We are Institute for Sustainable Futures.
Our Organization’s History
Our organizational identity is persistently born out of our origins.
We were originally founded in 1999 by activist Jamie Harvie, who now leads the Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI). Jamie grew up in the forests north of Montreal and found solace in nature.
Jamie received a degree in civil engineering from McGill University and went to work in a wastewater treatment plant that, at the time, was progressive in the removal of dioxins and PVC. As he became aware of mercury entering the Great Lakes watershed, he led the successful coordination and passage of mercury product legislation that phased mercury out of healthcare nationally. He also supported the passage of the United Nations Minamata Convention, the global commitment to phase out mercury.
He also served on the steering committee for the Green Guide for Health Care, which offered the healthcare sector its first quantifiable sustainable design, construction and operations metrics. The guide has now been adopted as the LEED Certification for Healthcare rating system. In the food system, he founded and directed the Healthy Food in Health Care campaign, which raised the alarm and initiated the transformation of healthcare food policy and practice nationally. In large part to this work, the definition of healthy food now includes the health of workers, community and the planet.
Jamie was then invited to be part of Creating Health Collaborative, an international group of health and healthcare leaders working to understand and create health beyond the lens of health care. Together they have published the Creating Health Collaborative Principles for Creating Health.
Upon this legacy, SFI was rebuilt in 2023 with the substrate of our Steward Group's collective experience and expertise across disciplines of systems thinking, holistic health, regenerative principles, traditional wisdom and cultural practices, economics, and community development. Learn more about our past as Institute for a sustainable future below.
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Commons Health is a systems oriented place-baced health creation framework providing tools and allowing us to imagine how we might help in the great transition to sustainable and resilient people, places and planet.
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The food system represents just under one third of global climate emissions which is in turn, driving health impacts and healthcare treatment. This creates a vicious cycle. By refocusing our efforts to create place-based healthy food systems , including shifts in dietary patterns and good food strategies, we can mitigate climate change and improve individual, community and planetary health. For more information see our publication Common Drivers Commons Solutions.
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Hospitals and Educational Institutions are key anchor institutions - place-based organizations firmly established in their communities. There is a growing recognition about the responsibility and benefit of linking their economic activity to the socio-economic health of the communities in which they are anchored.
Across the US, communities are exploring ways of rebuilding local and regional food systems to meet the multiple ecological, health and community problems associated with our present industrial food system. The role of anchor institutions — large community based universities and healthcare institutions — and their relationship to their communities and the local food system needs to change. Read more.
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ISF is a nationally recognized leader in supporting local, sustainable food systems. ISF's work has been recognized through a MN governors awards, national Thought Leader award, a host of peer reviewed publications and more. ISF recognizes that a healthy and sustainable food system is characterized by the following attributes:
Proximate
Healthy as part of a balanced diet
Fairly traded
Non Exploitive
Environmentally Beneficial Accessible both in terms of geographic access and affordability
High animal-welfare standards
Socially inclusive
Encouraging food knowledge and culture
ISF was engaged in many food system initiatives, developing thought leading research and trail-blazing programs. Read more.
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ISF is nationally recognized as a leader in mercury pollution prevention and toxics issues. ISF successfully coordinated a national campaign to virtually eliminate the sale of mercury thermometers in United States, provided acclaimed educational tools for the healthcare industry and assisted in the development and passage of first in the nation mercury legislation in Duluth, and across the United States. ISF has consulted for the Chinese EPA on mercury elimination, and works with the UNEP, WHO and HCWH on mercury elimination around the globe. Read more
Our Organization Today
We believe that sustainable futures are Connected, Resilient, Regenerative, and Caring.
Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) is a 501(c)3 remains dedicated to creating the conditions that nurture resilience. We encourage commons-based solutions and collaborative, cooperative methods and practices. Our long-term vision is to assist in reweaving a paradigm of interconnectedness— of humans as nature, and our primary focus is supporting early-stage organizations and projects that are exploring boots-on-the-ground solutions in their communities.
Together, we as humanity — our cultural elders, our scientists, our field experts, our innovators, our community leaders and decision-makers, our citizens — hold the keys to the collective wisdom that facilitates the development of sustainable and regenerative economies, communities and environments. As an organization, our practice is to ask the [right] questions, gather the [right] people, and create the [right] conditions needed to surface and support the application and sharing of this wisdom.
Today’s Context
Our work is a response to the meta-crisis. The meta-crisis refers to the complex and interconnected challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. It encompasses a wide range of global issues, including climate change, political polarization, economic inequality, technological disruptions, and environmental degradation. What makes it a "meta" crisis is the recognition that these problems are not isolated but deeply interrelated, and addressing one often requires tackling others.
This crisis underscores the urgent need for holistic and systemic approaches to problem-solving. It affords humanity an opportunity for a shift in mindset, from short-term thinking to long-term sustainability, and from individual interests to collective well-being. The meta-crisis challenges our existing systems, including governance, economics, and social structures, pushing our edges to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world. Addressing the meta-crisis requires global cooperation, innovation, and a shared commitment to building a more sustainable and equitable future for all.
As we are all implicated and inextricably woven into the fabric of this meta-crisis; neoliberalism, late-stage capitalism, patriarchy and structural racism, we need approaches that support us to identify, untangle, and actively unlearn the deep logics we have internalized. We also need methods that support us to open up to the plurality of ways of seeing and knowing to cultivate imaginal realms; to conceive and create sustainable futures; and to take practical steps in achieving these realities. For this reason the Institute serves as a space of research, inquiry, and action. Humbly, we do not wish to provide just answers or claim to know “the way”. However, we aim to create conditions where these questions can be asked together, and supporting the practitioners and projects who are living into the questions, exploring local-scale solutions.