Who’s participating?

The Hållbarhet event brings together a diverse group of people with a tremendous skill set and experience in a wide range of fields. Over 30 people have confirmed so far. Here are a few of the ones you can expect to see:

Guests

Alan Atkisson Author, consultant, speaker, musician and CEO and President of the global sustainability consulting firm, The AtKisson Group

Dr Bob Willard Author, presenter and leading expert on the business value of corporate sustainability strategies (participating by web-presence)

Dr Göran Broman Professor, Head of Research in Mechanical Engineering and co-founder of the Master’s programme in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability, Blekinge Institute of Technology.

David Cook CEO of The Natural Step International, a leading non-profit education, research and advisory organisation dedicated to sustainable development. Also a co-founding partner of the Master’s programme in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability.

Alumni

Andrew Outhwaite
Is an MSLS 2006 graduate, currently en-route from London, UK back to Australia, overland. His organisation, Arising (http://wearearising.org), works to catalyse systemic change and generate social, sustainable value through innovation. Although from a natural sciences background, his work now focuses on innovation, leadership development, cultural transformation, and multi-stakeholder change processes. Examples of his recent work include: design and management of two national social enterprise competitions, facilitation of learning journeys that brought together homeless, social enterprises and corporate teams for mutual benefit, ongoing coaching of early-stage social entrepreneurs, research and writing on the role of coaching in integrating sustainability, design of programs to create low carbon cultures in large public companies, and workshops and training in visual business model design, and a suite of tools for increasing creativity and innovation for sustainability.

Ella Lawton
Ella is the newly appointed manager of the Otago Centre for Sustainable Practice in Cromwell, New Zealand. One of her multiple roles at the Centre includes consulting with Otago tourism operators to help them understand how sustainability can create opportunities within their business. As a graduate of law and ecology at Otago University Ella decided to attend the MSLS programme after a period working as a policy analyst in Wellington.

Fiona Wright

Fiona is a 2007 graduate from Canada who is currently working with Blekinge Institute of Technology to coordinate and deliver international distance learning in strategic sustainable development, as well as with the delivery and development of the MSLS programme. With representation from professionals in 28 countries, the next iteration of the course (beginning February 2009) promises an exciting opportunity to engage with more people and expand the network.

Freek van der Pluijm
Is a Dutch MSLS 2008 graduate that recently started working as a junior for Between-Us (www.between-us.nl), a Netherlands-based consultancy company on CSR and innovation. His role within the organisation is that of the sustainability expert, advising organisations on how they can strategically incorporate sustainable development into their projects.

Geneva Claesson
Geneva Claesson (nee Rae, MSLS 2006) lives in Canada with her love and husband, Jonas Claesson, and is a Senior Consultant with the Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability practice at Deloitte. Geneva works with clients in the public, private and non-profit sectors to innovate for the advancement of strategic sustainable development. Solution-oriented approaches include natural capital asset management, climate change risk assessment and carbon management, current state assessments and benchmarking, and sustainability integration into strategy and operations.

Jonas Lagneryd
Is an MSLS 2007 graduate from Sweden. He has eleven years of professional experience from management and strategic sustainable development. In the summer of 2007, he took the initiative to CARD.COOP, a cooperative enterprise, and is since then dedicating his full-time efforts toward its realization. Through on-line training and community building, CARD.COOP will bring vital knowledge to professionals who wants to redesign business and society towards sustainability.

Julia Toledo Ribeiro Pereira
Is a MSLS 2008 graduate from Brazil, now living in São Paulo, Brazil. She is a Director at Instituto Ecoar, an NGO working since 1992 to creating a sustainable society through education, community and rural development, organizational change and reforestation processes, in partnership with many institutions in Latin America. (www.ecoar.org.br)

Kyle White
Is a MSLS 2006 graduate from Canada who is currently working in Calgary Canada as an environmental specialist with the City of Calgary. His portfolio includes coordinating, tracking and monitoring environmental compliance for the City’s waste and recycling department, as well as developing internal environmental policies and programs for greening fleet vehicles.

Richard Blume
Is a MSLS 2006 graduate from Australia who currently works with The Natural Step International, a not-for-profit sustainability research, education and advisory organization, based in Stockholm, Sweden. In his role as Sustainability Advisor, Business Development he is supporting international business role models such as Nike, Rohm & Haas and Givaudan develop and implement their strategic approach to sustainability.
www.thenaturalstep.org

Scott Grierson
A Director of The Natural Step in Australia, Scott is a post-graduate researcher, sustainability advisor and graduate of the inaugural MSLS class that graduated in 2005. He is still heavily involved in sustainable development education, is an avowed Sinophile (China) and has particular interest in the renewable energy and agricultural sector.

