INSS Blog this Month
Three new blog posts appeared at the website during June. Check out food sovereignty and social sustainability through solidarity economy networks, urban agriculture and behavior change, and climate mitigation as socio-technical transition: the evolution of eco-cohousing in Tompkins county, New York. Please enjoy the ideas of our network members and join the conversation through comments and your own posts (email socialsustainabilitynetwork@gmail.com if you have an idea for a blog post).
The Journal, “Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy,” Edited by INSS member, Maurie Cohen, recently devoted a special issue to the theme of “social sustainability as the lost pillar of sustainability.” This material is freely downloadable here.
Sarah Bell and students, Sheila Birungi and Felicity Davies, have proposed a session on Social Sustainability at the Urban Sustainability and Resilience Conference to be held in November. If the session is accepted there will be opportunities for INSS members to attend virtually as either as presenters or participants. More information should be available in July.
The INSS Steering Committee will meet in Charlotte, NC on July 18th 2014. Several members will attend in person, and several others will join remotely. The program for the 2015 INSS Conference and long range planning are the two primary agenda items.
Deadline Extended: Several of our network members are organizing a special issue on Sustainability in the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. If you have research in this area, the call is available here. The deadline has been extended to August 1, 2014.
Work Group Updates
INSS features the following active working groups: assessment tools, communications tools, professional workshops, public communications, technology project, the INSS space and research agenda. Want to join one of these exciting projects? Click here.
To make meeting simpler, INSS now has a Skype account for conference calls. Please add INSS_skype as a contact in your skype accounts. Conference call leaders can use this account to conduct virtual meetings. Instructions and login information will be provided shortly.
Cris Surbeck, José Quispe Acosta and Shiela Birungi of the Assessment Tools Working Group met on June 19 by conference call and set some goals for adding content, adding graphics, and increasing the visibility of the Assessment Tools wiki. The group welcomes contributions from other interested INSS members and colleagues.
The Research Agenda Working Group has conducted two teleconferences and will be circulating results from its conversations in future newsletters. Their next conversation will occur sometime during the last two weeks in August.
The Public Communication group met to talk about their video competition, which will solicit videos about “what social sustainability is to me.” They’re working on the call for videos and technical details now.
Recurring Announcements
Know someone who should be a member? We are always recruiting new members for the network, particularly in underrepresented areas, like practitioners in public health, safety, or planning. If you know anyone working in these areas, please recommend them here.
Website logins and wiki integration! You will now be able to log into the website and wiki through the main webpage. If you have not received an email about your INSS account, email us at socialsustainabilitynetwork@gmail.com to get a username.
Member directory: We’re continuing to roll out a new publicly-accessible member directory that highlights member keywords and interests. If you haven’t yet, please help us identify keywords about your work for our directory here.
Old newsletters are archived here, if you’re interested.
Finally, welcome to our new members!
Nicole Peterson
