By Maggie Romuld

In 1989, Swedish oncologist Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt founded The Natural Step (TNS), a non-profit group focused on advancing the practice of sustainable development by training, coaching and advising organizations interested in developing plans for sustainability. The group has spread around the globe, with offices in 11 countries, but it started simply, with just an idea; Dr. Robèrt felt that to get to the root of many problems associated with sustainability we needed to begin by understanding the basic laws that govern energy and natural cycles. We also needed to understand that we have to operate within these natural laws, and not systematically undermine nature's ability to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services upon which we depend. Dr. Robèrt believed that if people could agree on a basic understanding of the requirements for the continuation of life, perhaps they could "build consensus among governments, business people and environmentalists about what was needed to become sustainable."

The Brundtland Commission, an organization created by the United Nations (UN) to address the impact that humans have on the environment while maintaining economic and social development, defined sustainability as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The Natural Step organization felt that this definition was "very compelling," but it was still an abstract concept, not clear enough, or precise enough, to be used as a tool for effective planning. In an effort to develop a more robust definition for sustainability and build a "practical, strategic sustainability planning framework," they brought together an international group of scientists to look at the root causes of unsustainability. The scientists unanimously concluded that there are "four fundamental ways that human society is systematically undermining the ability of the earth's natural ecosystems and the ability of humans to meet their basic needs." The first way we undermine earth's natural ecosystems is by extracting materials from the earth's crust and then depositing them in the biosphere, the second way has to do with the vast amount of chemicals and compounds that our society produces and allows to build up in the environment, the third has to do with the destructive impact we have on natural systems, and the fourth through our unstructured development for meeting basic human needs.

By rephrasing the various ways we undermine nature, TNS came up with a set of "system conditions," a broad description of what they believe is required to achieve sustainability. In a sustainable society, TNS suggests, nature is not subject to systematically increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the earth, nor is it subject to concentrations of substances produced by society, or degradation by physical means. They also believe that in a sustainable society, people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs. Using the system conditions as the ultimate goal, TNS proposed four "basic sustainability principles" to guide us in our quest to be sustainable. We must: reduce and eventually eliminate our contribution to the systematic accumulation of materials from the earth's crust; reduce and eliminate our contribution to the systematic accumulation of chemicals and compounds produced by society; reduce and eliminate our contribution to the ongoing physical degradation of nature; and, reduce and eliminate our contribution to conditions that systematically undermine people's ability to meet their basic needs.

One of TNS's primary roles is providing a planning framework to help organizations (large and small) such as municipal governments, large corporations, universities, and others, identify and make choices that will lead them towards sustainability in the long-term. Essentially, the TNS guides organizations through the process of meeting the "system conditions" they have defined, and they use the basic sustainability principles to provide more explicit guidance. The Natural Step uses the concept of "backcasting" as opposed to forecasting when planning for future goals, suggesting that "backcasting from sustainability principles encourages us to move away from thinking about whether one action or impact is better or worse than another, and instead begin to evaluate whether a particular action is taking us in the right direction." The sustainability principles provide direction towards sustainability but do not dictate a specific path. In this way, different groups can set goals and develop day-to-day strategies that take advantage of their own situations and opportunities, and help them overcome their own barriers. A community or organization would start the sustainability process by identifying and defining a future point of success, and then taking, the most effective steps to arrive at that point. In order to address the first principle, for example, which indicates that we should "reduce and eventually eliminate our contribution to the systematic accumulation of materials from the earth's crust," TNS states that we must "substitute our use of certain minerals that are scarce in nature with others that are more abundant, using all mined minerals efficiently and systematically reducing our dependence on fossil fuels." How organizations fulfill that directive is, however, open to some interpretation and may take any one of many different pathways. The same is true for the other three principles.

The mission of TNS is to connect leaders "with the inspiration and education they need to integrate economic, environmental and social priorities into their planning and decision-making," and their "Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development" is being used internationally by literally hundreds of organizations (including Nike, Co-operators Insurance, and the District of North Vancouver) to sift through the various approaches available to them as they move towards sustainability. The popularity of TNS workshops, conferences, guidebooks, and online courses suggests that there is a definite market for their services, and the group is gaining momentum. Perhaps their ideas of shifting our focus away from the symptoms of unsustainability towards the underlying causes, and of developing action plans for tackling the sources of problems will be the catalyst we need to actually turn things around.