We all know a great deal about what is wrong with our society, regardless of what perspective we are coming from. To take a page from Dick Cheney’s playbook, if there is even a 1% chance that our current way of being is causing irreparable damage to the earth—to its atmosphere, its oceans, and its web of life—we have a responsibility to address this challenge. It may be that part of what is wrong with our society is also a dysfunctional government, an economic system that is designed to crash periodically and is making everyone poorer in the process, and a lack of intelligent discussion throughout our culture.
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Posted by Admin under: Forum; Leadership; Organization; Sustainability.
Our next regular meeting on July 24, 1-4 p.m. at Morris County Library will feature Mary Reilly on communicating sustainability messages in the face of resistance (details below), and Meric Ozgur on the UN Global Compact 2010 Leaders’ Summit (see below for details). We’re also co-hosting a special panel discussion on Sustainability in the Pharmaceutical Industry on Monday, July 26, at 6:30 p.m. at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Please RSVP to let us know that you’re coming. View/download flyer here: SLF-ISE-NetImpactJuly26FLYER.pdf.
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Posted by Admin under: Events; Forum; Global.
Our own Victoria Zelin will facilitate this panel around sustainability in the pharma sector. There is no charge. Please RSVP according to the announcement. Hope to see you there!
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Posted by Admin under: Events; Forum; Science; Sustainability.
Meric Ozgur is a Human Resources Specialist in a global manufacturing company where she is a practitioner in numerous HR functions, including compensation, international/domestic relocation and immigration. She received her undergraduate degree in Statistics, at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey and her EMBA degree at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU), New Jersey. She recently finished a graduate certificate program in Managing Sustainability from FDU and INCAE Business School in Costa Rica.
Meric has involved in several sustainability projects, focusing on individual/ group behavior and its impact on business and society. She is a co-author of an article “Can Green Swim Upstream?” where authors examined the underlying values of sustainability, and inquired about the long-term business applications from a Management/ Human Resources perspective. The article was published in People & Strategy Journal’s special issue for transitioning to green economy in Spring 2010.
Meric was a volunteer at UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in June 2010, and will share her learnings about Global Compact with the participants. As a recent graduate of the Managing Sustainability certificate program from ISE/INCAE, she will also share the highlights of the program, its impacts and aftermath in her personal and professional life.
Posted by Admin under: Forum; People.
The path to a more sustainable future is likely to have as many setbacks as successes, and we’ve been having plenty of both lately. The opening of the “Greenable Woodbridge Museum of the Future,” at the Woodbridge Center mall, on June 11 and 12, was certainly a success, and was in many ways a triumph of pure imagination. Nothing like this has, to the best of our knowledge, ever been tried before; a year-long community outreach and engagement project focused on green initiatives located in a mall.
To separate oneself from it, at the same time as it is being born, has the sense of abandoning a child—in the case into the hands of two young people, Ashley Strain and Kelly Reidy, who are serving as interns to the Mayor this summer. The Museum remains a living asset, a canvas for possibility, a venue that will gather steam with a wide range of events, programs, movies, displays, and other uses. Of course, it needs to be widely advertised, scheduled, and staffed by volunteers from all of its supporting organizations.
But it surpassed our expectations as an innovative opportunity, allowing us to plant a seed of green consciousness in the midst of that monument to America’s consumer culture, the shopping mall. Is it possible to visualize a time when malls will be taken over by people using them to grow things, to educate themselves, to recycle and reuse, and to hold organizing meetings and social events. It still has a long way to go, but the idea struck some people as one with potentially national implications, if it’s done right over the long term.
For a photo album of the opening, click here.
To say that this achievement was bittersweet is something of an understatement. I learned a couple of weeks before the opening that our team, representing the newly-created Center for Leadership in Sustainability (about which more later), had not been selected to manage and develop the Woodbridge Green Technology Incubator (itself the first element of the Woodbridge Green Technology Park), and a week after that there would be no funding to continue my work with the Museum. For us these are pretty major setbacks; but at the same time they have opened up some other opportunities, and given us a breather to rethink our mission and its execution.
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Posted by Admin under: Events; Forum; Leadership.
This Saturday, June 26, from 1-4 p.m. at the Morris County Library, the Sustainable Leadership Forum will be offering a program whose elements combine deep reflection, interactive problem-solving, and late-breaking news. Please bring friends and colleagues, and note the location change, which will be our home for the next year. Please RSVP to let us know that you’re coming.
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Posted by Admin under: Events; Forum.
