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CHAPTER MEETING: June 23
Denver, CO
How Do We Make the Sustainability Message More Compelling?
FREE WEBINAR:
ISSP Sustainability Professional Certification Info Session
READ MORE HERE
WEBINAR:July 16Sustainability Policy:
Hastening the Transition to a Cleaner Economy
Dr. Stephen Cohen
Columbia Earth Institute
COURSE: July 7 Life Cycle Assessment 101: A Simulated Approach
Thomas Gloria, Industrial Ecology Consultants
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VOLUME 9 NUMBER 6 June 2015
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These are exciting times for the sustainability movement generally and ISSP particularly. The ISSP Board elects a new Leadership Team each June. To recognize the change-over, the introduction to this month's newsletter is written jointly by outgoing ISSP President Julian Crawford, of Sydney, Australia, and incoming ISSP President Marilyn Johnson, of Seattle, Washington.
FROM THE PRESIDENTS' DESK:
ISSP Changes Gears as Sustainability Transformation Gathers Pace
Dear Fellow ISSP Members,
Hang on tight -
the pace is picking up! The next six months promises to be one of the most exciting and important phases in our global sustainability journey...
Why?
Because the people of the world collectively have a chance to take some really big steps forwards towards living within planetary limits.
Two key events:
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Sustainability Development Goals (SDG) with the UN summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda will be held end-September in New York; and
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Climate Change, two degree world, UNFCCC COP21 meeting in Paris in early December
The contribution that ISSP has played, is playing and will continue to play is summed up in our name.
ISSP's Vision:
'Making sustainability standard practice around the world'
ISSP empowers professionals to advance sustainability in organizations and communities throughout the world.
We are....
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Global - internationally recognized leaders of the profession
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Credible - building recognition and standards of practice for the profession
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Educational - providing training for professional development at all levels, and
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Connected - linking professionals sharing best practice and innovation
Our logo is our brand.
What do you see in it? A multi-faceted world? Yin and Yang? Organic growth? Have your say! As we head towards the launch of the first beta version of the ISSP Sustainability Professional Certification Program in the next few months, you, our Members, are contributing hugely.
Over 600 sustainability professionals have now completed the survey to weight the test items to reflect their relative importance to the actual work of a sustainability practitioner. If you haven't yet helped us identify the priority competencies please complete the "Frequency and Importance" survey.
Julian Crawford and Marilyn Johnson
PS: If you're interested is working with us on our Local Chapters, Committees or other projects then please explore the opportunities by contacting us at [email protected].
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Certification Test Update
One of the key components of ISSP's Associate and Certified Professional Certification schemes is an exam to test applicants on the knowledge necessary to competently perform in this profession. Test development is a tricky process. We must assure that our test items reliably measure what is important while at the same time be clear, non-obvious and verifiable. We are also working to make sure that our questions are free of cultural biases or allusions so that it can be justifiably used with an international population.
So far dozens of professionals have contributed hundreds of test items. We have carefully reviewed, edited, scrubbed and polished them down to a current number of 227. We are still building the test databank and hope to hit 300 items before our Beta launch this summer. When it comes to actually organizing the items into the test, we will be using the results of our criticality survey to determine which tasks are more frequently performed and more important to the job so that we can weight those sections of the test with more questions. Our criticality survey has been completed by almost 700 professionals so we feel we are on solid ground in our weight determination.
Our next task is to edit, vet and validate the current items to assure they meet our standards. We are also inviting current sustainability professionals and ISSP members to sign up for our Certification Beta Launch interest list.
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Stanford Social Innovation Review
Net Positive: The Future of Sustainable Business
By Jeffrey Hollender
Forum for the Future, WWF-UK, and the Climate Group have recently articulated a new vision that businesses should adopt to ensure that our planet and its inhabitants have a future that provides the best chance for common well-being. They have called this new standard net positive. While embracing this concept, I believe that we have yet to develop the operating principles and metrics required to fulfill this vision. This article aims to set forth a more robust framework for what I believe we need.
The Guardian described net positive this way: "Businesses have impacts on the environment and society. Some are negative, some positive. For a company to be net positive, the latter need to outweigh the former. To put it another way: The natural world and society should be better off with companies than without them ... or so the theory says."
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ISSP Colorado Chapter Co-Hosts Sustainability Messaging Roundtable with the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado
Despite all the data showing how important
sustainability is for businesses and communities, sustainability professionals often find themselves needing to persuade decisionmakers on the quantifiable benefits of environmental and social responsibility. On June 23rd, ISSP's Colorado Chapter will team up with the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado for a roundtable discussion on how sustainability messaging can be made more effective, as well as how professionals can best make use of this messaging in the field.
The discussion - entitled "How Do We Make the Sustainability Message More Compelling?" - will bring together sustainability advocates and professionals from all walks of life to discuss how sustainability can be messaged more effectively and collectively.
According to one of the roundtable organizers,
Graham Russell, founder and principal of Trupoint Advisors and co-chair of the ISSP Colorado Chapter, "One of the key topics we'll explore is how we can get away from the endless focus on data and science and the 'rationale' for sustainability and find better ways of appealing to people's emotions. How do we bring it down from the big picture stuff about the Antarctic ice melt and 400PPM CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere to things that affect people at the micro-level? For example, will their kids have the same quality of life as they do, and what would your neighborhood be like if there were more bike paths and less traffic?
There are no
designated speakers, but whatever ideas and findings emerge from the event will be the subject of a separate Executive Night event in July. At this event, sponsored by the CU Denver Business School, Regis University, University of Denver Daniels School and local non-profit iCAST, two or three speakers will summarize those findings and engage attendees in further thoughts. The focus of the event will be on the "emotions versus data" side of the debate.
The number of participants in the June 23 roundtable discussion will be limited, so we encourage early registration. Click here for more information and to register.
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Policy Updates from the American Sustainable Business Council
Follow the link for ASBC's updates and policy action calls on federal-level legislation and regulations:
A new proposal, Protect Our Public Lands Act (POPLA), would ban fracking on federal lands. Join business leaders in calling on President Obama to address vital concerns about the impacts of fracking on the economy, environment, climate and public health. Support Family Medical Leave:
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Want to Help Us Plan the New Round of ISSP Webinars?
Send Us Your Proposals and Volunteer to Review Topics
We've received some great feedback from ISSP members about topics for new Webinars that they would like to see. And we're looking for more! Members are invited to submit their ideas for webinar topics by visiting our webinar page. We're also recruiting 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: What topic do YOU want to teach? Let us know! Back to Top
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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:
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Sustainability Events
Happening Around the World
- 2015 Green Sports Alliance Summit, June 29-July 1, 2015, McCormick Place, Chicago, IL
- Energy Storage USA 2015, July 7-8, 2015, Hilton San Diego Mission Valley, San Diego, CA
- World Engineers Summit | Climate Change, July 21-24, 2015, Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre
- SoL North America's Executive Champions' Workshop, August 18-21, 2015, Stowe, VT
- SoL North America's Foundations for Leadership Program, September 29-October 1, 2015, The Warren Center, Ashland, MA
- BioCycle REFOR15, October 19-22, 2015, Boston, MA
- Landscapes 2015, October 21-23, 2015, Louisville, KY
- All In For Impact: SRI's 26th Annual Conference, November 3-5, 2015, Colorado Springs, CO
For details about these conferences, visit our
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