Making Sustainability Standard Practice
Vol. 10       No. 7       July 2016
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Explore sustainability with thought leaders, industry practitioners, policy experts, and scholars. Join us!
Speaking companies include: Citigroup, Hershey, Biogen, GE, Ingersoll Rand, TD Bank, Avery Dennison, SAP, EY, JetBlue and more.
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TopFrom the President's Desk
Never A Better Time
To Get Involved
By Jeff Yorzyk, Director of Sustainability, Green Chef, Golden, Colorado   
What an incredible time to be involved in ISSP! Together with other members of ISSP's newly installed 2016-2017 Leadership Team, I look forward to working with all of you to accelerate the adoption of sustainability as standard practice around the globe! 
After a thoroughly successful Beta testing of our certification exam and process over the last year, we  graduated our first cohort of ISSP Certified Sustainability Practitioners, and we're working to finalize the exam delivery mechanism this year. In addition, the Board has restructured slightly to expand our committee structure and increase our ability to support the many initiatives underway - from developing an educational partners program to creating deep resources for sustainability professionals on our website! There has never been a better time to get involved in ISSP. Please feel free to reach out to me or our staff to get involved in a committee today!

Help Us Welcome New Members
To 2016-2017 ISSP Leadership Team 
The ISSP Board of Directors has elected a new Leadership Team for ISSP's 2016-2017 fiscal year. The new officers assume their roles with the continued growth of the ISSP Sustainability Professional Certification program as their top priority.  
  • Jeff Yorzyk, Senior Program Manager, Cardno Asset Management Group, Golden, CO. Jeff is now President of ISSP for the current 2016-2017 fiscal year.
  • Sarah Lewis, Managing Director of Members and Implementation with The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), Fayetteville, AR, is now Vice President of ISSP;
  • Eric Foley, Director of Sustainability and Director of Learning and Development in Executive Programs at Penn State University, State College, PA, was re-elected Treasurer of ISSP.
  • Marsha Willard, Principal of AXIS Performance Advisors, Portland, OR, continues in her role as Secretary of ISSP.
  • Simon Harvey, Director of BusinessLAB, Auckland, New Zealand, was re-elected as Development Director of ISSP.
  • Marilyn Johnson, Senior Director of Corporate Sustainability for IHS, Bellevue, WA, will stay active in ISSP in her new role as Past President of ISSP.
Read the news release about ISSP's new Leadership Team and learn more about all of ISSP's new officers.
Check It Out! ISSP Launches New
Organizational Membership Program  
ISSP has introduced a new Organizational Membership category that provides companies and non-profit groups  with an opportunity to support the mission of ISSP along with a package of benefits that includes enhanced access to the ISSP community and individual ISSP membership benefits for their employees.

More than a dozen companies and not-for-profit organizations from around the world are among the first ISSP Organizational Members. A big thank you to our inaugural Organizational Members listed below!
  • Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, California
  • The Natural Step, Stockholm, Sweden
  • Sustainable Business Consulting, Seattle, Washington
  • ECOSteps, New South Wales, Australia
  • Regenerativa, Santiago, Chile
  • American Sustainable Business Council, Washington, DC
  • Sustainable Solutions Corp., Royersford, Pennsylvania
  • Ethical Markets Media, St. Augustine, Florida
  • Eco-officiency, Boulder, Colorado
  • Sustainability Resources Ltd., Calgary, Alberta
  • Paul Redvers Brown Inc,, Carlsbad, California
  • STAR Communities, Washington, DC
  • SustainAsia, Hong Kong
For more information and to register as an ISSP Organizational Member, visit http://bit.ly/Org_Member.
ISSP Seeks Volunteers
As Certification Progresses
As ISSP continues forward with the development of our Sustainability Professional Certification program, we're putting a call out for volunteers to help define the requirements for certified sustainability professionals who seek to renew their certification.

This Re-Certification Committee will lay out the criteria for professional development, including continuing education, that re-certification applicants will need to meet. It will also determine the types of courses, conferences, research activities, publishing opportunities, and other professional activities that are most beneficial for enhancing the careers of sustainability professionals. Most importantly, the committee will work with the goal of helping ISSP certified professionals to stay on the leading edge of the sustainability field!

We're also looking for sustainability veterans to contribute test questions in alignment with our Job Task Analysis to help improve the Certification exams and keep them up to date.

