The Opportunity

In 2010, the City of Edmonton’s Ecological Footprint was 3.2 times greater than the world average. The leaders of the City saw this as a major issue and knew it needed to be addressed in The Way We Green, the City of Edmonton’s environmental strategic plan. In developing The Way We Green, city staff sought the advice of The Natural Step Canada to help them refine the plan.

The Opportunity

In 1998, Nike approached The Natural Step to help the company apply the principles of sustainability to its business operations. Over the following decade, Nike made considerable progress on a number of fronts, such as addressing labour compliance issues in their supply chain, reducing emissions, and eliminating toxic materials from their products. However, by 2008 a sentiment was building among the leaders of the company that these efforts were mostly about reducing negative impacts of their business and, as such, were backward rather than forward looking. To better align its efforts with the Nike culture, the company needed an aspirational goal to drive innovation efforts and align the ongoing work into a single forward-looking direction.

The Opportunity

ISL Engineering and Land Services’ journey toward sustainability began from a sense of responsibility – as a company, as individuals and as professionals. In January 2007, sustainability found a place on ISL’s agenda as the company struck an internal Sustainability Committee and began work on operations-related activities and programs. The success of these initiatives and a desire to challenge the status quo impelled ISL to explore the strategic business advantage in developing in-house sustainability capacity and embedding sustainability into the culture and services of the company.

The Opportunity

After operating from a sustainability platform for a number of years, Santropol Roulant, a non-profit in the Plateau neighbourhood of Montreal, questioned their sustainability impacts and decided to look into further actions that would help reduce their ecological footprint.

Sprawling across two 7,000-foot peaks in the Coast Mountains just north of Vancouver, British Columbia, Whistler Blackcomb is one of the world’s premier ski resorts. The resort's connection with The Natural Step began in March 2000 when members of the ski operation’s senior management team attended one of Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt’s community presentations.

Wolfville, Nova Scotia is situated in the Annapolis Valley, about 100 kilometres north of Halifax. Originally known as Mud Creek, the town was founded by the Acadians in the 18th century and incorporated as the Town of Wolfville in the early 19th century. Wolfville is home to Acadia University, and is widely recognized as one of the most attractive and progressive towns in Atlantic Canada.

Canmore, a mountain town in the Bow Valley in southern Alberta between Calgary and Banff has a permanent population of 11,500 and an additional seasonal population of 4,800.

Canmore was the second Canadian community to implement The Natural Step’s community-wide engagement program (after Whistler, BC).

In 2009, the Duluth Transit Authority (DTA) underwent a visioning and training session provided by The Natural Step Canada to help advance their sustainability program in conjunction with the vision of The Sustainable Twin Ports plan.

As the public transit provider for the cities of Duluth, Hermantown, and Proctor, Minnesota, as well as Superior, Wisconsin, the DTA is responsible for serving the mobility needs of approximately 120,000 residents and visitors in the Twin Ports area.

This case study represents the outcome of the first formal training sessions having taken place between The Natural Step Canada and the DTA.

(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.

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.

Originally founded by postal employees in 1936, iNova Credit Union has provided financial services to the residents of Halifax, Nova Scotia for over 70 years. The company became a partner of the Atlantic Canada Sustainability Initiative (ACSI) in 2007, and committed to take action on sustainability using The Natural Step Framework. All staff were trained in strategic sustainability planning, and they worked together to perform a baseline analysis of their work to date.

The local Environment Network hosted The Natural Step Canada in training a group of 15 people from local businesses, organizations and the municipality of Collingwood, Ontario.

The intent was to provide participants with a shared understanding and common language of sustainability so they could identify initiatives to overcome current and future sustainability challenges in a collaborative, strategic and systematic way.

Surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, and far from other land masses, the island of Hawaii is by design, a perfect living laboratory in which to practice the science of sustainability.  This system is disturbed by their heavy reliance on the importation of fuel and food, posing a unique sustainability challenge for the island community: what if the boat stops coming? Historically, the Island was self-sustaining, even with a population size exceeding that of present day. Many Hawaiians, including those working with the Kohola Centre and the Hawai’i Department of Research Development, see great opportunity for the Island to once again restore this state of wellness through the building of interest and motivation to take sustainably driven action. In June of 2009, advisors from The Natural Step visited the Island of Hawai’i to provide a series of public workshops and a two and a half day session with leaders from various Island businesses and organizations.

The Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) is a non-profit organization that provides support to grassroots non-profit groups throughout Canada.  It wanted to improve internal operations towards sustainability and provide leadership to their grantees around sustainability.

This winter, 40 council members and senior staff from the Town of Markham, the most diverse and one of the fastest growing communities in Canada, engaged in sustainability training facilitated by The Natural Step’s John Purkis and Mike Purcell. The Town of Markham is known for their work on sustainability, and staff and councilors continue to explore new ways to further integrate sustainability into their operations, programs, and services, such as our sustainability leadership training.

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.

BC Hydro is one of the largest electric utility companies in Canada, serving more than 1.7 million customers in the province of British Columbia.  The company’s mandate of providing “reliable power, at low cost, for generations” captures its commitment to the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance.

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is the largest luxury hotel company in North America, with a portfolio of 56 hotels around the world. The company also enjoys an international reputation as an environmental leader in the industry. Guided by its Green Partnership Program, an environmental initiative pioneered by its Canadian properties in 1990, the company received two prestigious awards in 2006 alone: the Global Tourism Business Award and the Worldwide Hospitality Award for Best Corporate Responsibility Program. National Geographic Traveler has claimed that that Fairmont Hotel and Resorts has “the most comprehensive environmental program in the North American hotel industry, and the Green Partnership Program’s Green Partnership Guide has been endorsed by world-renowned environmental activist Dr. David Suzuki.

The town and county of Antigonish are located in the province of Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast. The county has a population of about 22,000 people, with just over 4000 of them living in the Town of Antigonish itself. As home to St. Francis Xavier University and the longest-running Highland Games festival in North America, Antigonish already has an international reputation. But if area residents have their way, Antigonish could soon be known for a lot more than excellence in education and bag piping.

Recognizing the growing need for guidance on sustainability planning among their members, many of which face significant growth challenges, the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) hired The Natural Step Canada to help develop programs for municipal sustainability planning. A major piece of this program was developing a guidebook on municipal sustainability planning (MSP) and supporting the AUMA in piloting it in five municipalities (Olds, Chauvin, Pincher Creek, Thorhild, and Claresholm).

The AUMA MSP guidebook is a step-by-step guide for municipalities on how to create an integrated municipal sustainability plan.  It’s designed to help municipal staff integrate sustainability into their decision-making in a strategic way.  Based on The Natural Step Framework, it can be used by other communities across Canada with different, sizes, budgets and challenges.