What We Do
The International Sustainable Development Foundation (ISDF) envisions a world where commerce, communities and nature thrive in harmony.
Our mission is to accelerate sustainable development locally and internationally based on nature’s design principles and to achieve results through a new form of cooperation among governments, businesses, universities, research institutions and non-governmental organizations.
We focus our resources on three initiatives: The Zero Waste Alliance, The Green Electronics Council and The China US Center for Sustainable Development.
Zero Waste Alliance
The Zero Waste Alliance (ZWA) is a partnership of business, government, universities, and non profit organizations working to apply zero waste strategies. These strategies draw on nature’s zero waste design principles to reduce and eliminate waste and toxics for improved profitability, competitiveness and environmental performance.
Waste in all its forms is a failure of our industrial processes and product designs. Our view is that the entire concept of “waste” should be eliminated from our thinking and the word “resource” be substituted.
A Zero Waste strategy is a bold vision that includes an endpoint goal. This endpoint goal leads to faster innovation and movement far beyond incremental approaches that do not include an endpoint goal.
ZWA and its network of associates provide management support, direct technical assistance, education and training. ZWA prioritizes initiatives that:- Engage multiple stakeholders to develop standards that can leverage industry sectors and communities of practitioners
- Develop tools and resources for scalable applications.
ZWA’s stakeholder initiatives include the design and development of the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool – EPEAT – that is now administered by the Green Electronics Council and in 2007 was formally adopted by presidential executive order as the US electronics standard. Past initiatives include the Northwest Compact Fluorescent Lighting Project and the Unified Green Cleaning Alliance. ZWA is now actively leading two new stakeholder initiatives – the K-12 Sustainable Schools program and the International Society of Sustainability Professionals.
ZWA has developed a range of technical tools and processes being used by business and communities to evaluate opportunities to reduce and eliminate waste, including: CARS – the Chemical Assessment and Ranking System, SEAT – the Supply-China Environmental Assessment Tool and SCORE – an assessment tool to evaluate organizational sustainability practices and develop practical ways to achieve results.
ZWA is an EPA Environmental Management Local Resource Center and also manages the Sustainable Building Advisors Certificate Program.
For more information, we invite you to visit the Zero Waste Alliance web site.
Green Electronics Council
The Green Electronics Council (GEC) was formed in 2006 to inspire and support the effective design, manufacture, use and recovery of electronic products to contribute to a healthy, fair and prosperous world.
Through partnerships with the electronics industry and other stakeholders, GEC seeks to:- Implement market-driven systems to recognize and reward environmentally preferable electronic products
- Build the capacity of individuals and organizations to design and manage the life cycle of electronic products to improve their environmental and social performance.
- Are very resource intensive to manufacture
- Contain significant amounts of toxic and environmentally sensitive materials
- Use electricity inefficiently
- Have a relatively short useable lifespan
- Are inefficiently and/or ineffectively recovered and recycled.
GEC’s inaugural program is EPEAT.net – the electronic product environmental assessment tool – a new system for consumers to compare and select environmentally preferable electronic products. The first set of products on the EPEAT registry are computers, laptops and monitors.
2008 US purchases of EPEAT registered laptops, desktops, and monitors over conventional products will:- Reduce use of toxic materials, including mercury, by 1021 metric tons, equivalent to the weight of 510,949 bricks.
- Eliminate use of enough mercury to fill 149,685 household fever thermometers.
- Preclude the disposal of 43 thousand metric tons of hazardous waste, equivalent to the weight of almost 22 million bricks.
- Eliminate 14,353 Metric Tons of solid waste, equivalent to the amount 7202 U.S. households generate in a year.
- Savings of over 8.39 billion kWh of electricity — enough to power over 700,000 US homes for a year.
- Reduction in use of 14.8 million metric tons of primary materials, equivalent to the weight of more than 114 million refrigerators.
- Avoidance of 34.2 million metric tons of air emissions (including greenhouse gas emissions) and over 71,000 metric tons of water pollutant emissions.
- Reduction of over 1.57 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions — equivalent to taking over one million US passenger cars off the road for a year.
The next series of products under consideration for EPEAT include: televisions, servers, cell phones and printers/imaging devices.
For more information, please visit the GEC web site.
China US Center for Sustainable Development
ISDF is the U.S. Secretariat for the China-US Center for Sustainable Development.
The China – U.S. Center for Sustainable Development (the Center) is an international public-private partnership fostering business models for sustainable development.
The Center serves as a vehicle for leaders of sustainable development in China to collaborate with international business leaders and experts. It was formed in 1999 with China’s Ministry of Science and Technology to address environmental impacts related to the globalizing economy.
The Center draws together technologies, skill sets and influence from an international community of practitioners committed to global sustainability. It consists of:- China’s science, technology and development leaders
- Key ministries and environmental agencies
- Agenda 21, China’s coordinating body for sustainable development
- Senior officials in China’s 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions and 4 municipalities
- Top international and Chinese academic and design experts
- Distinguished representatives of global and mid- sized businesses, university and non-profit institutions.
- Connections with government leaders responsible for sustainability
- Visibility for collaborative initiatives
- Opportunity to demonstrate global leadership through pilots and projects
- Engagement with a unique community of practitioners.
The China-U.S. Center is led by a distinguished Joint Board of Councilors representing business, government, science and non-governmental organizations. The Founding China Co-Chair is Madame Deng Nan, Chief Executive of the China Association for Science and Technology, and the Founding U.S. Co-Chair is William A. McDonough, FAIA, the renowned architect and designer.
The operations of the China-U.S. Center are jointly managed by two secretariats – the Administrative Center for China’s Agenda 21, a government agency, and the International Sustainable Development Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation in the United States.
For more information, please visit the Center’s web site.