If you're interested in offering up your expertise to aid ISSP in either of these initiatives, please contact us at certification@sustainabilityprofessionals.org for more information. Tell us a bit about your background and skillset in the e-mail. And be sure to visit our website for more information about ISSP Certification.
August 25 Webinar:
The Business Perspective
on COP21 and the Carbon Economy
Thursday, August 25, 2016 at 11:00am PT / 2:00pm ET 

The December 2015 Paris Climate Agreement (COP21, or officially the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) represents a watershed in addressing climate change. Over 190 nations, supported by hundreds of citizen business and local governments, came together to craft an agreement that fundamentally recognizes the economic, social and environmental challenges posed by climate change.

ISSP's August webinar, featuring Vice President and Co-Founder of the American Sustainable Business Council Richard Eidlin, will review the key elements of the agreement, issues still to be resolved and the critical role that the business community played in its design and implementation. We'll also focus on what the agreement means to American companies, including those in the sustainable agricultural community. Finally, we'll look at the emerging support here in the US - both in Congress and in state legislatures - for the idea of putting a price on carbon and how that might work. 
ISSP Chapter News
ISSP Chapters Offer Diverse Set of Activities
ISSP members continue to gather across the globe, both virtually and in person, in order to meet and network with other sustainability professionals. Here's a round-up of news from various ISSP chapters . 

ISSP Forms New Virtual Chapter for
Sustainable Film & Entertainment Industry
We have created ISSP's first industry-based chapter in the Film & Entertainment industry, open to sustainability professionals anywhere in the world. The Chapter will be holding its initial organizing meeting at the end of July. If you are interested in being one of the founding members of the ISSP Sustainable Film & Entertainment Chapter, send an email to chapters@sustainabilityprofessionals.org. We are planning to hold a webinar in the fall and to produce a white paper assessing the state of the art of sustainability in the industry. We have also created a new Chapter page as well as a Film/Entertainment Resources page. If you are in the Film/Entertainment industry and have a sustainability story to share, send us an email at goodstory@sustainabilityprofessionals.org. Please share this information with anyone who may be interested in joining our Chapter. We look forward to hearing from you!

Meeting and On-Line Survey To Explore
Possibilities of St. Louis Chapter Formation
If you are sustainability-minded in St Louis, join us to accelerate your sustainability skills and collaborate to expand sustainability in Greater St. Louis! On Thursday, July 14 at the new CIC Building in St. Louis, ISSP members Marcia Lochmann of Sitton Energy Solutions and Kyle Crawford of The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis will co-host a meeting of sustainability-minded professionals in the St. Louis region for long term, meaningful, and regionally specific, transformation. Anyone interested in learning more about what they can gain from and contribute to a Greater St. Louis ISSP Chapter can add their name and perspective to this online survey . This data will be used to maximize the WIIFM (What's In It For Me) of this new effort to connect the St. Louis sustainability community. Learn more here .

ISSP New York City Chapter
Hosts Meetings and Film Series
In the latest of its Leaders In Sustainability keynote series, The ISSP Greater NYC Chapter offered a breakfast panel on May 25th, Scaling Carbon-Neutral Operations Across Global Restaurant & Retail Chains. Opened by chapter Founder and Co-Chair Mark Wolf, the event featured Doug Satzman, who was recently appointed CEO of Le Pain Quotidien, USA after a long tenure in Starbucks' global leadership, and Arnaud Brohé, PhD, Managing Director of CO2Logic, Inc. During a panel discussion moderated by chapter Co-Chair Trisha Bauman, Satzman and Brohé spoke frankly about the challenges, opportunities and strategies to achieving carbon-neutral operations across diverse international markets.

On June 23rd, the Greater NYC Chapter welcomed ISSP Executive Director, Maureen Hart, who led a robust group of established and emerging sustainability professionals through a comprehensive session on ISSP Sustainability Professional Certification. The morning session provided an opportunity to discuss industry trends, to learn more about the exam and to network with colleagues.

The NYC chapter's main summer event celebrates the launch of its Sustainability In Focus film series on July 28th with an after-work screening of Green Fire Productions' Ocean Frontiers II in Midtown Manhattan. For more information, visit the NYC Chapter webpage .
   
ISSP Out and About: Where to Meet Us 
Here's where various members of the ISSP community will be gathering this month. If you're attending any of these events, seek them out and say hello! 

Sustainability Events Around the World   
 
The International Society of Sustainability Professionals (ISSP) is the world's leading professional association for sustainability professionals. ISSP is a member-driven association committed to moving the profession of sustainability forward through building strong networks and communities of practice.