Posts Tagged ‘systems’
SLN Makes Top 200 in MacArthur 100&Change Competition!
We are pleased to share that SLN’s proposal on “Bringing Carbon Home: Systems Thinking to Reverse Climate Change” was ranked in the top 200 in the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change competition. With over 800 submissions in all, this recognition is significant and speaks to the power of the Fellows Network and everyone’s excellent, ongoing work and collaboration.
Helping Safeguard the Great Bear Rainforest Wins the Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award
Valerie Langer (Stand.Earth), Nicole Rycroft (Canopy), Allegra Fuller (BFI), and Edie Farwell (SLN) at the Buckminster Fuller Challenge Award ceremony, October 2016
Donella Meadows Fellow Valerie Langer, Strategic Projects Director at Stand.Earth (formerly ForestEthics), was a lead member of a multi-stakeholder coalition involving government, First Nations, environmental groups, and logging companies that successfully safeguarded the Great
WealthWorks: Reframing the Economy for Sustainability
Fellow Shanna Ratner is a lead developer for WealthWorks, a 21st-century approach to local and regional economic development that brings together and connects a community’s assets to meet market demand in ways that build livelihoods that last. WealthWorks was designed for people, firms and places of all sizes, shapes and success levels. There are three
Innovation in Montana: The First Generation of Mid-Scale Organic Farming
Fellow Anna Jones-Crabtree and her husband became first generation, mid-scale organic farmers when they started their dryland Vilicus Farms in rural Montana in 2009. Vilicus is Latin for ‘steward of the land.’ The challenges have included severe climate change impacts, particularly drought, balancing full time jobs off the farm to ensure cash flow and standing
iAct Webinar Highlights: Our Pact for Parks, People and Planet
Introduction and Gratitude
Rebecca Koss presenting during Our Pact webinar
The “iAct Dialogues for Sustainability” are interactive, global webinars that inspire intergenerational discussion and collaboration on sustainable planetary futures. Sustainability Leaders Network, Earth Charter International and the IUCN Task Force on Intergenerational Partnership for Sustainability organized a series of webinars in conjunction with the IUCN World Parks Congress (12-19 November 2014 in Sydney,
Vision-Built: A Sustainability Center in Indonesia
Inspired, in part, by her time as a Donella Meadows Leadership Fellow at Cobb Hill Ecovillage in Vermont, Any Sulistyowati developed a vision for her own sustainability training center and community in the forests above Bandung, Indonesia. She created this quilt of her vision during one of her Fellows workshops:
Any’s Vision
Using sustainable, mostly second-hand materials,
Initiate your own “iAct Dialogues for Sustainability” webinar with us!
Has your organization wanted to host an online webinar in the past, but lacked the necessary online platform and facilitation support? Well you need to wait no longer! We encourage you to co-design and sponsor your own global, intergenerational webinar on a key sustainability, systems change or leadership topic with us.
Sustainability Leaders Network, in collaboration
Biomimicry Curriculum Attracts World-wide Attention
By Huma Beg, Mill Valley, California, 2013
Sustainability Leaders Network created and piloted an open source, semester-long class Learning from Nature: A Course in Biomimicry. Since the curriculum and supporting materials were posted to our website on Earth Day in April 2013, educators and learners from across the United States and from Colombia, India, Latvia, Norway, Sierra
Featured Fellows: System Change Makers
Photo by Huma Beg
At a recent workshop, we heard stories about the inspiring work that Fellows and close partners are doing around the world. Here are examples from Pakistan, India, and the United States that span democratizing national-level development, incubating urban food gardens and saving a watershed from mining impacts.
Huma Beg is poised to launch her
Active Hope Workshop with Joanna Macy
Joanna Macy and Edie Farwell; photo by Huma Beg
Read the full workshop report here.
The seed for this year’s Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Workshop with Joanna Macy was planted by Fellows attending our annual workshop two years ago at the Cobb Hill ecovillage in Vermont. In spite of increasing good work occurring in the world, participants
Edie Farwell Leads Biomimicry Workshop at Wellborn Ecology Conference
SLN Director Edie Farwell was invited to lead an interactive session on our biomimicry curriculum at the Wellborn Ecology Fund’s annual conference in Meriden, New Hampshire on June 20. The development of the curriculum had been supported in part by the Fund. Focused on the Upper Valley in New Hampshire and Vermont, the purpose of the conference
Exploring Pathways to Systems Change
Andaman Forest, a Natural System. By Anna da Costa
By Anna da Costa
When it comes to making the world a better place, there is no dearth of ideas out there. Some believe in the power of markets to level playing fields and distribute dwindling resources. Some see our best hopes in technological innovation and smart systems.
