Sustainable Step New England (SSNE) was founded in 1998 by a small group of people who shared a professional and personal interest in sustainability. We came from a variety of professions, including engineering, business, renewable energy, and consulting.  At the time, many people viewed sustainability solely from an environmental perspective.  We believed that environmental issues could not be resolved unless they met community needs and made economic sense. 

We sought to develop a systemic approach to solving environmental and social challenges that we could use ourselves and share with others.  We were inspired by the Natural Step framework and believed that this methodology, combined with other tools, could help people figure out how to generate positive, lasting environmental, social and economic changes.

Originally, we focused on training people in sustainability principles. We offered a range of trainings, from conferences and public workshops to study circles, and also provided consulting services. In each of these settings, we sought to provide an “a ha” moment where people would realize that our current global path was unsustainable and that there are many powerful ways that they could take action to make their organizations, communities, and personal lives more sustainable.

We found that once people were motivated to act, their next question was, “How do I convince my boss…or the Facilities Manager…or my employees?” We collected, invented, and refined a variety of tools, such as “Strategic Questioning ,” to help people build buy-in for change and understand how to affect change within an organization.

Change within an organization sometimes required change at a sector or larger system level beyond the single organization. Therefore, we developed tools to convene cross-sector dialogues about barriers and opportunities to adopting sustainable solutions. Through all this, we regularly brought together people who were ‘”agents of change”’ to share best practices, lessons learned, and network to make everyone more effective.

SSNE put on a wide variety of workshops, conferences, and networking meetings. To see a complete list, click the link below:

Past Events