystem decline around the planet, it’s easy to feel disillusioned with the state of world. However, when we look closer to home there are indications that change is afoot.

Corporate Knights, an independent Canadian-based media company, conducts annual sustainability assessments of small, medium and large cities across the country. They choose indicators to measure the socio-ecological and economic wellbeing of cities by using publically available data and sending surveys out to municipal staff.

This year, in an effort to improve their rankings, they invited The Natural Step Canada (TNS) to participate on an advisory committee. As lead advisor, TNS researched how Corporate Knights could apply systems thinking and backcasting to help define success and strategically inform their indicator selection.

The results from the 2009 Sustainable Cities Rankings call for both praise and concern. It may be a surprise to some - as it was for me - to find that no Canadian city scored above 7.4 out of ten overall in the five indicator categories: Ecological Integrity, Economic Security, Social Well-Being, Governance and Empowerment, and Infrastructure and Built Environment. For example, where the City of Calgary scored relatively highly in the area of Infrastructure and Built Environment, their Governance and Empowerment scores paled in comparison to the other large cities assessed – Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

In my mind, this information tells us is that each city may have its relative strengths in different social, economic and environmental areas. However, sustainability requires concerted attention paid to each. This comes with an understanding that a thriving economy is a means to supporting a vibrant society, and can only be achieved with healthy ecosystems intact. (Click here to see the rankings yourself: www.corporateknights.ca/cities)

The good news is that municipalities are uniquely positioned to respond to the diverse  challenges and opportunities inherent in sustainable development.  In most cases municipalities are accountable for delivering a wide range of programs and services such as arts and culture, bylaw enforcement, public transit, economic development, parks and recreation, public health, social housing, and water and sewage among many others. Given the breadth of their responsibilities, with a compelling vision, strong leadership and strategic guidance, municipalities can develop local policies and programs to help ensure the social, ecological and economic health of the community.

The Corporate Knights Sustainable Cities Ranking gives the Canadian public, business leaders and government representatives a platform to discuss their communities' future, present challenges and opportunities to chart their course toward a sustainable tomorrow. It also helps identify leaders in the field where best practices can be shared.

There are many ways to join the conversation. One means of having your voice heard is to contact your municipal representatives directly – i.e. city councilors, the local mayor, or municipal staff. Let them know you’ve heard about the Sustainable Cities Rankings and raise your questions or concerns about your city’s sustainability standing. Share your thoughts on what you’d like to see happen in your community to improve the quality of life for all residents. What are some projects already taking place that the city could expand, improve or piggyback off? How could the city measure the success of such an initiative?

My experience in community economic development has led me to believe that a strong community depends as much on social relationships and civic participation as it does on financial wealth. Together, we are responsible for making our communities healthy, beautiful and vibrant places. The natural step is ours to take!

The full results of the Ranking, including the surveys completed by each city, are available on www.corporateknights.ca/cities and are summarized in the Responsible Investing issue (Vol. 7.3) of Corporate Knights. They are also distributed in some issues of the Globe and Mail today.

Canada

CREB.com - Sustainable Neighbourhoods: Event to discuss Alberta's thoughts on sustainable living

Neil McCallum — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:20:10 -0400

The Natural Step Canada teamed up with the Alberta Real Estate Foundation (AREF) to launch a forum to engage Albertan's in a discussion around what makes a sustainable neighbourhood? The initiative was recently featured in an article from CREB.com.

***

What makes a sustainable neighbourhood?

That will be the main question on the table at the Re-Imagining our Neighbourhoods forum taking place at the Calgary Telus Convention Centre Telus 111 room Oct.19.

Re-Imagining our Neighbourhoods is an initiative of The Natural Step Canada and the Alberta Real Estate Foundation (AREF) as part of AREF’s 20th Anniversary Thought Leader series.

The results of an online forum with the input of hundreds of Albertans and conversations with sustainability leaders across the country will be presented at the event.

“Members from throughout the province of Alberta have shared their thoughts and ideas,” said John Purkis, senior sustainability advisor and senior manager of The Natural Step Canada’s Sustainable Communities Program who will be speaking at the event. “So some of the things we’re seeing emerge from that include things such as increasing, for example, the density of neighbourhoods.

