Monday, January 24th, 6:30-8:30pm @ 64 Wendell St (the COOP!)
Sustainability is an important concern for everyone. We all want to live in a world which is safe and fair to all people, where our actions are beneficial to nature – or at least not actively degrading the ecosystem – and where our efforts and enterprises can support us indefinitely. But how do we know if something we’re doing is sustainable or not? There are many ways people are evaluating the relative sustainability of an action. There are ecological footprints, carbon footprints, toxic release inventories, habitat and greenhouse gas mitigation…what are the right things and what are the best things to focus on?
The Natural Step (TNS) is a framework for considering the ultimate concerns of our actions. The framework helps people to consider the ramifications of their daily routines and the practices of the firms and organizations they rely on in the context of a big-picture consideration of what the idea of “sustainability” actually means. When you take the baseline conditions of TNS and compare them to a situation, like driving a car a certain distance or having a diet with dairy products, you can draw some conclusions as to its ultimate sustainability.
Join us at the Cambridge Cooperative Club for our first Sustainability Salon Series gathering of 2011. We will have a conversation and multi-media presentation with Nils Klinkenberg, MSc Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, who studied under the founder of TNS, Karl-Henrik Robèrt. We will look at the four systems conditions of The Natural Step and talk about how each of us, in our local communities, can engage in more sustainable activity patterns in order to support a more sustainable world. We look forward to seeing you Monday night, January 24th from 6:30-8:30pm. There will be some light vegan refreshments but do consider having dinner beforehand!
