The Sustainable Leadership Forum

More importantly I think this is an opportunity to reexamine our focus and explore how we can better serve our mission. For some time I’ve been concerned that the SLF is not serving a sufficiently urgent or important purpose; and I’ve never been entirely happy with the format.

In my view, a peer-to-peer organization is not about having “presentations,” however interesting. It’s more about having real conversations, in which people share their projects and resources, and help each other move forward toward their goals.

No doubt there’s a place for special presentations; but increasingly innovative organizations are looking to alternative models of conferences, dialogues, and experimental collaboration.

The recent CreativeNJ conference, for example, followed the Open Space model, “a powerful way of bringing people together to search for solutions to complex issues around a central theme or question.”

I think we face a similar challenge, to articulate a larger vision for what it would mean for our society to become fully sustainable, and to identify practical actions we can take that will contribute to making that vision a reality. So I invite you to join me in an “open dialog” in the service of this higher goal.

I am also inclined to dissolve the SLF as an organizational entity. The volunteer program, the revolving loan fund, and other innovative elements have not gotten much traction in reality. And the combination of the SLF with the Incubator and the Sustainable Haiti Coalition has run into several obstacles, the resolution of which seemingly involves separating and restructuring the different organizations.

But the SLF as a community remains viable, vibrant, and vital, providing us with inspiration, empowerment, and a shared vision of what’s needed and what’s possible; so I invite you to continue to support it with your ideas, your presence, and your experiences. For in the end it’s only through this larger conversation that we can truly conceive of a world that is fully regenerative and adding to its long-term viability instead of exceeding its limits.

At a practical level there is an opportunity to join together to work for the success of the Morristown EcoCenter, to find investors and supporters for it, and to use it as a stage to showcase the best technologies and practices for a sustainable food-centered facility. I invite you to inquire about this if it’s relevant to your immediate goals.