“Albertans indicated (density) is one thing they believe is required if we’re going to transition and move towards a more sustainable future” he added.

Purkis explained another theme resulting from the forum was the relationship between young people who live in a neighbourhood.

“There’s a need for a different type of relationship between (people living in a neighbourhood) and what I mean by that is that, we get into the routine of our daily lives and don’t often know who is living next door or a few doors down,” he said.

Walkability, or neighbourhood businesses within walking distance was also important to people who participated in the forum.

“Many communities are designed around the car so in order to go out shopping, or to see your dentist, or to meet someone at a café you need to jump in your car in order to do that,” Purkis explained. “So in part, the density issue also helps to address the walkability of a neighbourhood.”

As well as the results of the online forum, Purkis will also be touching on the new Living Building Challenge guide created by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).

“The Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, advocacy tool and certification program that addresses development at all scales,” says the challenges website https://ilbi.org. “It is comprised of seven performance areas: site, water, energy, health, materials, equity and beauty.”

“It’s a very honest presentation of the types of communities, neighbourhoods and buildings that we need to start creating so it’s a wonderful resource,” Purkis said.

The event runs from 11:30 to 1:30 with lunch provided. Purkis said there are still some seats available. Contact Dora Bundfaard at dorab@aref.ab.ca to RSVP or with any questions.

Canada

District of North Vancouver, Canada

Anouk Bertner — Sat, 03 May 2008 15:42:19 -0400

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

The District of North Vancouver (DNV) wants to be recognized as one of the most sustainable communities in the world by 2020 and it has adopted The Natural Step Framework to help get there. The DNV has partnered with The Natural Step Canada to build staff capacity around the use of the Framework and to conduct a sustainability analysis of its own operations.

Staff from various departments and levels took part in the training with a smaller core team taking responsibility for doing the full sustainability analysis. Subsequent workshops allowed DNV to develop a draft action plan for sustainability, which can be accessed here. The plan has not yet been formalized, but several of the actions listed have already been implemented.

The DNV says the biggest change has been integrating sustainability into the corporate culture. Susan Haid, Manager for Sustainable Community Development, says “The Natural Step has allowed us to do work that we’ve been meaning to do for years and has made our approach systematic."

Click on the link below to read the complete case study.

Canada

Dr. Robèrt at TEDxMälaren, June 15th

Anouk Bertner — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:08:12 -0400

We’re pleased to announce that the Founder of The Natural Step Founder, Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, will be participating in TEDxMälaren, in Stockholm, Sweden on June 15th, 1-5 pm. TEDxMälaren is a Swedish conference that brings people together to share a TED-like experience. The name Malaren comes from Lake Mälaren, the third largest lake in Sweden. Just like Lake Mälaren that connects towns across Sweden, TEDxMälaren will connect topics in featuring a holistic perspective of inter-linked global issues through the audience, the organizers and speakers of diverse backgrounds, with different forms of media.

TEDxMälaren aims to reach beyond the Scandinavian seas and explore the influence of cultural, political and socio-economic diversity on the way we think, and ought to think for a better future. To register or learn more, click here.

Sweden

Duluth hotel uses sustainable philosophy every day

Franco Varriano — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:01:19 -0400

Early Adopters in Duluth are leading the way to a more sustainable future. Read about Duluth’s Canal Park, one of the participants in Sustainable Twin Ports’ Early Adopters program based on The Natural Step Framework, as reported in the Duluth News Tribune, by John Myers.

***
When you sip a cup of coffee at the Inn on Lake Superior in Duluth’s Canal Park, you probably don’t think about what went into it. But Cara Overland, the hotel’s administrative director, will be glad to tell you.

After spending a year in the Sustainable Twin Ports Early Adopters business and environmental sustainability program, Overland and the Inn staff made a commitment to build sustainability into their everyday business lives.

From expanding recycling to every room to cutting electric and water use, to eliminating foam and plastic for plates and silverware, the hotel has tried to go green across its 175 rooms. And it has produced a better bottom line as well.

“We couldn’t do a lot of these things if they didn’t offer a payback. But they all do,’’ Overland said.

