Archive for September, 2009

There were many requests for access to the powerful presentations made during our Thursday night issues panel.
Bob Willard – The Secret Benefit of Sustainable Strategies: Employee Engagement  
During the Q&A session, Bob, a noted author on sustainability issues, graciously invited students to obtain a copy of his e-book: The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook which outlines [...]

Student Presentations Podcast
Length: 1 Hour and 21 Minutes

Peter Schiefke Podcast.
Length: 1 Hour

Two hundred people filled the glass cathedral-like atrium of the University of Guelph’s Science Complex yet you could have heard a pin drop as students took a moment to contemplate and take note of what inspired them most during the conference. This was the first step of the personal commitment exercise led by Chad Park [...]

“Keep thinking big and big things will happen.” That’s just one gem Peter Schiefke had to offer the participants. In his candid address, Peter outlined the challenges behind some of his most successful initiatives which include The Flag Project, Concordia Volunteer Abroad Program and the 1% Campaign.
Candidly, he told stories of perseverance, hard work, trying, [...]

“Killele. Killele. Oye, oye, killele”. The african song taught to us last night by Fule Badoe rang through the beautiful atrium and energized the early morning crowd. Lou Hammond-Ketilson of the University of Saskatchewan’s Centre for the Study of Co-operatives then took the stage.  She outlined the commitment of the organisations behind the conference. Among all partners, a [...]

Students spent the entire day crafting solutions for the problems and barriers to change they identified the previous day.  Each sector presented short and long term actions they could take to create change.  Themes that emerged from multiple sectors included better information and labeling of products helping consumers to make informed decisions, more accurate costing [...]

Friday night’s workshops were a blast. Even though it had already been a long day, the gang dug deep to muster energy for these discussions. The leaders led the following sessions:
Tom Ewart, from the Network for Business Sustainability began his workshop on Ethical Consumerism by asking the students some tough questions, such as how do [...]

Here’s what our sector experts in food systems, municipal public sector and insurance & financial services had to say about their day with Impact! participants
Group: Food Systems
Sector Expert: Roger Eacock – President, SunOpta
Roger admired the passion, enthusiasm and courage of the students and said: “I wish Stephen Harper were here today, he would be inspired [...]

Following an inspiring call to action from David Suzuki, students were divided into sector-focussed groups.  Theory and practice experts answered student questions and led discussions on the specific opportunities and barriers for achieving sustainability in their sector.  Following that session, the sector groups mixed and focussed on various issues like: air, human rights, water, etc
Here’s [...]