The next session of the SLF, on May 1st, includes two presentations:
- Randall Solomon, founding partner of the nationally acclaimed municipal certification program, Sustainable Jersey, will speak on: “From Vision to Action: How to Plan and Follow Through on a Sustainability Strategy.” The presentation will address the organizational issues, structures and processes that yield better sustainability decisions and outcomes. It will be relevant to municipalities, businesses and not-for-profits.
- Marnie Vyff of the Mountain Lakes Shade Tree Commission and Manager of the Mountain Lakes Organic Coop will also present on Municipal Composting. She will provide approaches to integrate composting into a municipality’s recycling program, reducing solid waste costs and providing other benefits to residents.
Event logistics:
Wayne Public Library, 1-4 pm, Saturday, May 1st
461 Valley Road
Wayne, NJ 07470-3557
(973) 694-4272
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Posted by Admin under: Forum.
It’s easy to recognize, at a macro scale, what is unsustainable about our present course. We are already living beyond our means, planetarily speaking; our population is still expanding, and the demand for economic prosperity is exploding even more rapidly. The fact is, we are capable of providing some level of economic wellbeing for everyone on the planet, but not the way we are currently trying to do it. We must learn to use Nature’s energy flows and harmonize our actions with nature’s economy to a much greater extent than we do today; and this in itself offers us an almost unlimited scope for entrepreneurial activity, the creation of jobs, and the improvement of our societies and our lifestyles.
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Posted by jcloud under: Evolution; Forum; Future; Global; Haiti; History; Leadership; Organization; Permaculture; Resiliency; Sustainability.
Sustainable Landscapes & Waterfronts: From Maintenance to Regeneration
Saturday, April 3 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm, Wayne Public Library*
In this session we will be talking about a range of topics from lawn care, using permaculture design principles to reconfigure suburban landscapes, to new approaches to waterfront redevelopment. Our speakers, pioneers – truly “bioneers” – are planning, designing, developing and managing landscapes for environmental, social and economic sustainability.
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Posted by Admin under: Events; Forum; Landscaping; Permaculture; Sustainability.
The central concept that we’ve been exploring lately, that lies at the heart of what we aim to do through the Sustainable Leadership Forum, is that of “emergent leadership.” Our recent event — which featured members Paul Heitmann on electric vehicles and Regan Caton on her new web site The Awarenest (currently in pre-beta) — provided some good examples. (The meeting is described briefly here; in addition to the content, what made it remarkable were the personal stories of how people had gotten to where they are today. This, more than the information alone, is what inspires others to act.)
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Posted by Admin under: Creation; Events; Forum; Future; Haiti; Leadership.
Saturday, March 13th Meeting
Electric Vehicle Project and The Awarenest
1:00 – 4:00 pm at the Wayne Public Library*
Two Presentations:
Paul Heitmann will talk about the Electric Vehicle (EV) Project, its goals, and the general movement toward EVs and what is needed. Paul recently joined Phoenix-based eTec, which received a grant for $100 million to undertake the largest deployment of electric vehicles and charging stations in U.S. history. Previously, Paul worked for Comverge (NJ), a demand response and energy efficiency company, providing smart grid solutions to utilities and their commercial, industrial and residential customers.
Regan Caton was inspired to create The Awarenest when she had trouble finding sustainable and green living resources in her community. The Awarenest is an online portal connecting and delivering sustainable resources to local communities (<http://awarenest.stage.cc/>http://awarenest.stage.cc). Founder-Regan Caton has spent the last 25 years in accessory design and is also the co-owner of Rumblefish Collection which offers eco-friendly jewelry that is cause-oriented. Regan is also the “green” product advisor for EcoMattersTV, which will be launching online June 2010.
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Posted by Admin under: Events; Forum; Sustainability; Transportation.
An immediate thank you to all those who were on the conference call on Sunday evening.
The comments were pertinent, helpful, and insightful. Participants represented more than 30 groups and viewpoints (see list here), and we’ll be following up as appropriate with individuals regarding their specific interests and suggestions. Here are some key points:
- We have posted the call recording here, and will suggest an action plan and ways to work together and stay in touch. If you were not able to join, listening to the recording is a way to get connected to a broad range of initiatives that are bringing sustainable development to Haiti and can no doubt use additional support.
- Whether or not you were able to participate, please keep your materials coming. In writing up a summary of the call, we welcome additional information on your interests, your plans, and your opinions and concerns, which can be posted as comments to this item.
Based on the discussion, the Sustainable Leadership Forum and the Working Group for a Sustainable Future for Haiti also welcome specific partnering proposals that we can work on together.
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Posted by Admin under: Emergency; Events; Forum; Future; Haiti; Permaculture; Resiliency; Sustainability.
