 From the President's Desk
By Rob Andrejewski, ISSP-SA, Director of Sustainability, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA
As I write this, Hurricane Irma is churning through the Atlantic Ocean, her unprecedented wind speeds leveling stone buildings as if they were made of straw and leaving a wake of destruction in the Caribbean. As Floridians prepare for landfall, millions of people just to the west, in Texas and Louisiana, remain in a state of crisis, their lives disrupted and displaced by Hurricane Harvey's record rainfall. Two more storms lurking in the Atlantic, Jose and Katia, were recently upgraded to hurricane status.
In southeast Asia, a severe monsoon season has already taken more than 1,200 lives. Though flooding is a common occurrence during the storm season in places like the border of northern India and Nepal, residents were caught unprepared by how quickly the waters rose during a recent storm. After three days of rain this August, a Himalayan dam released a torrent of water downstream, washing away villages and lives. For many, help came sporadically and often too late.
In the American West, across eight states, dozens of fires are burning right now, swallowing homes and closing highways as they send plumes of black smoke skyward. In parts of the bucolic Pacific Northwest, the mountain air is dangerous to breathe. Firefighters report feeling overwhelmed by the task before them.
More storms are coming. Help is uncertain. We feel overwhelmed.
This is why I work in sustainability. Ever since reading
The End of Nature and later
Six Degrees, the world we live in today has felt inevitable. I feel beyond fortunate that my despair about our planetary instability and questions about what to do led me to a community of brilliant people unified by the idea that we can - and must - create a different future.
When I see clips of regular people paddling up to a half-submerged home to help their neighbors reach higher ground, I see you. I see you crafting climate action plans, navigating innovative ideas through stubborn bureaucracies, and bringing people together to chart a different course. I see you taking action, because that is what the moment calls for you to do.
I am so very grateful you are here. When I feel powerless to respond to the storms and fires, the arguments and injustice, I need only to remind myself to look around this community. When I do, I see you lifting your head up, taking in the magnitude of the task, and moving on to see if anyone needs help at the next house.
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Build Upon your Career
With an ISSP Credential
As the sustainability field grows, experienced sustainability professionals are finding that ISSP's professional credentials help them stand out from the crowd. "I was looking for a credible qualification that would tell my peers and prospective employers that I knew what I was talking about and could add value to their organizational challenges," says Julian Crawford, Director of EcoSteps in Sydney, Australia and an ISSP Certified Sustainability Professional (ISSP-CSP). "ISSP's Sustainability Certification program provided that reassurance."
Designed for veteran sustainability practitioners who have already gained the ISSP Sustainability Associate (ISSP-SA) credential, the ISSP-CSP credential is the logical next step. Candidates for the ISSP-CSP exam must demonstrate at least 5 years of experience. Learn more about ISSP-CSP eligibility
here.
Prepare for either exam by taking advantage of ISSP's
study materials, comprehensive resources that have earned praise from credential holders as general references for a multitude of sustainability topics directly applicable to the workplace.
Don't wait to earn recognition for your sustainability expertise -
get credentialed today!
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Join ISSP's virtual Regional Learning Networks
 As a sustainability professional, do you ever feel a need to be more connected to practitioners in other organizations? Would you like an opportunity to connect with other sustainability professionals in your region - to share success stories and best practices, get and give feedback and suggestions, and simply talk with other people who understand what you do?
Become part of an
ISSP Regional Learning Network, where ISSP members from all over the world gather to share ideas, learn from each other, and build community.
Regional Learning Networks are already forming for sustainability professionals in Asia-Pacific (first meeting
September 19th); Colorado (meeting on
September 26th); and Canada's Eastern Provinces (
September 28th) with plans underway for meetings in California, the Chicago area, Wisconsin, and Europe. Many of these networks cover large geographic areas, so where there is sufficient interest, future meetings will be planned for individual nations/states and topics of interest.
If you want to be part of a Regional Learning Network in your area, let us know by filling out the
Regional Learning Network Interest Form. If you'd like to help plan and facilitate future virtual meetings for your area,
volunteer to be an ISSP Ambassador.
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You could be the next ISSP intern!
Are you a student passionate about making the world a more sustainable place? Are you looking for an interesting internship that will give you a chance to meet people already working as sustainability professionals? Become an ISSP Intern!
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Jill Howard (left) with ISSP Executive Director Maureen Hart
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This summer we were fortunate to have two interns working with us, Jill Howard, a senior at University of New Hampshire in the Business Administration in Social Innovation and Enterprise program. Jill organized the ISSP Volunteer program to run more smoothly. Also working with us this summer was Taylor Recela,
a junior at Ohio State University
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Taylor Recela (right) with ISSP Board Member Neil Drobny
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studying Marketing with a minor
in Environment, Economy, Development, and Sustainability.
Taylor has been instrumental in getting the
ISSP Ambassador program
up and running. Taylor will continue this Fall, working with ISSP Ambassadors around the world.
Click here for more information about the ISSP Internship Program, including how to apply.
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Course:
Sustainability ROI Workbook, 2nd Edition
September 14 at 9:00am PT-US
The second edition of the
Sustainability ROI Workbook
is now available!
Since the release of the first edition in May, Bob Willard's groundbreaking Sustainability ROI Workbook has been downloaded over 1,700 hundred times. Like the first edition, the second edition is free, open-source, and
downloadable
. It's part of a toolkit specifically designed to help sustainability practitioners build the comprehensive business case for sustainability that the C-Suite will love.