She said she probably is most proud, however, of the hotel’s switch from a national supplier of coffees and teas to the local Alakef brand.

For the environment, the move meant guaranteed organic-grown coffee that promises fair trade and wages to farmers. It also cuts thousands of miles of transportation costs, energy use and pollution.
The change also helps protect Duluth jobs at Alakef. And the local stuff just taste better, Overland said.

But the move didn’t just feel good for the hotel. It saves the hotel $1,239.83 every three months.

“We make a lot of coffee here. It’s on 24/7. But even then, you wouldn’t think a little thing like changing the coffee supplier could make so much difference,’’ Overland said. “But that’s the point. … It’s like voting. People say that one person or one business acting alone can’t change anything. But it can, and the more people we have thinking like this, the better it gets for everyone.’’

Next up for the Inn is composting food waste from its breakfast bar.

Overland is working with the staff on how to recover compostable food waste out of the garbage, and with its waste hauler, Waste Management, on getting it to the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District composting site. That move will reduce the amount of trash headed to landfills and cut the Inn’s garbage bill even more.

Overland and the Inn participated in the first class of Sustainable Twin Ports in 2009, but has remained active as alumni and supporting partner. The class of 2010 is about ready to graduate, and the program is looking for new participants for 2011.

Nan Stubenvoll, director of Sustainable Twin Ports, said the program has inspired participants to change how they do business.

“We’re even seeing a lot of the alumni and participants putting pressure on their vendors to supply them with sustainable materials and supplies,’’ Stubenvoll said.

And the participants are networking among themselves. The Inn on Lake Superior now gets all of its signs from local Glenwood Signs, a fellow 2009 alumnus, and holds staff meetings at the Duluth Grill, also a 2009 participant.

Shawn Roed, activities director for Duluth East High School and the lead staff member for the Duluth public schools in the Early Adopters program, said the district’s participation “is going to change the way we operate every day, both to help our bottom line and our environmental footprint.’’

Those changes include a push for solar energy, including a solar panel going up at Lowell Elementary School, greener school buses with reduced emissions, and a move to eliminate foam plates and cups at all schools.

“We’re going to be able to build this (sustainable philosophy) into all the new buildings, so the timing is perfect,’’ Roed said.

The Early Adopters effort is based on The Natural Step sustainability system formed in Sweden and adopted by companies such as Ikea, Nike and McDonald’s. It has been supported locally by the A.H. Zeppa Family Foundation and the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.

***

Thanks to the Duluth News Tribune and John Myers.

If you enjoyed this article, please read the following case study about the Duluth Transit Authority’s sustainability journey—another participant in Sustainable Twin Ports’ Early Adopters program.

Canada

Earth Day Congratulations!!

Kelly Hawke Baxter — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:34:49 -0400

We’d like to congratulate the municipal and business leaders we’ve worked with who were awarded green employer awards on Earth Day yesterday.

Congratulations to our partners at The Co-operators, The Co-operators Life Insurance Company, and ISL Engineering and Land Services who were honoured yesterday as part of Canada’s Green 30. The Green 30 was announced on Earth Day by Hewitt Associates. As part of the 2010 Best Employers in Canada and Best Small & Medium Employers in Canada studies, Hewitt surveyed over 100,000 employees at 230 organizations regarding their employers' commitment to environmental stewardship. At the Green 30 organizations, an average of 86% of employees have a positive perception of their employers' eco-friendly efforts. We’re really proud of how The Co-operators and ISL Engineering and Land Services are demonstrating sustainability leadership. Congratulations to both! The Green 30 list appears in the May 3 edition of Maclean's, as well as in the May 10 issue of Canadian Business, available on newsstands yesterday.

As well, we’d like to congratulate our friends at the Resort Municipality of Whistler and Whistler Blackcomb, who were part of the similar but different (!) 2010 Canada’s Greenest Employers Awards, also announced on Earth Day, by the editors of Canada’s Top 100 Employers. As part of its commitment to becoming a sustainable community, Whistler has not only developed an award winning sustainability plan, Whistler 2020, but has also implemented thousands of actions, large and small. Whistler Blackcomb has also been at the forefront of sustainability leadership with its energy efficiency initiatives, environmental management strategy, waste reduction program and employee engagement activities. Congratulations to both!!

