Dear Friends,

We are pleased and proud to announce that The Natural Step Canada has won ECO Canada’s Environmental Employer of the Year Award for small to medium sized enterprises. The award recognises companies and non-profits in the environment industry for their commitment and dedication to human resource (HR) excellence.

This award is a meaningful tribute to the work we have undertaken to ensure our HR policies are in line with our organization’s core sustainability values. As an organization that promotes sustainability, we are committed to walking the talk by striving to be a role model organization when it comes not only to our environmental policies, but also to our social sustainability. And as Executive Director, I am extremely proud of my team and the incredible work they do.

Our success as a non-governmental organization (NGO) in enabling transformational change toward sustainability depends on the talent and engagement of our team. Our goal is to foster a healthy work environment that allows employees to achieve a positive work-life balance. We strive to have an atmosphere of respect and open collaboration, creating the conditions wherein every employee feels valued, empowered, and part of a team. This way, we will attract and retain top talent, differentiate ourselves from other organizations, and become a role model in living what we promote.

As an entrepreneurial NGO, we’ve grown exponentially in the past five years. We have just gone through our first HR transition where we’ve had to reorganize ourselves internally to better meet demand and better serve our partners. Over the past four months, we have made significant internal changes to respond to growing demand for our sustainability training, advice, and coaching services. We’re now pleased to announce our new audience-focused program areas:

• Emerging Leaders: Directed at college and university students, we offer the next generation of sustainability leaders the tools, training, and practical experience needed to be effective sustainability leaders and change agents.
• Sustainability Learning Programs: We offer existing and budding sustainability practitioners a suite of individual learning programs to help them understand sustainability, become effective change agents, and accelerate the transition toward sustainability in their businesses and communities.
• Sustainable Communities: We help build community capacity to understand and embrace the challenge of sustainability across sectors and help facilitate long-term systems change.
• Sustainable Business: We help translate the fundamentals of sustainability into innovation and value creation for businesses and their supply chains.

Along with our new program areas, we’ve made several staff changes, as well, to better serve our partners, meet the demands of a growing organization, and respond to the family planning priorities of our young workforce. Welcome to:

• Dwayne Hodgson, who is leading our Sustainability Learning Programs.
• Josh Snider, who is our new Communications Manager.
• Marieke van der Velden, who is our new Program Officer and YEIP intern.
• Karen Miller, who joins our advisory team.

In addition, congratulations to the following staff who have changed roles internally:

• Anouk Bertner, who moves from communications to leading our new Emerging Leaders Program.
• John Purkis, who is leading our Sustainable Communities Program.
• Chad Park, who is leading our Sustainable Business Program.

As well, we bid farewell to Jocelyn Land-Murphy who has left her post as Fundraising Manager to go on maternity leave. She is being replaced by Sabrina Bowman. Welcome Sabrina! And we also bid farewell in a few weeks to Saralyn Hodgkin who will leave the TNS Exchange to take a year of maternity leave. She will be replaced by Emily Briggs. Welcome Emily!

Hats off to a great team!

Kelly Hawke Baxter, Executive Director