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IISD Timeline

Celebrating institutional achievements and highlights

At the UN in 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney announced Canada's intention to establish an international institute devoted to advancing sustainable development. This idea—along with another innovation, Canada's National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy—arose from recommendations of a National Task Force on Environment and Economy established by the Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers to address Canadian follow-up to the path-breaking report, Our Common Future.

Since its inception, IISD has been shaped by innovation, solid research and communications efforts, and effective global relationships. This timeline captures some of the key moments in IISD’s history—illustrations of our efforts to move societies towards the globally-accepted outcome of sustainable development.

1990

• Manitoba expressed an early, enthusiastic interest in hosting the Institute in Winnipeg. At the Globe 90 Conference in Vancouver, Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon and Federal Environment Minister Lucien Bouchard signed the funding agreement that brought IISD to life. Major initial funding came from the federal government (CIDA and Environment Canada) and Manitoba, CDN$25 million spread over five years.

• The International Institute for Sustainable Development is created under The Canada Corporations Act, Part II as a non-profit corporation guided by an independent, international Board of Directors. IISD's incorporation articles were signed by Jim MacNeill, the late J.C. Gilson and Lloyd McGinnis, IISD's first Chair.

• A broad consultative process concludes that IISD will be knowledge-based, focussed on problem sources rather than symptoms, and act at international, national and local levels to apply global principles to specific situations.

• IISD's first President and CEO, Peter Kilburn, recruits the first staff.

1991

• Three program themes are identified: public policy reform; integration of environment and economic considerations in public and private sector decision-making and reporting; and institutional change favouring SD.

• IISD's Board asserts the value of effective communications in achieving institutional goals and commits to electronic communications technology to share knowledge and build relationships. It's a commitment that continues to influence IISD's work and development today.

• Nicholas Sonntag is seconded to Maurice Strong to help in planning the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, allowing the Institute to gain a thorough understanding of important areas for follow-up after the Rio Earth Summit. IISD also contributes to the funding of the official Summit book, Our Country, Our Planet.

• IISD makes a major commitment, in the face of considerable skepticism, to work in the area of trade and SD. The timing is right, with environment and development becoming major concerns in both NAFTA and under the GATT.

• IISD also begins exploration of SD activities in our home region, settling on sustainable agriculture on the Great Plains.

1992

• Arthur J. Hanson, a founding IISD Board member, becomes President and CEO.

• IISD releases its first publication, Business Strategy for Sustainable Development: Leadership and Accountability for the '90s. The work develops into a comprehensive program aimed at corporate decision-makers, with analysis of corporate SD reporting, and initiatives on green standards and eco-labelling.

• IISD introduces a focus on poverty eradication and its relationship to SD as an underlying theme in its research. Community-based research emerges as an approach to understanding poverty, environmental change and other related issues. The Community Adaptation and Sustainable Livelihoods program addresses rural people's livelihoods, and tools needed to build a sustainable future in poverty-ridden areas.

• In June, IISD takes part in the historic "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro. IISD's Board meets there, new publications are launched, including a global survey of SD information sources, and IISD hosts an exhibit booth. The expressed urgency on the part of the international community to replace rhetoric with action fits well with IISD's mandate to promote sustainable development in decision-making.

• IISD, along with several other organizations, supports an upstart reporting service, the Earth Summit Bulletin, founded by Pamela Chasek, Johannah Bernstein and "Kimo" Goree. The "Bulletin" is a huge success during the meeting, distributing 10,000 copies of their daily reports on the state of negotiations.

1993

• IISD's programs adopt the following names: Business and Government; Trade; Communications and Partnerships; and Poverty and Empowerment.

• IISD has some concrete successes to report. Universities and other institutions are putting IISD's Business Strategy for Sustainable Development in the curriculum, while a major Canadian telecommunications company is putting strategies into practice.

• Strong partnerships and collaboration proves increasingly valuable. Japanese and European partners compare environmental corporate reporting in North America, Japan and Europe. IISD starts analyzing and promoting partnership experiences.

• EarthEnterprise is launched to encourage entrepreneurs, innovators and investors to create wealth by meeting sustainable development needs. The first IISD Partnership Conference brings together about 100 entrepreneurs and investors in Winnipeg.

• IISD introduces a sustainable livelihoods framework to integrate policy, local adaptive strategies and contemporary knowledge, that can lead to sustainable livelihood systems.

• The Great Plains Program convenes stakeholders across the Canadian and American prairies to articulate their needs on community and livelihood sustainability issues. An initial study looks at sustainability from a scientific, historical and economic perspective. Later work produces an SD policy framework tool that is successfully applied in several cases in Canada and the USA.

• IISD sets a goal of incorporating key sectors, especially women and youth, in its work.

• Work with China begins through Art Hanson's membership on the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development. CCICED provides advice to the State Council. Within a year IISD begins cooperation on Trade and Environment, with a decade-long period of policy support as China prepares to enter the WTO.

• IISD becomes owner of the re-named Earth Negotiations Bulletin. The ENB now reports on post-Rio UN meetings, such as the Conference on Small Island Developing States (Barbados, 1994) and followed by the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994), the World Summit on Social Development (Copenhagen, 1995), the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) and the Second UN Conference on Human Settlements (Istanbul, 1996); meetings of the parties of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Desertification Conventions and the Commission on SD. In the process, we discover that availability of daily ENB reports can improve the quality and speed of negotiations. The ENB office is eventually situated in Manhattan.

1994

• IISD launches its research and communications presence on the World Wide Web, one of the first organizations in the world to do so. Demand is high for IISD to help others.

• The Arid-Semi-arid Land Project, a Sustainable Livelihoods Project, focuses on nine communities in five sub-Saharan African countries. Within each country, field researchers work with the communities to identify ways in which livelihood systems have changed.

