If there’s one thing we can report since launching the Sustainability Transition Lab initiative last year it is that collaboration is messy business. If you like static roles, clear-cut deadlines and deliverables, and you don’t like having your ideas and opinions challenged, the collaborative space is probably not for you.

If on the other hand you can handle having your assumptions pointed out to you, you’re ready to adjust your schedule to accommodate others just as busy as yourself, and you’re ready to accept that the viewpoints you bring to the table may not turn out to be the most popular, you just might be ready for collaboration.

Collaboration forces us to embrace the emergent or quickly drown in it. But at the same time, we’ve got a lot riding on our bet that several of the tools and approaches The Natural Step has used for years working with individual organizations can be adapted and applied in the messy world of labs.

We’ve made a bet that a scientifically rigorous definition of sustainability can provide the boundaries for compelling and ambitious visions of success that serve to unify and drive collaborative initiatives, and can also be a useful lens for making sense of complexity. We’ve also bet that through well-designed processes and careful facilitation, a Sustainability Transition Lab can provide the space for collaborators to build trust and develop a capacity to see systems together. 

Join Chad Park, Executive Director for The Natural Step and Saralyn Hodgkin, Director of Collaboration Programs and Evaluation this Thursday April 24th for a free webinar on Getting to Results with Sustainability Transition Labs. See how our bets are panning out so far, learn about our experience and hear stories from the exciting world of collaborating for sustainability. 

Want to engage further in the conversation about sustainability-driven collaboration? The Natural Step Canada is excited to host the 2nd annual Accelerate: Collaborating for Sustainability Conference on June 5-6, 2014, in Toronto. Join us to deepen learning about collaboration from experts and practitioners, experience collaboration by creating connections with other change agents, and seed new collaborative initiatives. Learn more and register today!