Canada

Eco-Municipality Tours

Anouk Bertner — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:26:56 -0400

Start: May 17 2008 - 12:00am

End: May 26 2008 - 11:59pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT

Come see how Swedish municipalities have used The Natural Step Framework to become more sustainable. Participants will have the opportunity to meet their municipal and business counterparts in eco-municipalities across Sweden to learn about:

• How they have systematically changed to sustainable practices
• How they have trained staff and local residents
• How eco-municipalities operate
• Models of collaboration between eco-municipalities, local businesses and the community
• Sustainable regional economic development

Canada

eLearning

Anouk Bertner — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:12:48 -0400

Sustainability: Step by Natural Step™ and Sustainability 101™ are affordable, interactive on-line courses that provide practical sustainability education. These innovative and award-winning courses are being used by thousands of people in leading organizations around the world such as Interface Carpets, Rohm and Haas, Nissan, Levi Strauss, Nestlé Waters and others. Canadian clients include Bell Aliant, BC Hydro, Hydro Quebec, Alcoa, Alcan, The Co-operators and leading municipal governments across Canada, including Halifax and North Vancouver. Our courses are aimed at businesses, governments, communities and individuals that want to move strategically towards sustainability. The top reasons for using our courses are:

Award-winning Engagement and Interactivity – we received an Excellence in Learning award from Brandon Hall for efficacy, appeal and ‘WOW’-factor.

A Clear Voice in the Commotion – our definition of sustainability and framework for action is grounded in systems thinking and scientific principles. The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development has been endorsed by scientists and leaders from around the world.

From Awareness to Action – our courses don’t simply inform: they transform. Participants gain a holistic framework for thinking and decision-making that leads directly to action.

Customizable and Cost effective – we offer competitive volume pricing and a collaborative approach to customize both the course itself and its delivery to meet your unique needs. Our sustainability advisors also provide supplementary services to help with training, planning and stakeholder engagement.

Read more about the course features, benefits of using eLearning or how to purchase.

eLearning

simonharvey — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:58:05 -0400

Award-winning Engagement and Interactivity – we received an Excellence in Learning award from Brandon Hall for efficacy, appeal and ‘WOW’-factor.

A Clear Voice in the Commotion – our definition of sustainability and framework for action is grounded in systems thinking and scientific principles. The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development has been endorsed by scientists and leaders from around the world.

From Awareness to Action – our courses don’t simply inform: they transform. Participants gain a holistic framework for thinking and decision-making that leads directly to action.

Customizable and Cost effective – we offer competitive volume pricing and a collaborative approach to customize both the course itself and its delivery to meet your unique needs. Our sustainability advisors also provide supplementary services to help with training, planning and stakeholder engagement.

Read more about the course features, benefits of using eLearning or how to purchase.

New Zealand

Embedding Sustainability into the Culture of Municipal Government: A much-needed resource being developed

Neil McCallum — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:24:39 -0400

A growing number of municipal governments have created long-term sustainability plans and have made public commitments to move their communities in a sustainable direction. The trickle-down effect of these strategic decisions is changing the way municipal staff plan and make decisions. So how do we create a culture of sustainability in municipal governments?

In 2010, the Network for Business Sustainability published a cutting edge report on Embedding Sustainability in Organizational Culture. Prepared by Dr. Stephanie Bertels and her research team at Simon Fraser University, the report presents a portfolio of practices gleaned from a systematic review of the entire body of research on sustainability and organizational culture. Quickly gaining traction in the business community, the framework that they developed provides guidance to those leading the shift toward a culture of sustainability.

In order to tailor this work for the municipal sector, The Natural Step Canada, in collaboration with Dr. Bertels, is currently updating this work for the municipal context, teasing out municipal examples of the various practices. Our aim is to provide practical guidance for municipal practitioners and organizations, based on leading research, to support a culture of sustainability in municipalities across the country.

Key questions that have guided the research include:

What practices are municipal organizations undertaking to embed sustainability into the organizational culture?
What’s working well?
What are the main challenges?
What practices can be scaled up and shared?

