By Katie Schleiss
The University recently hosted the Natural Step event, an ongoing sustainability training session for staff, students, and faculty. The entire University community was invited to attend the training session held on Feb. 11 from 9 a.m. until noon.
According to Laura Steffen, coordinator for Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Natural Step is one tool the University is using to help implement sustainable practices. Based upon the success and popularity of the event, the University may decide to host the event again and everyone will be given the opportunity to attend.
This event wasn't a planning session for events promoting sustainability or projects on campus, but was a session to create a vocabulary for sustainability so that everyone was on the same page. This way, those who knew little about sustainable efforts could gain enough knowledge and vocabulary concerning the subject to better communicate with those who are experts in the field.
The executive and training directors of Natural Step led the event and a total of 38 staff, faculty and students attended. Steffen said that with the education from this program, students would have another tool for gathering information on sustainability and making decisions on what to spend the money from the proposed green fund. Steffen said that she will apply the information that she learned from this seminar in both her work life and personal life.
"You create a picture of what you want the University or community to look like and then you try to figure out how to get there," Steffen said. "It is time for the University to take a step forward in sustainability."
According to Professor Steve Kolmes, director of ?environmental science, the Oregon Chapter of the Natural Step Program was founded 12 years ago.
"The University of Portland was one of the founding members and has been supporting Natural Step for many years, but we have just now had the training," Kolmes said. "After the president instituted the advisory committee, sustainability is becoming an important issue, and to implement the mission for the bylaws, we are using Natural Step as a tool to move forward toward sustainability."
This event introduced the concept of 'systems thinking,' or the way of making decisions that take the well-being of the entire community into consideration. Natural Step taught those who attended new ways of thinking and making decisions to prevent damage to the community.
The four system conditions explained in the training session taught that in order for a society to be sustainable, nature should not be subjected to increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's crust. Additionally, the earth should not be subjected to increasing concentrations of substances produced by society, impoverished by over-harvesting or other forms of manipulation. Resources must be used fairly and efficiently in order to meet basic human needs worldwide.
"If people were to follow the four system conditions, it would decrease their environmental impact," Kolmes said.
The most prominent one is the fourth system condition, which focuses on social justice. According to Kolmes, This is one thing that the University of Portland is concerned about from the perspective of Catholic social teaching.
Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt created the Natural Step program in Sweden with other experts in his field and he has had continued success moving sustainability into business.
"We are very fortunate to have a connection to Dr. Robèrt," Kolmes said.
A couple of years ago, Dr. Robèrt was given an honorary doctoral degree from the University. He is an oncologist primarily concerned with environmental toxicology.
"We want the whole University of Portland community to be involved, but we're just starting out," Kolmes said. "We don't want those participating to be primarily students, we want a nice mix of students, staff, and faculty."
Kolmes said that several students attended the Natural Step training and he hopes that more will follow. "Students who went will hopefully tell others and it will travel down the student grapevine as interest grows," Kolmes said. He also said that it would be nice to see some student leadership, but there are some problems with creating student involvement.
"When the students start talking about it, everybody notices," Kolmes said. "The students are the ones who have a stake in the next century, as opposed to the staff and faculty."
The Natural Step event that was held on campus was the first training session to date. Usually, Natural Step programs are a one to two day training process, but for the University this training session was condensed down into a few hours.
"We are still in the creation process of this program at the University," Steffen said.
Kolmes said the University is planning a series of the Natural Step training practices and it would be nice if there were another one this year. However, he said that the difficulty is in finding the time.
Steffen also said that the sustainability movement has grown. "Right now, the University is at the point where we need to create a common language for everyone to understand what sustainability means and how we can implement sustainable practices in our everyday lives," Steffen said.
Steffen said that the Natural Step training sessions are another tool for students in their everyday lives for making important decisions.
"We start with these dreams, but the whole process begins with the first step," Steffen said. "With the Nature Step Program, we can figure this out as a group."
Steffen also said the University has not planned another training session because of questions concerning availability of resources, when to schedule these future events and if the event was even a success.
The feedback and evaluation of the event will judge if it was a success, as will if the 38 people who attended will continue to attend and if additional people come as well. Steffen said that the University already has a lot of sustainability programs, such as the green team meetings every month.
"The success of sustainability or the consequences of failing to implement sustainable practices are what the students will know personally in the years to come," Kolmes said. "Who will be around in 2070 to see the ice caps melting?"