Learning from Nature: A Course in Biomimicry
By Agnieszka Rawa and Amalia Souza; photo by Clemens Kalischer (c) 2009
An open-source curriculum by Sustainability Leaders Network designed to strengthen and inform the biomimicry movement among educators and learners locally and around the world.
The more our world functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is
Visioning and Systems Session Offered in Webinar for Young Global Leaders
SLN Core Team member, Dominic Stucker, was invited by Earth Charter International and Youth Action for Change to design and lead a session on “Visioning and Systems Thinking for Local Sustainability Projects” as part of the semester-long, online course Youth Leadership, Sustainability, and Ethics. The 1.5-hour session was held on 23 October and attended by 15
Article on the Art of Sustainability in SoL Reflections Journal
Dominic Stucker and Johanna Bozuwa wrote an article highlighting Jay Mead‘s pioneering work in the “art of sustainability” for the Society for Organizational Learning‘s (SoL’s) Reflections Journal. The abstract for the article “The Art of Sustainability: Creative Expression as a Tool for Social Change” summarizes:
Much of the work to date on sustainability has relied on
The Future We Want: Workshop Report
Fellow Chris Page recently spent a weekend at the spectacular Esalen Institute in Big Sur, teaching a workshop on systems thinking and sustainable business to a diverse and enthusiastic group. She writes:
We dove into basic loops, discussed what it means to be a sustainable business, puzzled over John Sterman’s bathtub exercise… and then took a break
Featured Fellow: Maria Latumahina
Maria Latumahina, Civil Society and Forest Advocate
Jayapura, Papua, Indonesia
Maria’s vision is that, by the end of the century, no tree in West Papua, Indonesia be cut without a replacement being planted. Through her previous work as founder and director of the Papua Civil Society Support Foundation and presently as consultant to the Climate Change Unit
Embracing Confusion on the Path toward Sustainability: Reflections from Ladakh
Solar panels on a rooftop in Yang-Tang, Ladakh. By Taylor Knoop.
By Taylor Knoop, young leader and co-founder of WorldYato.
In my community “sustainability” is a catchphrase, an adjective that describes the progressiveness of a building, idea or concept. As a small, upscale suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, my town values the “green” movement, so long as
Systems Thinking through Art in Nature
Art pieces by Jay Mead, Michaelyn Bachhuber, Nirmala Nair, and Dominic Stucker
By Dominic Stucker, Program Manager at Sustainability Leaders Network.
Systems thinking and creativity are essential for bringing about the transition to sustainability. Systems thinking helps us assemble diverse stakeholders to better understand the integrated economic, social, and environmental systems we seek to change. Creativity and art help
A Unique Rest Area in Vermont: Young Leaders Reflect on Past Wars and Future Innovation
The Sharon Academy students Rajana Dion and Katie Spencer
By Rajana Dion, Katie Spencer, and Dominic Stucker
You might not consider a rest area a destination, but rather part of the journey. Edie Farwell of Sustainability Leaders Network sees one particular rest stop in Sharon, Vermont as both. She recently took her Personal Leadership class, one of our Young
From ‘Limits to Growth’ to ‘Life Beyond Growth’
By Dominic Stucker, Program Manager at Sustainability Leaders Network. This piece also appeared in the March 2012 issue of The Systems Thinker.
Celebrating the Publication of Limits to Growth
The Club of Rome and the Smithsonian Institute hosted the symposium Perspectives on Limits to Growth: Challenges to Building a Sustainable Planet in Washington, DC on March 1 to celebrate the 40th anniversary
The Future We Want: A Systems Approach to Growing Sustainable Business
Esalen Institute Coast
Come to the world-renowned Esalen Institute from May 18-20, 2012, on the scenic northern California coast near Big Sur, for a dynamic, interactive workshop on systems thinking and sustainable business.
Led by Christina Page, Dana Fellows Cohort #1 and Global Director of Energy and Sustainability Strategy for Yahoo!, the workshop will feature best practices
Cobb Hill Harvest Celebration: Keynote Address
By Stephen Leslie. Speech given at Cobb Hill Harvest Celebration, October 19, 2011.
Introduction
I was not born into the farming life. A child of suburbia, I came into agriculture by a circuitous route and did not start farming fulltime until I was 31 years old. As a young adult I attended art school and then soon after
