Storyteller Blog - Ottawa Sustainability for Leaders Level 1 Course

Written by Monique Lefebvre

Before the holidays trickled in, a group of more than 20 participants coalesced to take part in The Natural Step’s Sustainability Leaders course December 10th and 11th 2009. Entering the room, familiar faces were to be seen. The course commenced with a roundtable of introductions starting off with our two remarkable facilitators. People from universities, non-governmental organizations, businesses, the federal government and municipalities briefly introduced themselves and the work they do. In these introductions two common threads were evident. The first being the participants’ pride in their work and second their openness and their willingness to learn.

While the courses’ interactive learning approach unwound itself, laughs and smiles increased and participants blossomed into engaged sustainability leaders. Much of the TNS framework massages away bumps in our knowledge around sustainability issues to transform it into a body of knowledge we can more clearly communicate. In a certain sense, it is versed as to ease the creation of a common language. In fact, the TNS framework language is so accessible a participant, tasked to present the framework to his peers, decided to explain the framework in a manner even his 4 year old son would understand. By the end of his presentation, I was convinced his child could comprehend the main ideas behind the teachings. 

As a storyteller, I had the opportunity to interview a few course participants. Among the participants were two youth who underlined the importance of youth sustainable leaders. “We are the future. We need to lead by example, lead from the bottom-up”, explained Sarah Burger, presently working at the Fondation québécoise en environnement. Isabelle Pitre, from the Municipality of Chelsea added, “it is necessary for us youth to share this knowledge with our work colleagues”.

One of the realities the TNS recognizes is that as sustainability leaders we often must quickly and effectively sell our sustainability ideas to our supervisors, peers, clients or partners. As such, we practiced and put to test our elevator sales pitches. After two days of discussing sustainability, the sales pitches were quite impressive. One of the sales pitches went as such: 

Pitcher: Do you have a few floors to take a quick survey?

Receiver: Yes
Pitcher: Please tell me if these things have gone up or down
Pitcher: Gas prices?
Receiver: Up
Pitcher: your heating bill?
Receiver: Up
Pitcher: the price of bread?
Receiver: Up
Pitcher: Jobs?
Receiver: Down
Pitcher: In a way did you know that all of these are related to global warming? How do we address these issues? By taking the pressure off the people and the resources, to bring prices down and make things more accessible, keep jobs, increase green jobs. Whether you do or don’t do something, what is important is that yes your children and grandchildren will see the difference but you will too before you die!

Like the sustainability principles this sales pitch establishes a common understanding of a situation using a common language by/and/which creates a basis of agreement between people from different walks of life.

Whether taking part in this course was part of their preparation for their new year’s resolution to be a sustainability leader or whether they were simply more curious about the TNS Framework, one thing is for sure, participants made head way in becoming more confident sustainability leaders.  This course has played and will continue to play an important role in providing our Sustainable Leaders of today and tomorrow the tools they need to give life to the compelling vision we have for a sustainable world.