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Jurassic World: A Premonition for Humanity With a Real Bite

Submitted by The Natural Ste... on July 26, 2015 - 11:13am

“Biological diversity is messy. It walks, it crawls, it swims, it swoops, it buzzes. But extinction is silent, and it has no voice other than our own.” -Paul Hawken

Jurassic World exploded onto the big screens last month, emerging as the second biggest debut in cinema history. Jaw-dropping visuals, spine-tingling action scenes, and nostalgia aside, viewers should take a more serious message from the movie. Within two generations, this could be our future. All biodiversity on earth could be found only in parks or reserves, as seen in Jurassic World.

4 Improvements in Future-Fit Business Benchmark: Public Draft 2

Submitted by Bob Willard on July 14, 2015 - 9:14am

The article 4 Improvements in Future-Fit Business Benchmark: Public Draft 2 written by Bob Willard, a long serving board member of The Natural Step Canada, was originally published on sustainabilityadvantage.com. The Future-Fit Business Benchmark is a project that is co-led by The Natural Step Canada and 3D Investment Foundation.

The Co-operators and The Natural Step Canada collaborate to develop young sustainability leaders

Submitted by The Natural Ste... on July 8, 2015 - 10:30am

| version français suivant |

Guelph, ON, July 8, 2015 – Today, The Co-operators and The Natural Step Canada announced a new partnership agreement to jointly deliver the IMPACT! Youth Program for Sustainability Leadership over the next four years. The collaboration significantly deepens the capacity of the IMPACT! program to achieve its vision of developing young sustainability leaders across Canada.

Growing Food in the City

Submitted by Our Storyteller on May 26, 2015 - 12:54pm

When you begin to take notice of just how much unused green space there is in a city, the possibilities for growing local food become endless. Madeleine Maltby has secured five residential plots in Ottawa’s west end for growing organic vegetables in for her pilot season of urban farming. 

Growing food is Madeleine’s passion. After working on a variety of organic farms she decided to bring the farm into the urban landscape of her hometown. Last November Madeleine Maltby took part in the IMPACT! Sustainability Champions Training program to inspire and help create her urban farming project, Britannia Backyard Edibles.

Getting Fit for the Future – Sustainability and Management Consulting

Submitted by The Natural Ste... on May 11, 2015 - 9:16am

The article Getting Fit for the Future – Sustainability and Management Consulting, written by Jac van Beek, was originally published on www.cmc-canada.ca. 

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Several weeks ago, I explored the effects of a volatile economy on management consulting. I would like to explore management consulting and another type of volatility – dramatic changes to our natural environment.

It’s Not All High-Fives: Balancing the Positive and Constructive at IMPACT!

Submitted by Our Storyteller on March 31, 2015 - 9:00am

IMPACT! Sustainability Champions Training, Guelph, ON, March 2015

If you have ever watched the Monty Python Argument sketch, you may think back on all of the people who appeared to thrive on opposition and arguing for arguments sake. While simply being contrarian can be maddening for most, so can the other extreme where discussions are dominated by overwhelming agreement, or “groupthink”. The most recent IMPACT! Sustainability Champions Training, a collaborative project of The Natural Step Canada and The Co-operators, brought together over 45 individuals to explore opportunities in sustainability and social entrepreneurship. While IMPACT! created some very positive experiences for the attendees, did it balance this positive group dynamic with critical and constructive feedback?

A Message from Chad Park, Executive Director:

Submitted by Chad Park on March 16, 2015 - 8:09am

The past year has been one of intense development for The Natural Step Canada. 2014 was the second year of a five year strategic plan focused on shifting our approach from working mostly one organization at a time, to multi-organizational collaborative interventions aimed at catalyzing profound change in larger systems.

The centrepiece of this focus is the Sustainability Transition Lab (STL), which blends our backcasting approach and experience enabling sustainability-driven change within organizations, with best and emerging practice in multi-stakeholder change processes. We’ve spent the last couple of years developing the STL program and methodology, and 2014 was when we really began to put it into practice.

Could the Future-Fit Business Benchmark be about to Shake up the World of Green Business Ratings?

Submitted by Tyler Seed on March 16, 2015 - 8:02am

Part 1: How we Measure Business Sustainability

“Wind the clock forward and imagine that we are now in a sustainable economy. What would we be able to say about all companies in that economy? What would be true of the performance of these companies in order for that economy to go on forever?”

Tim’s Top 4 Characteristics of Innovation Ecosystems

Submitted by Tyler Seed on March 16, 2015 - 8:01am

Last fall, The Natural Step gathered a group of Canadian leaders in sustainability and social innovation in Wakefield, Quebec. Surrounded by the turbulent beauty of the MacLaren Falls we came to share experiences and resources, and to address the need for a qualitatively different approach to the way we work.

We affirmed our commitment that to affect change greater than our individual mandates, we need many more points of connectivity into the very systems we are trying to shift. In order to identify the sort of strategic interventions that lead to breakthrough outcomes we need to be informed by a depth of understanding that can only be acquired through diverse and sometimes uncomfortable alliances.

Eat with Impact

Submitted by Our Storyteller on March 16, 2015 - 7:45am

“We can all become activists in the way we eat.”

This is the message that Danielle Prapavessis and Mischa Hamara, founders of Seed by Seed and two-time participants in The Natural Step's IMPACT! Sustainability Champions Training program, brought to 31 schools and community groups last summer as they cycled across Canada, from Victoria to St. John’s on their first speaking tour.

Danielle and Mischa’s passion led them to create a non-profit organization and educational partner that would deliver speeches and workshops to young people and teach them about sustainability, our food system, and food security. They have come a long way since they brought the outline of their plan to their first IMPACT! Sustainability Champions Training session in Ottawa in 2013.

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