The TNS Framework gets a new name

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Brian Walsh

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Nov 20, 2012, 12:40:26 PM11/20/12
to Green Team Google Group, Beth Gehred, Lisa Geason-Bauer
Hi Everyone,
 
Just passing this along. I received the newsletter below regarding some changes with The Natural Step.  Among them...
 
·         We have decided to call the TNS Framework the FSSD, the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. Or, perhaps, working with others in the field, we will come up with some other “generic” name not affiliated with TNS. Calling it the “TNS Framework” was good in the early days, but now it risks communicating not only contents but also the affiliation that comes with it - which is not appropriate with a science-based product.
Scroll down for more details.
BW
 
Brian Walsh
Waukesha County Green Team
Promoting Sustainability in Waukesha County - One Community at a Time
 
 

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: FOTODYNE-Brian P. Walsh <b.w...@fotodyne.com>
To: bwal...@yahoo.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2012 11:28 AM
Subject: FW: Stepping Stones - November 2012
 
 
From: The Natural Step International [mailto:w...@naturalstep.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2012 11:04 AM
To: b.w...@fotodyne.com
Subject: Stepping Stones - November 2012
 
The Natural Step International November 2012 Newsletter
Dear TNS friends and colleagues,
KalleBy Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt, Founder of The Natural Step
These are truly exciting times. After more than 20 years of developing the TNS Framework as a uniquely rigorous and unifying approach to sustainable development, our growing community is embarking on a new, thoughtful and well-planned expedition. I believe the time is right for this journey. TNS has established an impeccable reputation for “sticking to our story,” and the increasing import of our work (shown in case studies, role models, international prizes, educational and research programs and other achievements) now lends us the daring to open the Framework up, to be a bit out of control.
If we are successful in spreading knowledge of the Framework widely while maintaining (and even increasing) the quality, years later we are going to look back on our history and think, “Well, we really did it by the book, didn’t we? First, we spent considerable time designing the Framework, creating a community of faithful colleagues around it, and testing and refining our approach and testing it again, all in the name of quality. Then, and only then, did we decide to let go and clarify that the Framework is an open source resource for anyone in the world to use. All the while, TNS supported further developments and applications with trusting and inclusive leadership.”
I believe the steps we’re taking right now, at the beginning of this journey, are the steps that will make the most of our chance to write such a future history for TNS:
·         We have decided to call the TNS Framework the FSSD, the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. Or, perhaps, working with others in the field, we will come up with some other “generic” name not affiliated with TNS. Calling it the “TNS Framework” was good in the early days, but now it risks communicating not only contents but also the affiliation that comes with it - which is not appropriate with a science-based product.
·         TNS and the communities of researchers at the Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), our FSSD research alliance, as well as the alumni of the Masters in Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability (MSLS) and Masters in Sustainable Product-Service System Innovation (MSPI) programmes, are all coming together. For me personally, this is a dream come true. It has always been our goal to build a bridge between science and concrete action, and after testing that intent for 20 years, now we are gearing up and creating some leverage.
·         The new Practitioner Network will really help ramp-up the speed and level of our impact, and I believe it will provide that “missing piece” to draw together the many passionate individuals using the FSSD around the world.
Though the story above speaks much of transition and change, I want to assure you that one thing has not changed a bit: we still need each other, as always. Together we have the power, as the roots of the now 20-plus-year-old TNS family tree, to help this transition meet its own expectations. Thank you for all you have done, and thank you for hanging on now when we need each other more than ever before.
Warm regards
Kalle
 
Accelerating Change at The Natural Step International
By Peter-Price Thomas, Past CEO, The Natural Step International
'So what’s been going on at TNSI?' is a question that is likely on your lips. A great deal, I am pleased to report. As we outlined in the last Stepping Stones we were in the process of transitioning to a more inclusive networked organization. This has not been without its challenges and has taken rather longer than we initially anticipated (hence the sizable gap between issues of Stepping Stones) but as I write today, I am pleased to say that we’ve completed the transition: - we have created a new organization, have a new team and strategy in place, and are actively focused on accelerating change towards sustainability.
So, just what have we done? (Read more...)
 
