Postcast Now Available: Tele Session 22: Converging Agendas: Social Economy and Environmental Sustainability

October 6, 2010

Telelearning Session 22: Converging Agendas Social Economy and Environmental Sustainability

PODCAST Now Available, click here to listen to a full recording of this session.

Thursday, October 14 2010, 9:00 – 10:00 am Pacific Time (12:00 pm Eastern time)

Register TODAY for this FREE session and join us for a fascinating discussion on this emerging theme.

BACKGROUND

This session will examine how to strengthen the use of the Social Economy in enhancing social, economic and environmental sustainability in Canada.  The speakers will highlight the findings of research by the Canadian Social Economy Hub and Research Partnerships and other literature and analysis to suggest the significant recent trends in combining environmental sustainability objectives with the production of goods and services in the economy through actors in the Social Economy.

During this session speakers will address the following questions:

  1.  What is some evidence of environmental sustainability and the Social Economy having converging agendas?
  2. What is unique and promising about this juncture?
  3. What are some examples and ideas for scaling up this emerging trend?

    SPEAKERS:

  • Mike Lewis is Managing Director of the Canadian Center for Community Renewal, and Director and Lead Investigator for BALTA.
  • Émanuèle Lapierre-Fortin is an MSc candidate in Rural Planning & Development at the University of Guelph. She is a Transition Towns Trainer and has been actively involved as a participant and researcher with Transition Guelph

MODERATOR:

  • Rupert Downing is Executive Director of the Community Social Planning Council in Victoria, former Executive Director of the Canadian CED Network and Co-director for the Canadian Social Economy Research Hub

CALL LOGISTICS:

  • Session Date: Thursday October 14th 2010
  • Call begins at 9:00 am Pacific time, 12:00 pm Eastern time
  • Call-in information will be given upon registration
  • Register before October 14th to obtain dial in information and background papers

This session is in English

SESSION FORMAT: 1 Hour
Welcome: 5 min
Presentations: 10 min by each speaker
Discussion: 35 minutes

REGISTRATION:
Register by phoning 250-472-4976, or e-mailing with your name, location, and work or volunteer position. For more information about the Canadian Social Economy Hub, please visit: www.socialeconomyhub.ca

Limited number of spaces available – Register soon!

BIOGRAPHIES:

Mike Lewis

Since 1977, Mike Lewis has founded and managed a number of organizations that have succeeded each other, all of which have been integrally involved in community economic development, community resource management, development finance and the Social Economy. He is a well-known author, having authored or co-authored 13 books and a large number of reports and chapters, as well as over 60 articles in Making Waves, Canada’s CED quarterly and several in other publications. He is also the editor of Making Waves. Selections of his writing have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Swedish and Japanese. He is editor of the successor to Making Waves being launched this fall – i-4  (Inspire, Innovate, Invent, Incite)

He currently heads up two of these successor organizations: he is executive director of the Center for Community Enterprise and Managing Director of the non-profit Canadian Center for Community Renewal. These two organizations are linked through a trust in which CCE operates a for-profit consultancy, the profits of which are annually allocated to CCCR as the non-profit beneficiary. CCCR finances research and development work in the field in community and economic development based on priorities established by the managers, associates and affiliates that make up part of the CCE family, which stretches across Canada and into the US and the U.K.

In the last three years, the mission of CCCR has shifted while continuing to include CED and the Social Economy as key aspects. CCCR is committed to crafting solutions and adaptations to the critical challenges stemming from climate change and peak oil.

Émanuèle Lapierre-Fortin

Émanuèle Lapierre-Fortin is an MSc candidate in Rural Planning & Development at the University of Guelph. She is a Transition Towns Trainer and has been actively involved as a participant and researcher with Transition Guelph. She has been awarded the Social Economy Student Network Student Researcher of the Month award in October 2009, has collaborated with the Mid-Western Ontario Regional Green Jobs Strategy on a paper exploring the roles of community economic development (CED) organizations in green entreprise development and has presented on the theme of Local Food, CED and Reskilling in Transition Towns at the Association for Non-Profit and Social Economy Research conference.

Émanuèle has worked in Social Economy and sustainability for the past four years. She has acted as a researcher on Education for Sustainable Development best practices at the Toronto Environment Office, as an International Consultant on social entreprise development for HIV/AIDS NGOs in Burkina Faso for the United Nations’ World Food Program and as a project manager for a Job Creation Partnership project at Working Skills Centre, a vocational college for immigrant women. She was a member of the Emerging Leaders Committee of the Canadian CED Network for two years, and is currently undertaking a urban/rural comparative study on strategies of citizens organizations to increase their resilience to climate change and peak oil.

Rupert Downing

Rupert Downing is the Executive Director of the Community Social Planning Council in Victoria BC, Co-director for the Canadian Social Economy Research Hub and the former ED of the Community Economic Development Network. The Network is a national member-based NGO committed to supporting community economic development and building Canada’s Social Economy, with offices in Victoria, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Victoriaville supporting the work of thousands of community based organizations and other stakeholders in every province and territory. The Network is committed to reducing unemployment, poverty and social disadvantage in Canada by supporting the work of grass roots community development organizations through public education, policy development, research, practitioner development and peer learning.
Mr. Downing was previously an Executive Director of the BC Ministry of Community Development, and worked on major policy and legislative initiatives in the Cabinet Policy office, and Ministry of Employment and Investment of the BC governmen