The newly available second edition includes significant enhancements, such as: one comprehensive business case framework for any kind of sustainability initiative; elements that tell CFOs what they need to know about a project that they are being asked to fund; explicit inclusion of ESG goals within the "Do the right thing" justification; and a succinct Project Appraisal Tool that helps CFOs do a holistic weighted-criteria analysis of one project or several.
This is the kind of all-in-one, versatile tool that ISSP wants to make available to our community. That's why we're running a two-hour online course on the Sustainability ROI Workbook on September 14th. Join Bob Willard live for a comprehensive walkthrough of this groundbreaking tool.
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Course: Sustainability Management Systems
Begins October 9th
The best way to track and maintain progress on your organization's sustainability goals is by developing an SMS - a Sustainability Management System. Project management is key to making sure a sustainability plan lines up with reality, and ISSP's upcoming October course will help set you on the right course.
Taught by veteran sustainability consultant and ISSP co-founder and former Board Member Dorothy Atwood, our Sustainability Management Systems course
walks participants through developing an SMS and sustainability metrics, maintaining continuous reporting, and prioritizing next steps as a plan comes together. It's a great introduction to the project management side of sustainability initiatives, and an important resource for any sustainability professional trying to make change in their industry.
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High-Quality Sustainability Resources
Last spring, ISSP conducted a survey to learn what Sustainability Professionals look for when evaluating the usefulness of resources. Among respondents we found consensus around six important qualities:
- Information must be accurate and up to date
- Arguments must be presented without bias or opinion
- Resources must provide pertinent, actionable knowledge
- Data must be science-based and come from credible sources
- Reports must be well written with executive summaries
- Resources must be easily accessible
Based on your feedback, we want to draw your attention to
SHIFT, a forthcoming online platform designed to help practitioners navigate the sea of sustainability tools.
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Wordcloud courtesy of ISSP member, Tolulope Omotoso
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SHIFT brings practitioners together to curate and review tools based on real life experiences. They then make those tools available to us, so we can quickly carve out the path to sustainability that's right for our own organizations. While still in the beta testing phase, they seem to be hitting the nail on the head!
ISSP wants to help them help you!
They're specifically looking for sustainability professionals practicing in the area of water stewardship (across any sector) or apparel / footwear, to help them test and improve those areas of their website. The format for collecting feedback will be a 45 minute video conference where the participant's screen will be recorded while completing a series of open-ended task scenarios.
If you're interested, please reach out directly to
Saman Baghestani at MIT to schedule a time to participate in the study.
What matters to you matters to us!
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From the ISSP Greater New York City Chapter
Join us for Climate Week 2017!
The ISSP Greater NYC Chapter has two exciting events scheduled for Climate Week NYC 2017. On Tuesday, September 19th, the Chapter will present a Sustainability in Focus film screening of
Ocean Frontiers III
. Following the screening, an expert panel discusses recent action leading the way to a sustainable, thriving ocean from Virginia to Maine.
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From the ISSP Colorado Chapter
Slow down and smell... the pines?
By Patricia Saenz, BSW participant.
Photos by Hillary Mizia
An email from ISSP came across my inbox about a sustainability workshop in Colorado. The name of the event should have been a clue that I was not going to attend a seminar session on the latest reporting tools or discuss gubernatorial setbacks.
Beyond Sustainability was consciously designed to ground us not only as professionals, but also as mindful individuals who need to look each other in the eye.
 The stage for Beyond Sustainability was extraordinary. Shadowcliff Mountain Lodge, a non-profit eco-mountain retreat center with amazing views of Grand Lake became our classroom. We hiked, we learned about the Laws of Nature, we cruised Grand Lake, we practiced yoga and meditation, we visited Rocky Mountain National Park and saw moose, elk, bears and the most amazing sunset through the mountain peaks. We slowed down. We smelled pines. We connected with nature; the same nature that motivates us all to be in sustainability.
"That's it?" you might ask. Of course not! Our wonderful faculty had us on a full schedule. We learned about leadership, Appreciative Inquiry, Circular Economy, the local sustainable goals of Grand Lake Chamber, and the ISSP certification and benefit of credentials... and then we learned from each other. We were people from different backgrounds who shared stories, who asked questions about each other's efforts, and who listened.
At the end, we all felt recharged and ready to go back to work. We will take the smell of the pines with us.
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Sustainability Events Around the World
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- Sustainable Brands'17 Buenos Aires, September 21, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Sustainable Brands'17 Cape Town, October 2 - 4, Cape Town, South Africa
- Companies Vs Climate Change: Europe, October 4 - 6, Brussels, Belgium
- Sustainable Brands'17 Kuala Lumpur, October 10 - 11, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- AASHE Conference & Expo, October 15 - 18, San Antonio, TX
- Kingdom Renewable Energy Summit 2017, October 18 - 19, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- Urban Transit and Sustainable Networks, October 25 - 26, Catania, Italy
- Sustainable Brands'17 Copenhagen, October 30 - November 1, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Sustainable Brands New Metrics'17, November 13 - 15, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Responsible Business Summit West, November 14 - 15, San Francisco, California
- Companies Vs Climate Change: USA, November 29 - December 1, Miami, Florida
- Sustainable Brands'17 Bangkok, November 29 - 30, Bankkok, Thailand
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