Seeds of an FSSD Community of Change-Makers
By Scott Perret, Director of FSSD Diffusion & Network Relations, The Natural Step International
In August of this year, nine people met outside the tiny village of Tarm, Denmark at an old, rambling farmhouse with a straw roof and dusty beds. Many colors of the FSSD practitioner rainbow were represented there. After three days of shared meals and intense process beneath the heavy beams of the centuries-old house, what emerged were the seeds of a vision for a more open, inclusive and intentional community of change-makers around the FSSD. Even more foundationally, we had stumbled upon the soil for those seeds: trust in one another.
Now the task for all of us is to help these seeds grow into a thriving, healthy tree. Care to join us in the garden? (Read more...)
 
Introducing……..The Flexible Platform
By Berend Aanraad, Co-founder / Director The Natural Step Netherlands, The Flexible Platform
No, we’re not talking about the prioritizing questions from the D-step in backcasting, but the name of one of the new offices of The Natural Step and to be more specific; the one in The Netherlands. It was exactly three years ago that Freek van der Pluijm (MSLS’08) and I first met in the City of Eindhoven during the opening of one of my new projects to build the business case for sustainability. We immediately started sharing our passion for this wonderful Framework from Sweden and discussing what the future could hold, if a whole country (The Netherlands is about 1/230th the size of the US, with 17 million inhabitants) would adopt a unifying framework for sustainability? How could we be more strategic about strategic sustainable development in The Netherlands. After teaming up a couple of times with Jonas Oldmark (TNS Sweden) and Karl-Henrik Robert to find some funding opportunities for the Real Change program (forerunner of the Alliance for Strategic Sustainable Development) in The Netherlands, Freek and I decided to go ahead and start up a Dutch NGO called The Flexible Platform (Read more...)
 
A New strategic direction for The Natural Step
By Kelly Hawke Baxter, Chair, The Natural Step International
Over the past few years The Natural Step International (TNSI) has been undergoing an extensive organizational transition, in order to trade in its license model for a more open and inclusive membership structure, and to reinvent itself and its role in the world for greater impact.
That transition period is now complete and The Natural Step International has relaunched as a new international secretariat, based in London England, with a bold new strategic plan with a new purpose and core strategies, and a new secretariat team. At the centre of all our efforts is a mission to accelerate collective impact for change towards a thriving, vibrant society that operates within nature’s limits.
Our new strategic priorities fall into two main clusters:
Looking Outward:Launching a campaign to diffuse the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) and to enable a new community of practice.
Looking Inward: Creating a healthy and robust Natural Step global network capable of achieving its mission. (Read more...)
 
Imagination Designs Europe – FSSD Informs Eindhoven’s Bid to be the Cultural Capital of Europe for 2018.
By Freek van der Pluijm, Co-founder / Director The Natural Step Netherlands, The Flexible Platform
I am pleased to share that on October 25, The Flexible Platform (the Dutch representative of TNS) viewed the presentation of the Eindhoven 2018 Bidbook for the Cultural Capital of Europe - "Imagination Designs Europe".  The Flexible Platform was able to contribute to the development of this bid, and we are very proud to have the following statement included in the project description:
“Work in the Proeftuin projects will be done in accordance with the sustainability principles of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, an open source, scientifically robust, and widely disseminated framework co-developed by an international NGO called The Natural Step. It is the backbone of the approach to sustainability adopted by multinationals such as Philips, Nike and Dow Chemical. Eindhoven City Council as well as the city’s five housing corporations and the companies involved in the Strijp-S redevelopment have also adopted the Framework.”
The Proeftuin projects are “special meeting places where co-creation occurs and experimentation takes place with art and culture as both a resource - a raw material - as well as a produce - an outcome; the work will be accomplished by businesses, cultural institutions, artists, scientists, residents, government and knowledge institutions.”
What is a European Capital of Culture? (Read more...)
 
UPCOMING COURSES/EVENTS
Level 1: Sustainability for Leaders (Eindhoven, the Netherlands | November 21-22)
Level 1: Sustainability for Leaders (Stockholm, Sweden) | November 28-29)
Level 1: Sustainability for Leaders (Toronto, Ontario | December 4)
Sustainability Leaders Forum (London, England | December 5)
Level 2: Sustainability Leaders (Eindhoven, the Netherlands | Januray 30-31)
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The Natural Step Canadais a dynamic non-profit organization with over a decade of experience helping organizations and individuals understand and make meaningful progress toward sustainability.
WE ENVISION...a sustainable world in which individuals, communities, and businesses thrive within nature's limits.
WE STRIVE...to inspire, educate, and connect Canadian leaders to accelerate the transformation toward a sustainable world.
 
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