One Earth

One Earth Initiative submitted a petition to the Government of Canada in December 2011, which can be viewed on the Auditor General’s website. The responses have started coming back from the Government, with the first reply from Foreign Affairs and International Trade. One Earth asks about the Government of Canada’s consultation with the public and provinces in preparing its position prior to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). One Earth also seeks clarification about Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, about its future plans and regulations to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and about its reporting on reductions. One Earth asks the government about its carbon pricing plans and how it measures financial assistance to the oil and gas sector. In addition, One Earth asks whether the government intends to develop and use alternative measures, such as well-being indicators, in addition to traditional measures of economic activity, such as gross domestic product, and if it plans to integrate fair trade concerns into public procurement. The first reply is from Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Environment Canada, Finance Canada, Industry Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Public Works and Government Services Canada, Treasury Board are expected to reply in the coming month.

One Earth Executive Director, Vanessa Timmer, is Fulbrighter of the Month. You can click here for the newsletter story: http://www.fulbright.ca/alumni/alumni-news/fulbrighter-of-the-month.html.

Fulbright Canada is a bi-national, treaty-based, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization with a mandate to identify the best and brightest minds in the US and Canada, and engage them in residential academic exchange; it provides support to students, graduate students, scholars, teachers, and independent researchers through a variety of programs which are open to individuals in all academic fields with the exception of medical training. Ten years after having been a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University (2002-2003), Vanessa is collaborating again as an associate with the Sustainability Science Program within the Kennedy School’s Centre for International Development.  She will be working with the team at Harvard on innovation and sustainability, particularly focused on global public goods.

One Earth organized the civil society consultations in preparation for Rio + 20 Earth Summit (UNCSD) 2012, with the Liu Institute for Global Studies (UBC) and the United Nations Environment Programme. The reports are available on the consultation website and were provided to the Government of Canada. One Earth was invited to do so by the Canadian Environmental Network with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future (SF) The other Canadian hosts are: Secrétariat des organismes environnementaux du Québec, QC; Saskatchewan Environmental Society, SK; Conservation Council of New Brunswick, NB; Whale Release and Strandings, NL; Centre de droit international du développement durable, QC; Manitoba Eco-Network, MB; Sustainability Education in Nova Scotia for Everyone, NS; Alberta Environmental Network, AB; One Earth Initiative, BC; Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, ON. Find out more about the other cross-Canada consultations.

Emmanuel Prinet, Policy Director at One Earth, was invited by the Canadian Environmental Network (RCEN) on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to participate in the official Canadian delegation to the eighteenth and nineteenth sessions of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-18/19). He was joined by a youth delegate, Stephanie Levy, who works with Evergreen in British Columbia, and who is also part of the RCEN Youth Caucus.  You can read the NGO and youth reports for the CSD-18 (May 2010), CSD-19 Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting (March 2011), the Second Preparatory Committee for Rio+20 (PrepCom 2), and CSD-19 (May 2011) here: http://rcen.ca/public-participation/engo-and-youth-delegates-to-the-un-commission-on-sustainable-development

One Earth organized a successful side event at the UN’s 19th Commission on Sustainable Development in New York on May 9, 2011, on the topic “A North American Approach to Sustainable Consumption and Production”. The idea behind the event was to have civil society, governments and other stakeholders present their latest efforts to promote sustainable patterns of consumption and production in Canada and the United States.  Vanessa Timmer, One Earth Executive Director, facilitated the event, and Emmanuel Prinet, Policy Director, presented the North American Actor & Activity Map on Sustainable Consumption and Production (see February 22nd, 2011, news item).  Other speakers included: Holly Palen, Senior Policy Analyst, Sustainability Directorate, Environment Canada; Derry Allen, Counselor, Office of Strategic Environmental Management, Office of Policy, US EPA; Hilary French, Programme Officer, UNEP RONA, USA; and Jeffrey Barber, Executive Director, Integrative Strategies Forum.

The North American Actor and Activity Map on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), a project funded by Industry Canada, is a report that examines the concept of sustainable consumption and production, and explores the ‘communities of practice’ in North America that are acting on specific leverage points within and across the SCP system.  It builds on prior efforts, and contributes to filling a recognized gap in identifying who is doing what, where and why,  in Canada and the United States as well as across both countries. Each circle in the graphic represents the many people working in the variety of communities of practice along the path of the consumption and production system. A whole network of actors has built around SCP, whether this work is undertaken by government and its agencies, the business sector and industry associations, not‐for‐profit organizations and grassroots community groups – individually or through various forms of collaboration. They work on, for example, redefining progress and the measure of true wealth and prosperity, local self‐reliance, socially responsible investment, green public procurement, industrial ecology, life‐cycle analysis, extended producer responsibility, corporate social responsibility, cradle‐to‐cradle design, ecolabelling, sustainable consumption research, sustainable lifestyles and zero waste. The report gives more detail on the work being done across the system. Having a model of the system is a good starting point to discuss the interrelationships, for example between consumption and needs / values. Email emmanuel at oneearthweb (dot) org for more information. With thanks to Lisa Hemmingway (Backyard Creatives) for her design work on this project. The report can be found here as a PDF.

One Earth Initiative designed and delivered the 2nd North American Sustainable Consumption Workshop from 31 January – 1 February 2011 in Ottawa. The goal was a multi-stakeholder dialogue promoting bi-national collaboration on green building, as an important application of international sustainable consumption and production efforts. This dynamic and action-oriented meeting was hosted by the Governments of Canada and the United States as well as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The workshop involved more than 80 experts in green building and sustainability from Canadian and U.S. government, industry and non-government organizations, as well as United Nations representatives. The agenda can be viewed here. Speaker presentations can be downloaded. You can also view photos from the workshop here. One Earth wrote three of the four background papers: #1: “Sustainable Consumption and Production” (PDF 888 kb); #2: “Green Building Key Topics” (PDF 184 kb); #3: “Existing Canada – U.S. Collaboration on Green Building” (PDF 324 kb). UNEP produced the fourth paper on International Processes on SCP (PDF 123 kb). A summary report is forthcoming.

On 12 January, One Earth and the City of Vancouver co-hosted a dynamic workshop to explore strategies and actions to arrive at a ‘one planet’ Footprint, with a 2020 target of reducing Vancouver’s per capita footprint by 33%. Participants included members of Vancouver’s Lighter Footprint Committee and other community leaders, thinkers, practitioners and creative communicators. The workshop started with a future visioning exercise led by strategic foresight specialist and One Earth Senior Associate, Nicole Anne Boyer. We identified common patterns and differences, as well as the most powerful levers of change. This informed group feedback on Vancouver’s Greenest City actions in each of 10 goal areas. We discussed engagement strategies and tactics that will move Greenest City implementation more broadly out in to the community, as well as enable the City to implement the actions that they are most responsible for (http://www.talkgreentous.ca/). We were joined by Stina Brown, graphic facilitator, who captured the dialogue in graphic visualizations. The workshop piloted elements of a future visioning and cultural change process being undertaken at the North American scale within One Earth’s Rethinking the Good Life project.