The Natural Step

One thing about working at a law firm is that you end up attending a lot of breakfast, lunch, and dinner meetings for various community, business, legal and charity organizations. A couple of days ago, I was asked to attend a meeting of the Oregon Natural Step Network when a partner at my firm who is a member of our Green Committee was unable to attend.

Now, those of you who know me, know that I care about the environment--I recycle, compost, and ride my bike to work--but I wasn't one of those militant environmentalists that are so prevalent at my law school. So, although I was familiar with the concept of sustainability, I wasn't familiar with the Natural Step, which originated the sustainability movement.

Today's meeting featured speakers from OMSI and Coastwide Laboratories who talked about their organization's efforts to make their businesses sustainable. It was really cool to hear about people in positions of power at their businesses talking about the importance of taking a systems approach to sustainability.

Besides the fact that 1) the breakfast was at 7:30 am on a morning following book club, 2) there was a severe lack of coffee at the table, and 3) because it was a sustainability organization, there was no bacon, I actually enjoyed going to this thing. And, as a result of my interest, I find myself the newest member of my firm's Green Committee.