Events : Previous Events

ACSI Earth Day Activities

April 22, 2008 : Halifax, Wolfville and Antigonish, NS, and Bathurst, NB

In celebration of Earth Day, ACSI partners have collaborated to plan an Earth Day Tree Planting Ceremony. The main ceremony will take place in Halifax at Sullivan's Pond Park. ACSI partners from the Halifax area will all come together for the Ceremony and will each plant a native species tree. Simultaneous tree planting ceremonies will also take place in Wolfville, NS, Antigonish, NS (see the Earth Day [604k pdf] or Earth week [107k pdf] events schedulein Antigonish) and Bathurst, NB.

Participating partner organizations include:

Trees will also be planted by the Centre for Rural Sustainability (the coordinating organization for ACSI) and two of the founding organizations, GPI Atlantic and the Nova Scotia Environmental Network.

Taking Community Action on Sustainability: the Canmore Experience

Public Lecture with Bart Robinson, Program Director of the Bow Valley Sustainability Hub, Canmore, AB

Friday, April 18, 2008, 7:30 pm : Room 1009, Kenneth Rowe Management Building, Dalhousie University, 6100 University Ave., Halifax

Please join us to learn more about Canmore's experience, about what we are doing here in Atlantic Canada to make our region more sustainable, and about how you can take action on sustainability in your own community.

Bart Robinson is the Program Director of the Bow Valley Sustainability Hub in Canmore, Alberta. He served as the coordinator for The Natural Step to a Sustainable Canmore in 2005 and 2006, and has subsequently become a Senior Sustainability Associate with the Natural Step Canada. In former years, he was an award-winning journalist, one of the founding editors of Equinox Magazine, the Executive Director of the Yellowstone to

Yukon Conservation Initiative, and a consultant with Business Design Associates. He recently completed two years as a Research Associate at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and his interests encompass large-scale conservation, sustainability, and community stewardship.

This lecture is organized by the Atlantic Canada Sustainability Initiative and is sponsored by Aliant and the School for Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University.

ACSI Regional Sustainability Summit

April 17-18, 2008 : White Point Beach Resort, White Point Beach, Nova Scotia

The Atlantic Canada Sustainability Initiative's regional Sustainability Summit will take place at White Point Beach Resort on April 17-18, 2008. This is the final event in the first year of the Atlantic Canada Sustainability Initiative (ACSI) project.

The Sustainability Summit is intended to celebrate the successes of ACSI Sustainability Partners over the last year; to provide further learning in areas of interest identified by our partners; and to promote the ACSI as a network and encourage new participants to join. Anyone working on or interested in sustainability issues would benefit from attending this Summit . The Summit will also help determine the next steps for ACSI as the first year of this project comes to a close.

The ACSI Summit is being organized by the Centre for Rural Sustainability, in collaboration with The Natural Step Canada.

A full report on the Summit (118k pdf) is now complete. All workshop presentations and other materials are also available on the resources page.

More information . . .

Sustainable Procurement Webinar

3:00 - 4:00 pm (AST), Thursday, March 13, 2008 : Online

What is sustainable purchasing? According to the Municipality of Whistler 's Sustainable Purchasing Guide, it is about including social, environmental, financial and performance factors in purchasing decisions in a systematic way. Guest speaker Ted Battiston (Manager of Sustainability Initiatives for the Resort Municipality of Whistler) gave a presentation about sustainable procurement in Whistler.

Stay tuned for a summary of the webinar, a copy of the presentation and additional related resources to be posted here.

Green Procurement Webinar

2:00 - 3:30 pm, Tuesday, January 29, 2008 : Online

Guest speakers Mary Anne MacEachern and Lynda Rankin (both with the province of Nova Scotia) gave a presentation about their experiences with green procurement, followed by a discussion with participants. Read the full overview for more information

A copy of the webinar presentation and a summary of the discussion, and a list of sustainable procurement resources and links are available on our resources page.

Sustainability in Action: Sharing, Learning and Implementation for Sustainability

ACSI Workshop #2
November 13-14, 2007 : Moncton, New Brunswick

Building on the success of our first workshop, the second ACSI workshop focused on the experience of implementing sustainability within the partner organizations. Partners shared their experiences, focusing on key successes and challenges that they have encountered over the last six months. Participants received peer coaching in areas they've identified as challenging.

Workshop resources include:

Full workshop report (434k pdf)
5 Level model presentation (489k ppt)

Strategic Sustainability:
Helping Atlantic Canada Move Toward Sustainable Development

ACSI Launch: May 14, 2007

Workshop # 1 : May 15-16, 2007

In May 2007, 88 participants came together to launch the Atlantic Canada Sustainability Initiative and to learn new tools and skills for moving their organizations toward sustainability. Participants included representatives from Sustainability Partner organizations, as well as other supporters of the ACSI. The two-day workshop focused on learning about The Natural Step framework and how it can be used for strategic planning for sustainability; meeting all of the ACSI network members and learning a little more about the Sustainability Partners; hearing about the ACSI project and process over the next year; learning about organizational change and evaluation; and having some fun too!