Environment week activities at Ecotrust
by Wanda Spooner
Environment week is always a busy time for Alberta Ecotrust staff and volunteers as we join other stewards of environmental and sustainable practice in engaging the public. On top of riding, walking or busing to work as part of the Calgary Commuter Challenge, we were fortunate to be included in a number of events happening in Calgary and had the opportunity to share the Ecotrust story with a few more folks.
Canadian Environmental Awards 2004
Thanks to invitations from Suncor Energy Foundation and Nexen Inc. Alberta Ecotrust staff enjoyed attending the third annual Canadian Environment Awards held on May 31 at Spruce Meadows. We were inspired to see grassroots leadership recognized and celebrated and encouraged by the wise words of Monte Hummel of World Wildlife Fund who received a Citation of Lifetime Achievement for his tireless, creative and effective leadership of conservation initiatives over the last 25 years.
Thanks again to our friends at Suncor, executive director Pat Letizia attended the Roundtable Breakfast on Social Responsibility on June 1. “Attending the breakfast gave me a greater understanding of the business approach to social responsibility," states Letizia. The breakfast dialogue focused on the interface between the corporate sector’s approach to community investment and the expressed needs of the community via the feedback from the award recipients. “It was also a good opportunity to get a national perspective on the issue from corporations and environmental non-governmental groups from outside of Alberta,” she added.
Nexen Letter Campaign and Luncheon
The Alberta Ecotrust team would like to extend a sincere thank you to our corporate partner Nexen , particularly to Charles Fischer, President & CEO. Mr. Fischer made time in his busy schedule to promote Alberta Ecotrust to his industry peers encouraging their participation in our partnership and we have already had positive response.
More kudos to Mr. Fischer’s assistant Holly Wennerstrom for her generous help and to Garry Mann, General Manager of Corporate Safety, Environment & Social Responsibility – International at Nexen and a long-time leadership volunteer of the foundation. During Environment Week Garry also hosted a luncheon to broaden awareness of and further the mandate of Alberta Ecotrust. During the luncheon, Garryspoke to guests from the environmental services sector about the benefit Nexen derives from its partnership with Alberta Ecotrust.
The luncheon also featured Gary Webster of Newalta Corporation who is the new chair of the Fund Development Committee. Gary shared his perspective on why Newalta has moved up to the Visionary Level as well as his own personal views on the effectiveness of contributing to Alberta Ecotrust. Guests then enjoyed a performance by past Ecotrust recipient Evergreen Theatre following the lunch.
imagineCALGARY Sustainability Summit
Pat Letizia was invited to participate in the City of Calgary’s June 8th launch of imagineCALGARY, an initiative to develop a long-range urban sustainability strategy for Calgary and region through a broadly based community engagement process. The two-year process will engage the public, as well as business, community and government stakeholders in a broad-based dialogue to envision the type of city and region we want for the future.
The first step will be to design and implement an ongoing dialogue and engagement process with many stakeholders to define a future vision.
ImagineCALGARY was initiated when the City joined the +30 Network, sponsored by the International Centre for Sustainable Cities headquartered in Vancouver. The network aims to bring together 30 or more global cities to work in partnership through a multi-stakeholder approach to develop a 100-year vision of sustainability for their respective communities. Members of the +30 Network will share their 100-year strategies and learn from one another at the 2006 Urban Forum conference in Vancouver.
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