Some preliminary findings have emerged from the interviews with municipal sustainability practitioners in Canada and they include:

Municipalities all across the country are creating sustainability-focused roles and integrating a sustainability group into their organizational structure.
In turn, these internal change agents are championing sustainability across departments and throughout the organization. This is leading to the creation of cross-departmental working groups to advance sustainability projects, tackle systemic issues, and collaborate and innovate in a range of ways.
Municipal governments are supporting community-based sustainability initiatives, and intentionally nurturing community involvement in their sustainability programs. Partnerships with community stakeholders are common, and there is a strong recognition that the culture of the municipality is strongly linked to the culture of the surrounding community.
Interviews found practices that reflect the full spectrum of the portfolio approach to nurturing a culture of sustainability. They integrate a combination of diverse practices with aligned goals, including: formal and informal; strategic and tactical; and top-down and bottom-up.

Recently, at the Ecocity World Summit in Montreal, I had the pleasure of providing an overview of the portfolio approach alongside Dick Ebersohn from the City of Calgary, Larua MacPherson from the City of Charlottetown, and Michael Baldwin from the City of Fredericton. Each panellist shared examples of sustainable practices their community has undertaken and the challenges they face on the road to embedding sustainability into their organization culture. It was a fantastic sample of the great progress municipalities have made and showed we still have a long journey ahead of us.

The full report Embedding Sustainability into the Culture of Municipal Government will be launched this fall. For now, you can download a Summary of Key Findings to date, which provides an introduction to our work and some initial key findings.

Join us on November 3 for a free webinar to introduce you to this exciting new resource, including the background, research process, a summary of key findings, case studies, and how you can utilize this new tool to advance sustainability within your municipal organization.

We are also offering a series of 1-day workshops across Canada for those who wish to add this resource to their sustainability tool belt. Learn more and register today!

Toronto, ON (November 17)
Vancouver, BC (December 7)
Ottawa, ON (February 2012, details TBA)

If you would like to learn more about this project, the final report, and/or the workshops, please contact me at jpurkis(at)naturalstep.ca or 613.748.3001 x227.

We’d like to extend our gratitude to our generous funders, HB Lanarc (A Member of the Golder Group of Companies), ISL Engineering and Land Services and Enerkem, and to all of the participating municipalities for their contributions to this project. Thank you, as well, to the Network for Business Sustainability for their support of practical research to advance the sustainability field.

Canada

Eugene Water and Electric Board, Eugene, Oregon, USA

Chas Martin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:56:58 -0400

Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB)
A Natural Step Network Case Study

Overview
The Eugene Water and Electric Board, the largest public utility in Oregon, serves over 75,000 business and residential customers for electricity and over 40,000 for water in Eugene and parts of the surrounding southern Willamette Valley. It also provides steam for the heating and hot water needs of approximately 100 commercial customers in downtown Eugene. Electrical generation facilities, providing about 20 percent of its supply, include small-to-medium-scale hydroelectric plants, industrial cogeneration facilities, and part of a wind generation facility in Wyoming. The rest of its energy supply is purchased under contract from the Bonneville Power Administration and from the wholesale energy market. EWEB also owns an electrical distribution system, a steam generation plant, and water treatment, storage, and distribution facilities. Operating its facilities valued at nearly $450,000,000 is a major activity. In 2000 EWEB had revenues of over $140 million and employed about 470 people.

Background
An outbreak of typhoid in 1906 traced to the water supply led to a loss of community confidence in the private water company. The City of Eugene responded by purchasing the water treatment plant after a bond authorization was approved by public vote. In 1911 the new municipal utility built a small-scale hydroelectric plant to reliably power the water system. The excess electricity was sold to the community, giving the utility a start in the electric-supply business. In 1916, the local private power company was purchased, and the utility became a full-service supplier of both water and electricity. At this point the name was changed to Eugene Water & Electric Board.

EWEB has a long tradition of promoting and rewarding sustainable activity in all aspects of its operation. In the 1970s, this was heightened as the controversy over nuclear power came into focus in Oregon. EWEB was a 30-percent owner in the Trojan Nuclear Plant, but public sentiment led to a decision to withdraw its support of nuclear power in general and its ownership of the Trojan facility in particular. An increased emphasis on renewable sources, conservation, and environmentally sensitive operations was established. In 1990 EWEB was cited for non-compliant air emissions from the steam generation plant. The organization was motivated to avoid that kind of problem in the future. It created an environmental manager position and shifted from compliance to prevention, self-regulation, and avoidance of regulatory costs. Eventually, the Environmental Department grew to five staff members.

