Blog

Supporting Collective Impact through Backcasting

Submitted by Brendan Seale on October 17, 2012 - 9:04am

At The Natural Step Canada, we are increasingly hearing calls for "more innovation" and "more collaboration" to facilitate progress on sustainability challenges. Many organizations – including many of our own clients and partners – have recognized that there is only so much that they can achieve on their own, and that there are plenty of obstacles to overcome in partnership with suppliers, customers, regulators, and yes, even their competitors.

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

Submitted by Pong Leung on October 1, 2012 - 9:55am

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…

The Power of Community: Bold Moves for Small Islands

Submitted by Karen Miller on September 25, 2012 - 10:41am

During the first week of September, my colleague John Purkis and I had the privilege of leading a sustainability capacity building program in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).  This proved an excellent forum to apply the Natural Step Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (the Framework), as in a small island setting, sustainability challenges are both stark and very present; where does your waste go on a small island?  This, combined with a small country population of 27 800, makes for both a clear and compelling challenge in a society where decision-makers are active participants in the community and available to converse with citizens.  The size and scale of the islands makes change seem ‘doable,’ and while John and I were there, many people commented that ‘the BVI is a mi

Celebrating Success: Congratulations to 2013 Clean50 award winners Reza Nasseri and Barbara Turley-McIntyre

Submitted by The Natural Ste... on September 19, 2012 - 10:53am

This week, two of our partners won awards honouring their contribution to the sustainability movement. Reza Nasseri of The Landmark Group of Builders and Barbara Turley-McIntyre of The Co-operators were both recipients of this year’s Clean50 Awards.

Raising the bar: Nike backcasting from a bold vision of success

Submitted by Brendan Seale on September 11, 2012 - 2:01pm

In May of 2012, hallmark company Nike published its Sustainable Business Report for 2010/11, demonstrating that it is increasingly reaping the benefits of integrating sustainability into its core business through a world-class vision and strategy.

Nike has contextualized all of its sustainability efforts relative to a bold, aspirational vision:

"Our vision is to build a sustainable business and create value for Nike and our stakeholders by decoupling profitable growth from constrained resources."

Message from the Executive Director: The Key Question for a “Transformational Company”: What’s Left to Be Done?

Submitted by Chad Park on September 5, 2012 - 10:16am

What makes a transformational or sustainable company?  Versions of this question seem to be on a lot of people’s minds – from a recent call for feedback on this topic by Canadian Business for Social Responsibility to an article asking similar questions in last week’s CSRwire.

The Reality of Ecological Debt

Submitted by The Natural Ste... on August 27, 2012 - 1:36pm

Wednesday, August 22nd was "Earth Overshoot Day", the date on which humanity exceeded the bio-capacity of our planet for the entire year of 2012. In essence, we have now utilized all of the resources that our planet can provide in a calendar year in a sustainable scenario, and for the remainder of 2012, we will continue to deplete the planet's ability to provide the resources we require to sustain our society in the future.

Three Key Questions that Allow Sustainability to Come Alive in Your Organization

Submitted by Pong Leung on August 8, 2012 - 2:30pm

Here is a situation you may find yourself in: you have created a sustainability plan but feel isolated in the implementation of the plan and are finding it an uphill battle to make real change happen in your organization.  This is a common challenge we’ve observed with our clients and if you are in this situation then we suggest that you consider three key questions to change it:

1)  How does sustainability enable our organization’s strategic business narrative?

"What do we do on Monday Morning?": Target setting and action planning for sustainability

Submitted by Sarah Brooks on August 1, 2012 - 10:30am

There’s a time in every organization’s sustainability planning when the rubber (er, bike tire?!) needs to hit the road. It’s critical to have a strategic plan in place, and in our experience, the best plans reflect an understanding of sustainability principles and are developed through the process of backcasting from success principles. However, the best laid plans can come to naught if they aren’t acted upon. Recently, we were with The Landmark Group of Builders to help them actualize a one-year action plan that moves them systematically toward achieving their long term sustainability goals.

Connecting the strategic with the tactical: How does what we are doing connect with where we want to be?

Submitted by Karen Miller on July 18, 2012 - 10:43am

When organizations such as ISL Engineering and Land Services and The Co-operators have a solid sustainability strategy in place, it’s time to tackle this question.  Last year, we helped the Cooperators develop a product assessment tool to clearly show how their products link to their sustainability strategy – helping to benchmark where they stand from a sustainability perspective and to track improvement over time.  This year, we’re helping ISL Engineering and Land Services to assess various design options from a sustainability perspective as they build out their engineering projects. 

Pages

Subscribe to Blog feed