Shawn Westcott
Shawn is a 2008 MSLS graduate from the United States. He lives in Stockholm, where he serves Director of Marketing and Communications for the international sustainability services firm AtKisson, Inc., founded by Alan AtKisson (www.atkisson.com). He oversees the overall marketing planning for the firm divisions, primarliy focusing on a new global sustainabilty awareness and action campaign which will launch in early 2009.

Tamara Connell
Tamara is an alumnus of second year of the MSLS programme (’06 graduate), and now acts as the Programme Coordinator in Karlskrona. Having spent three of the last four years studying and working with the MSLS programme, she looks forward to reconnecting with friends – old and new. She is also keen to bridge the interests and passions of the current students with the MSLS alumni network, and explore new opportunities for partnership development and collaboration.

Tracy Lydiatt
Is a MSLS 2008 graduate from Canada who is currently living and working in Perth, Australia. She is the Sustainable Development Project Leader within Hatch Engineering’s Environment and Community Initiative team in Perth, working to support Hatch’s staff to incorporate sustainable development considerations into their work.

Regional Gatherings

In addition to those who will be attending the event in Australia, others will be hosting regional gatherings elsewhere in the world and remotely participating during some portions of the event.

Georges Dyer
Is an MSLS 2006 graduate from Boston, MA, USA, where he works as a Social Entrepreneur at Aedi Group (www.aedigroup.com) developing new businesses to provide more sustainable products and services, and support Village Corps, the group’s non-profit organization dedicated to poverty alleviation. Georges is also a Senior Fellow at Second Nature, where he supports the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org).

Paulina C. de Gonzague
An MSLS 2005 graduate from Canada, she’s been in South Korea, on the frontlines of the U.N. Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, as Guest English Teacher to over 600+ public school students since Oct. 2006. Korea, an international leader in public education, advances the world’s complex socio-ecological and economic issues even in its English textbooks.

Magdalena Szpala
Magda is a 2006 graduate from Canada. Magda lives in Vancouver B.C. where she works as a sustainability consultant and TNS Associate. Focusing on climate change solutions Magda has worked with financial services organizations (Vancity Credit Union and The Co-operators Insurance Group), and also Small and Medium Size Enterprises at Ecotrust’s Climate Smart Program. Magda is also involved in creating opportunities for a dialogue for change at the local community level through co-organizing a monthly Global Warming Café.

Melanie Dubin
Melanie is a sustainable construction consultant with Davis Langdon in Seattle. She leads the firm’s movement towards sustainability and works with stadiums, universities, businesses, and hospitals to develop and implement sustainability goals for building projects. She also conducts research on green affordable housing and tools for carbon management in the construction phase. Melanie has also farmed in Europe and built strawbale schools in Montana.

Laura MacKay
Laura MacKay works with Whistler2020 and the Whistler Centre for Sustainability. Her focus is sustainable community planning and managing an annual vision-to-action process with 175+ community partners. After graduating from Blekinge Institute’s sustainability masters program, she co-founded the national Green Media Institute to leverage the media industries’ movement toward sustainability, and led a sustainability engagement with the National Film Board of Canada.

Pong Leung
As a Senior Advisor with The Natural Step Canada, Pong supports businesses, communities and other organizations with integrated sustainability planning and education. Most recently, Pong was Program Director of the Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability graduate program at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden. In addition to this role, Pong also led a successful year-long educational engagement for change agents in the European chemical industry.

Neil Pegram
Neil Pegram is a Canadian Sustainability Consultant specializing in facilitation, stakeholder engagement, research and organizational strategic planning. His past research experience was focused on behavioural psychology, but he has more recently shifted to consulting in the communications industry. His current work is focused on integrating sustainability concepts to CSR guidelines and organizational development and change. Neil holds a BSc in Biology/Psychology and a Masters in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability.

Renate Sitch
Renate grew up within the natural beauty that surrounds Lake Superior in North Western Ontario. This inspires Renate’s zeal for change within the sustainability industry. Studying Recreation and Tourism at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario and gaining some work experience in this industry she then moved to the west coast of Canada graduating in 2003 from Royal Roads University  in Victoria, B.C., with a Bachelor’s of Commerce in Entrepreneurial Management. Renate is a recent graduate (2008) of the Masters in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability program from the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden. Currently, Renate is working at Visible Strategies in Vancouver, BC.