Programs encouraging and rewarding conservation were put into place and have continued since. EWEB views conservation of energy as a viable and cost-effective alternative to electricity generation. In 2000, for instance, it is estimated that conservation and efficiency improvements provided the equivalent of about 10 percent of Eugene’s power needs, resulting in a savings of over $9 million in wholesale power costs.

In 1996 the board developed a set of operating principles with sustainability as one of three overarching principles to guide operations (the other two being community leadership and business success). These principles led to the development of an environmental policy that was adopted by the Board of Commissioners in November of 1997. The effort to develop this policy involved people throughout the organization, not just executives.

Also during this time, EWEB was searching for management tools to help the organization on its path toward sustainability. It explored and evaluated several systems to help with decisionmaking, such as ISO 14001, and studied other concepts such as the CERES Principles. It selected items or approaches from all to develop an eclectic approach that best fits its organization and situation.

The Introduction of The Natural Step
Historically then, EWEB’s mission, culture, and internal policies were all aligned to reinforce and enhance EWEB’s efforts at doing business in a sustainable fashion. The environmental policy provided direction for the organization’s activities in accomplishing its mission. What still was needed was a framework that would tie all the different efforts together and provide a language and model for everyone in the organization.

In 1997 the first TNS training was held in Portland, and a few EWEB employees attended. The next year, training was offered in Eugene, and more employees got exposure to TNS. In 1999 when the national conference for TNS was held in Portland, EWEB attendees could see the extent to which many organizations around the world had adopted the framework. As Environmental Manager Laurie Power states, TNS clearly “seemed to hold promise, and we were inspired by the support for it. It seemed to provide the missing element in EWEB’s approach – a framework to bridge the gap between vision and application of the sustainability mission.”

Power’s environmental group determined that the system conditions could be used by anyone in the organization as an aid to making decisions. They provided a scientifically based foundation that all could understand. A Sustainability Working Group of senior staff and mid-level managers was formed with the support of Power’s executive manager. This manager willingly took the message to the Executive Management Team. At the time, the Team was building six strategic goals for the utility as a whole, one of which was sustainability. The Executive Team agreed that The Natural Step’s system conditions had a role in EWEB’s strategy for sustainability. The Team also endorsed a questionnaire developed by the Working Group that
incorporated the system conditions and other questions to foster sustainability in decisionmaking. (See Exhibit 1). The questionnaire was to be used by work groups and managers to evaluate alternatives when making decisions about projects.

Training Power’s team developed a half-day training program to bring employees up to a common level of understanding about sustainability and how it could be considered in each job function. Work groups of up to ten people in areas such as landscape, shop, water, construction, and electrical distribution have received the training, which includes the environmental policy, TNS framework, and the questionnaire. One of Power’s staff was made responsible for the training, and attended several “train the trainer” sessions conducted by the Oregon Natural Step Network. At the end of 2001, approximately 150 employees had been trained.

After the training, a project group was planning a new transmission line to outlying areas west of Eugene and observed that the route extended through wetlands. The group discussed routing and materials in the light of the system conditions and made recommendations that were far different from traditional approaches. The routing was planned to minimize impact on the wetlands, and the recommended material for the transmission towers was recycled steel instead of the customary treated wood. Steel has a longer life and does not have to be handled as “special waste” at the end of its life like treated wood does. It addition, the costs over the long term would be lower.

Benefits and Results
Each year the Executive Management Team selects strategies to carry out the utilities’ six goals.
Following are some of the results:

• Paper usage. EWEB set a goal of 10% reduction of paper by year-end 2000. This program achieved a 28% reduction in the first four months -- nearly triple the original goal. Further, the employee group that had been given the charter for this project found an office paper manufactured by Georgia Pacific that had 30% post-consumer fiber and did not compromise appearance or printing performance. By utilizing a state purchasing agreement, EWEB paid no more for this paper than that which it replaced.

