Archive for April, 2009

Conference registration is now completed and while travel is being booked for 180 dynamic and committed students, pre-conference research has begun in earnest under the leadership of the Research Network for Business Sustainability.

Through the pre-conference research, the students will arrive at the conference with:

1. a common understanding of sustainability and its language, to begin learning from a common starting point
2. knowledge of current sustainability practices in organizations to provide a strong base on which to build throughout the conference
3. relationships with other students across geographies and academic disciplines, to broaden thinking of sustainability and fuel the group work

The 25 + hours of pre-conference research consist of:

• an e-learning course designed by The Natural Step;

• virtual work groups that explore sustainability practices in large and small organisations in: insurance and financial services; manufacturing; retail; municipal public services; food systems; energy production; information and communications technology; and hospitality and tourism.

Within each sector, participants in teams of two will assess one company’s practices around:

• Mitigating and adapting to climate change
• Engaging the community and contributing to social development
• Caring for employees
• Caring for consumers
• Protecting water
• Protecting air
• Fighting poverty
• Advancing human rights
• Ensuring organization is managed responsibly

Before the conference has even started the participants will have created a report table for their specific organization;

a summary report table which highlights practices, policies and performance across the sector; and ideas and questions generated as a result of their research which they would like to explore with sector experts and academics at the conference.

Armed with all this knowledge before they even arrive at the University of Guelph on September 24th the real question is what solutions will they come up with during the conference and how significant will their impact be over time. Stay tuned!

A dynamic and impressive group of Canadian students received the good news last week that they have been selected to attend Impact! The Co-operators Youth Conference for Sustainability Leadership. Now it’s time to register and begin their conference pre-work which includes an on-line e-learning course from The Natural Step and group work exploring sustainability practices in organisations.

The conference will bring together an extremely diverse group. Participants have been chosen from disciplines ranging from Agriculture to Women’s Studies, Mechanical Engineering , Environmental Anthropology, Marketing, Human Kinetics, Law, Political Science, Chemistry, Journalism, Environmental Science, Interior Design, Indigeneous Environmental Philosophy, Biopsychology, Mechatronics Engineering and more …it will be fascinating to see how this intersection of passion and experience will impact sustainability!