[See attached file (MS Word) for more information, including application instructions. This training is limited to 27 participants. - Ed.]

In June, 2008, a 5-day national training session will take place at Tufts University to increase citizen and planner leadership capacity in communities and their local governments to initiate and lead a change process to become a sustainable community. This sustainable communities approach has a substantial track record of successful implementation – possibly the most extensive in the world - in over 100 municipalities in Sweden, U.S., and around the world. The objective of the training is to prepare potential local leaders – including citizens, local officials, planners, or municipal staff – to be able to lead a process involving sustainability education, communication, and a strategic implementation process.

Faculty:

Sarah James & Torbjörn Lahti, co-Directors of the Institute for Eco-municipality Education & Assistance (IEMEA), and co-authors of The Natural Step for Communities: How Cities & Towns Can Change to Sustainable Practices (New Society Publishers, 2004, winner of the 2005 Planetizen Top Ten Book Award. Torbjörn Lahti is the founder of the Swedish eco-municipality movement, and he and Sarah James are co-founders of the emerging U.S. eco-municipality movement. Between them, they have worked with over 150 municipalities in Sweden and the United States.

David Waldron, recent Director of The Natural Step’s Masters Program In Strategic Leadership Toward Sustainability, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, and former Sustainability Coordinator of Whistler, Canada, the first North American municipality to adopt The Natural Step framework.

Julian Agyeman, Associate Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning (UEP), and Chairman of the Department of UEP at Tufts University. He is author of Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice (New York University Press, 2005), among other books.