• Energy conservation at EWEB headquarters. With its strong history of support for conservation, EWEB looked for further reduction of energy at its headquarters site. In the 90-day period May through July 2001, consumption was reduced by nearly 19% over the same period in the previous year.

• Conservation and renewable energy for EWEB customers. EWEB implemented a threetiered rate structure for electricity in November 2001. Rates are higher for customers with higher usage, providing an economic incentive for greater conservation. Additionally, residential and commercial customers are given the option of buying wind power for the equivalent of 10%, 25%, 50%, or 100% of their usage. Customers are charged a higher rate for wind power, reflecting the higher costs. This program provides a way for customers to support EWEB’s shift to renewable energy.

• Future electricity generation. EWEB has developed strong policies to guide investments in future power generation capacity. These are (1) to continue with its efforts to reduce demand through education, incentives, and other programs, (2) to provide superior environmental performance for non-renewable generation during the transition to a sustainable energy future, and (3) to seek out and invest in renewable sources in a way consistent with other business goals. EWEB will exceed Oregon law in mitigating emissions from natural gas plants, it will make further investments in wind and hydro capacity, and it is beginning pilot applications of solar photovoltaics, fuel cells, and other technologies.

• Vehicles. EWEB set a goal to convert its fleet of sedans to fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles. One sedan will be bought in 2002, and 12 will be in place by 2006.

Sources:

1. Discussions with Laurie Power, Environmental Manager; Deb Brewer, Public Affairs Manager; Jim Maloney, Energy Resources Project Manager; and Mark Wall, Environmental Specialist in May and August 2001.
2. EWEB Web site: WWW.EWEB.ORG.

This case study was prepared by Rick Baker of Rick Baker Consulting, Eugene, Oregon in
November 2001 for The Oregon Natural Step Network.

Exhibit 1

EWEB QUESTIONNAIRE

Building Sustainability into EWEB’s Business Decisions (2/26/01)
Introduction: This list of questions is designed to help you make decisions that foster sustainability*. The intent is to prompt thorough and lively discussion among decisionmakers
and work groups, prompting deeper understanding of the issues that underlie sustainability. This process is, by its very nature, holistic, creative, and perhaps a bit
messy as you explore ways to ground sustainability into your work.
Name of Project:
Participants:
1. What is the objective or need?
2. What are the options to address the objective/need?
3. What are the impacts on the community?
4. What are the economic impacts?
5. What are the impacts on the environment?
6. Is it consistent with our Board principles?
7. Who needs to be involved in this decision?
8. What are the impacts on EWEB?
9. How are we generating waste? What could we do to reduce waste and encourage recycling or reuse?
10. Is there another way to meet the business objective or need? (Replay of question #2)
11. Test solutions on the 4 system conditions of The Natural Step:

a. Does this activity foster or support a systematic reduction over time in the extraction of materials from the earth’s crust?
b. Does this activity foster or support a systematic reduction over time in the accumulation of synthetic chemicals/substances into the biosphere?
c. Does this activity foster or support the health of nature’s life-sustaining ecosystems and ecosystem services?
d. Does this activity foster or support the fair and efficient use of resources to meet present and future human needs?

12. How can progress be monitored?
13. Does this foster sustainability? Does it move us in the direction of sustainability?
14. If not, what should we do?
Other Comments: __________________________________________________________

Exclusive Information Session: Learn about The Natural Step Canada (web conference)

Jennifer Reid — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:56:33 -0400

Start: Apr 26 2010 - 12:00pm

End: Apr 26 2010 - 1:00pm

Timezone: Canada/Eastern

Join us for an exclusive web-based teleconference to learn more about how The Natural Step can help your organization progress along the path toward sustainability. Hear, firsthand, the story of an organization’s engagement with The Natural Step from:

Claude Ouimet, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Canada and Latin America, InterfaceFLOR
Barbara Turley-McIntyre, Director of Sustainability and Corporate Citizenship, The Co-operators

Members of our experienced advisory team will also be available to answer questions.

To RSVP for this event please contact: Jennifer Reid, jreid@naturalstep.ca, 613.748.3001 x224.

Learn more about some of our programs today:

Canada