For the past 10 years, The Natural Step Canada has built the capacity of dozens of municipalities and businesses to lead change toward sustainability in their sectors and regions, leading to thousands of changes in policies, decision-making, and concrete actions that are contributing to a more sustainable planet. We have created leaders, role models, and best practice examples for a better world.

To do this, we have largely worked one organization at a time, one community at a time, and one individual at a time. We are proud of our accomplishments and the achievements of those we have worked with. Yet despite tremendous progress, it is clear that working one organization at a time won’t change things at the speed or on the scale we need.

In the small town of Karlskrona, Sweden, young leaders from around the world gather every September to begin a Masters program in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) at the Blekinge Institute of Technology. The course is based around The Natural Step Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, and it turns passionate students into empowered change agents for a better world.

The following poem appeared in the Rocky Mountain Outlook of November 27, 2008. This composition is by Bert Dyck, the former Town of Canmore CAO, and addresses a recent community controversy about clotheslines being prohibited in certain Canmore developments

The Answers are Blowing in the Wind

Bert Dyck

I went to Canmore for a walk
On rivers, trails or creeks
Or climb Ha Ling, that rugged Rock
Or other worthy peaks

When what should cross my line of sight
And bugger up my view?
A clothesline on a yard stretched tight
Replete with laundry, too

The lot on which the line I found
Was large and well located
With clothesline on that piece of ground
Its value I deflated

I would have given it a price
Quite high, or even higher
Secure in mind that owners here
Could well afford a dryer

In the build up to the EcoCity World Summit in Montreal (August 22-26) Laura MacPherson, Charlottetown’s Sustainability Coordinator, will speak in a panel session tomorrow (Aug 23.) MacPherson will be discussing the steps the City has taken in recent months to foster and cultivate a culture of sustainability in City operations.