Oregon May be A Little Prodigious, But is Still a Sustainability Toddler
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Director, Dick Pedersen, recently announced that DEQ will be joining the Natural Step Network in order to use the TNS framework to help DEQ develop sustainability as one of its core values. He thought that DEQ would be the first state agency to do that (several municipalities have adopted TNS). It struck me as somewhat surprising that in a state with a sustainability mandate, see ORS 184.423, no state agency would have yet adopted the TNS framework.
This revelation reminds me of something TNS founder Karl-Henrik Robert said recently in Portland. He said that the good news is that Oregon is way out in front of the country on sustainability. He then said that the bad news is that Oregon is way out in front of the country on sustainability. He then paused and said: “You’re not that good.”
The take-away message from juxtaposing Dick’s announcement and Karl-Henrik’s is this: It is in no way too late to undertake sustainability initiatives. If your company has been slower to adopt sustainability than your neighbor or competitor, consider jumping in now. Even though the media and the blogosphere are awash in sustainability talk, there are many entities, from state agencies to businesses to households, that are just getting started. Don’t assume you are behind the curve—no one has reached sustainability maturity.
