February 4, 2010. With January 31st as the 'soft' deadline for countries to submit to the UNFCCC their proposals for greenhouse gas emissions reductions under the Copenhagen Accord we've been hearing the question from colleagues and the press: do these submissions bring the world any closer to the goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5° or 2°C? We've 'run the numbers' and our most recent analysis shows essentially the same results that we reported December 19th at the close of the Copenhagen Summit: if current proposals were fully implemented average global temperature would overshot the 2° goal and would in fact increase by approximately 3.9°C (7.0°F) by 2100. More (+)

February 4, 2010, Worchester, MA, USA. Global warming in your backyard. That is the motto of a new interactive exhibit that illustrates how climate change is impacting the landscape. This traveling exhibit, which uses the Sustainability Institute's C-ROADS simulation, has started a tour through New England, a region in the Northeast of the USA, close to the border with Canada.More (+)

January 20, 2010, Jakarta, Indonesia. A shift away from economic growth towards a development model based upon quality of life is one of the elements of an emerging sustainability strategy of the Indonesian province of Papua. SI's Phil Rice conducted a training workshop for officials of the Papua Planning Department (BAPPEDA) as part the 4th of a six-workshop planning process on sustainable development.More (+)

The Climate Interactive team, led by Sustainability Institute, delivered big results in Copenhagen at the UNFCCC's COP15 climate conference.More (+)

Copenhagen, Denmark, 5 January 2009. “We are prepared to give all we have as long as there is the possibility of saving our planet. We expect the same courage from you.” - closing words of the “Our World, Our Future - Children’s Climate Forum Declaration 2009.” The Children’s Declaration was one of the key results of the Children's Climate Forum, held in Copenhagen in the lead up to the official climate negotiations. Sustainability Institute’s Dominic Stucker was one of the two Lead Facilitators of this event, which was organized by UNICEF and the Danish government.More (+)

Copenhagen, Denmark, December 8, Bas de Leeuw, Executive Director of the Dana Meadows Sustainability Institute in the USA pointed to the untapped potential of systems thinking for better achieving the sustainable consumption and production agenda. Individuals need to be empowered to “be the change in the world they want to see", he said. More (+)

With less than a week to go, significant differences remain between the aggregate emissions reductions from current national proposals and the mitigation targets released yesterday in a draft text at the UNFCCC climate talks in Copenhagen.More (+)

In the past few weeks, four groups, including the C-ROADS team, have released analysis of the current proposals in the UNFCCC negotiations. While details vary between the studies, all four analyses support a common conclusion: Copenhagen must deliver emissions cuts beyond the high-end of current proposals or risk missing the opportunity for a reasonable chance of keeping below 2°CMore (+)

Fellows representing 7 countries and working in government, civil society, business, and philanthropy participated in the Step Up and Step Out workshop held at Trinity Conference Center in West Cornwall, Connecticut.More (+)

The December issue of National Geographic Magazine covers the “Carbon Bathtub” as framed and explained by Climate Interactive partner Dr. John Sterman of the Sloan School of Management at MIT. You can find the article here. This beautiful and information-filled graphic illustrates a powerful way to think about the dynamics of the climate system: [...]More (+)

HARTLAND VT, USA (September 15, 2009) The Sustainability Institute announced today the appointment of Bastiaan “Bas” de Leeuw as their new executive director. Mr. de Leeuw’s move from his current position, leading the United Nations Sustainable Resource Management Program, will help the Institute strengthen its global support program for Climate Change negotiators, its modeling and outreach work addressing other key environmental challenges and its leadership development program, the Donella Meadows Fellowship. More (+)

The mission of SI’s Fellowship Program is to accelerate the shift to global sustainability by increasing the effectiveness of well-positioned sustainability leaders.  Fellows learn to address social, economic and environmental issues at their root causes while benefiting from a national and international network of talented and supportive colleagues. More (+)

Climate Interactive, a program of Sustainability Institute, is a collaboration of business people, academics, not-for-profits, and scientists committed to using innovative approaches to address climate change. The mission of this program is to develop, extend, and distribute powerful, open-innovation climate simulations for the world to share.More (+)

"In Dana Meadows's brilliantly integrative worldview, everything causes everything else; cause and effect loop back on themselves. She was the clearest thinker and writer co-creating the art and science of systems dynamics, and Thinking in Systems distills her lifetime of wisdom. This clear, fun-to-read synthesis will help diverse readers everywhere to grasp and harness how our complex world really works." —Amory B. Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute More about the book (+)

“Systems thinking can lead us to the edge of what analysis can do and then point beyond - to what can and must be done by the human spirit.”    -Donella (Dana) Meadows More Archives (+)