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WEBINAR:
May 28
IT Energy Savings for Non-Techies

Mike Walker,
AlterAction

READ MORE HERE

COURSE:
June 9
Assessing Organizational Sustainability 
Using S-CORE(tm)

Maureen Hart
ISSP

READ MORE HERE

COURSE:
July 7
Life Cycle Assessment 101: A Simulated Approach

Thomas Gloria,
Industrial Ecology Consultants


VOLUME 9                     NUMBER 5               May 2015

FROM THE PRESIDENT'S DESK

Top  

ISSP is about Communication and Conversation

 

By ISSP President and EcoSTEPS Sustainability

Partner Julian Crawford of Sydney, Australia

 

One of the techniques I often use to get people

thinking at the start of one of my sustainability workshops is to present the audience with this couplet:

  • communication is the sharing of created meaning, whereas

  • conversation is the creation of shared meaning.

Julian Crawford

Over the past decade or so, we have become extremely good at the 'science' of communication (sharing created meaning). With the click of a button, we can send a one-hundred page PDF to one hundred people. Easy. But perhaps, in all the excitement and exhilaration of ever more powerful web-enabled phones and watches, we have lost something of the 'art' of conversation (the creation of shared meaning).


At ISSP, we're very much aware of this dichotomy and duality. That's why we balance our flow of communications (through Twitter, LinkedIn, and our website on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis) with our regular face-to-face conferences (we've had three now) and local chapters. Here, members can get together, meet each other, and share insights and ideas.  We need both kinds of interactions.


Of course, ISSP's 'big project' at the moment is our push towards a global Sustainability Professional Certification Program (SPCP). This is both timely and ambitious. The way I see it, there are four broad constituencies that need to be engaged and aligned over time if such an initiative is to have broad support, validity and practical use:

  

1. GLOBAL: Pan-national (regional, international, global) organizations/institutions;


2. NATIONAL: Organizations (often member-based) that are geographically defined (generally by country);


3. PROFESSIONAL: Many professions are now actively engaging with sustainability agendas through their professional associations and groupings, be they Academics, Accountants, Architects, Bankers, Environmental Scientists, CSR, PR etc; and


4. SECTORAL: Green buildings, Consumer Goods,

Banking, Local Government, etc.


The process of this synthesis is going to take considerable time and effort. But where there's a will there's a way - and ISSP certainly has the will.  


Fortunately, the early signs of collaboration are most encouraging and good progress is being made. For example, both the Sustainability Professionals and Environmental Sustainability Professionals LinkedIn groups were created by people who have served as ISSP Directors (Stephan Levitsky and Scott Bennett). Together with ISSP's own LinkedIn group, these three groups now have over 115,000 members.


So, if you'd like to add your voice or your organization's to the emerging coalition of sustainability professionals worldwide contributing their perspectives, then I encourage you to contribute to the development process by getting involved. As first step, take a look at what's going on, and perhaps add your name and that of your organization to the growing list of members and contributors.


Let's keep both the communications and conversations flowing...

 

Julian Crawford

 

AASHE Announces Support of ISSP's Efforts to Create Sustainability Professional Certification  

 

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has announced its support of ISSP's efforts to create a Sustainability Professional Certification.

 

AASHE supports 

the development

of this program through engagement of its Advisory Council, who will provide feedback on the Certification's development to represent the AASHE community-at-large. "This is an important endeavor that AASHE is proud to support. We look forward to reviewing the final product to evaluate the potential impact for our members and additional ways to collaborate with ISSP," says AASHE Executive Director Meghan Fay Zahniser.

 

"We're very pleased to have AASHE engaged as an active partner in developing the Sustainability Professional Certification Program," said ISSP Executive Director Maureen Hart. "AASHE member colleges and universities are training tomorrow's sustainability professionals, so AASHE's involvement in developing the Sustainability Professional Certification helps ensure alignment of what is being taught with what will be tested for as part of the Certification process. AASHE member institutions are themselves hiring sustainability employees and consultants and will directly benefit from the Certification's use as a way to evaluate potential talent."

 

AASHE has joined more than 60 other organizations and individuals who have declared their support of the ISSP Sustainability Professional Certification Program. To learn more, please visit here

 

Five-Day ISSP Training Session Planned for Jakarta This Summer 

  

In partnership with our Indonesia Chapter, ISSP will offer face-to-face training in Jakarta, Indonesia on August 18-22, 2015. This week-long training session includes five of the eight courses required for the ISSP Certificate Training Program, which blends sustainability concepts and practices with organizational change theory to provide participants with the leadership skills and knowledge to lead a sustainability program.

 

Participants from all Asia-Pacific countries are encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity to learn in live sessions taught by three members of the ISSP Leadership Team, including ISSP President Julian Crawford, ISSP Board Member and Co-Founder Marsha Willard, and ISSP Board Member and former President Dorothy Atwood. All courses will be conducted in English.

 

Included in the course fee is an optional dinner meeting and a site visit to a community whose residents have applied sustainability practices to their daily lives. A free Basic Sustainability course will be provided one week prior to the program for participants who need to meet this course prerequisite. The Basic Sustainability class will be taught in Indonesian.

 

For full course descriptions, to register for the Five Course Training Package, or to sign up for classes individually, please visit the ISSP Events Page and click on 'more info' or 'register now' for the individual classes you wish to attend.

 

Early bird pricing for the Five Course Training Package is available through July 17 of $2,250 USD for ISSP members and $2,650 for non-members. Regular pricing of $2,500 for ISSP members and $3,000 for non-members goes into effect on July 18.

  

Help Us Plan the Next Round of ISSP Webinars
 
Send Us Your Proposals and Volunteer to Review Topics 

 

ISSP is now in the process of planning our next round of webinars - and we need your help! Members are invited to submit their ideas for webinar topics by visiting our webinar page. We're also looking for members who would like to volunteer to help review and select webinar topics as they are submitted. To submit your name for the Webinar Review Committee, please contact us.

 

This is a chance for members to showcase what they've been working on that may be interesting to other sustainability professionals. Share with others how you do what you do! Here are some types of webinar ideas to consider:

  • Case Studies: Stories from real organizations about innovations, learnings and/or best practices with regard to implementing sustainability.

  • Methodologies: Tested processes for speeding the adoption of sustainability in organizations or communities.

  • Tools: Application of specific tools that enable the adoption of sustainability such as sustainability assessments, management tools, certification frameworks.

  • Policy: Discussions of international, national, or regional policies that impact sustainability.

  • Research: Share new learnings or innovations in which you are involved.

  • Roundtable Discussions: Organize participants into small groups to brainstorm a particular sustainability-related situation or challenge and report out their findings and/or solutions at the end of the session.

What topic do YOU want to teach? Let us know! 

 

Back to Top  

 
Jobs Board: A Great Resource for ISSP Members Worldwide

ISSP maintains a jobs board of open sustainability-related positions of interest to our members.  A few of our most recent posts include:

ISSP members, check out the full list of opportunities on the ISSP Jobs Board. Have an open job to post? Send it to [email protected].
 



Sustainability Events
Happening Around the World 
For details about these conferences, visit our

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