• IISD forms a new Business Advisory Group, chaired by the late Jack MacLeod, former Shell Canada CEO. IISD also continues efforts started at the Rio Earth Summit to form links with the new World Business Council on Sustainable Development.

• Noting slow progress of governments, IISD publishes a brief targeted to Canada's new Minister of Finance, an Action Plan: Protecting the Environment and Reducing Canada's Deficit. It details the need to increase taxes for polluters, reduce taxes that undermine employment rates, and eliminate the subsidies that create environmental harm.

• IISD releases the internationally recognized Winnipeg Principles, a set of guidelines to promote trade policies and practices that serve sustainable development needs. The principles are: efficiency and cost internalization; equity; environmental integrity; sudsidiarity; international cooperation; science and precaution; and openness.

• The new EarthEnterprise Tool Kit, containing contact information and practical information to help businesses achieve sustainability, is released as a book, and the intense interest in the program leads to the second EarthEnterprise Forum in Ontario.

• After serving five years as Chair of the Board, Lloyd McGinnis steps down and becomes IISD's Founding Chair. Jim MacNeill becomes Chair.

1995

• Indicators program launches and works to identify indicators that will allow progress toward sustainability to be measured in quantitative terms.

• Canada's International Development Research Centre funds a Web portal to key sustainable development research organizations in six regions of the globe. This becomes the SD Communications Network, IISD's first knowledge network.

• In the renewal of IISD's funding for an additional five years, a major effort begins to expand the sources and levels of the Institute's funding. This funding transition marks a significant change in institutional culture for IISD, with a very successful staff effort to find support for programs. Today, IISD's annual budget is double the level of 1995 expenditures, even though the level of core funding has dropped.

• At the 4th World Conference on Women, IISD pioneers the first use of streaming audio interviews and online digital photographs from Beijing, partnering with MCI to use China's new Internet link. Our Linkages Web site records over 440,400 accesses.

• An internal volunteer committee is formed to encourage eco-friendly practices in IISD's offices and among staff, including bicycling or bussing to work, recycling and using vegetable-based inks. IISD develops a model of annual sustainability reporting, independently verified by our external auditors.

• IISD plays an active role in the World Summit for Social Development. With equity as a value underpinning its work, IISD articulates a vision and strategy for achieving sustainable livelihoods. In a unique collaboration with UNICEF called "Voices of Youth," it provides a multimedia exhibit through the ENB's Linkages and invites young people to send their ideas. Some 4,000 responses are shared with Summit leaders.

• Additional publications spell out practical applications of the Winnipeg Trade and SD Principles, now gaining worldwide consideration including from the new WTO.

• Reasoning that governments' most important statement about sustainable development is the annual budget, IISD publishes Green Budget Reform and case studies of best practices around the world.

• The Great Plains Program brings together diverse stakeholders at a Manitoba conference. IISD begins work in Manitoba on prairie sustainability indicators.

1996

• Although new, the Measurement and Indicators Program gains international recognition, after publishing the Bellagio Principles: Guidelines for assessing progress toward SD and forming the international Consultative Group on SD Indicators

• A field guide is produced on how to undertake "participatory research," as an integrated approach to bring community experience into policy-making based on self-identified strengths rather than externally-perceived shortcomings. This leads to further work on Appreciative Inquiry.

• IISD sponsors the North American Public Hearings of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development. The meeting in Winnipeg is attended by 270 participants from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico; and others participate through an IISD-hosted Web site.

• IISD publishes Global Green Standards in response to the new International Standards Organization 14000, a voluntary environmental management system.

• IISD publishes an independent assessment of the performance of the World Trade Organization during its first two years. The report is highly critical of the WTO's lack of openness and failure to integrate sustainable development concerns into international trade policies.

1997

• Working with the Earth Council and other partners, IISD "webcasts" Rio +5 from Brazil.

• SD Gateway, another technology communications innovation, is launched: Its user-friendly design takes advantage of electronic tools to help decision-makers optimize the large amount of information they can access. Anyone passing through the Gateway can readily pursue links to partner Web sites. The gateway is run by the newly-named Knowledge Communications Program.

• IISD launches "Young Canadian Leaders for a Sustainable Future," its youth internship program. By 2005, nearly 300 participants have shared their skills with host organizations worldwide, while gaining significant employment opportunities.

• IISD prepares a chapter for the Manitoba State of the Environment Report, part of its effort to transition the government from environment to sustainable development reporting.

• IISD's Business Program begins implementing its second phase, which will see the Institute work actively with business partners to help them understand and implement sustainable development practices. The new program is based in Calgary, under the late Jim Leslie, giving IISD a presence in the centre of the Canadian oil and gas industry.

1998

• Collaboration with Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) begins on issues of mutual interest to Canada and India on energy efficiency, environmental improvements and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. CIDA provides $4 million for the project to IISD—its largest project contract to date.

• IISD publishes Dr. Norman Myers' groundbreaking work on perverse subsidies, bringing to light the enormous worldwide environmental and economic cost of government payouts.

• Art Hanson steps down after seven years as President and CEO of IISD. David Runnalls becomes President.

• IISD publishes A Guide to Kyoto: Climate Change and What it Means to Canadians. About 3,500 copies are distributed or sold to Canadian decision-makers seeking to better understand the Kyoto Protocol signed in 1997.

• David Runnalls co-chairs a working group responsible for providing advice to the government on two Protocol features designed to help Canada meet its Kyoto commitment while encouraging investment in clean energy technologies.

• IISD announces its by-product synergy program in Alberta, which takes a new approach to the management of by-products and wastes. The project, an initiative of a company called Applied Sustainability Ltd., identifies opportunities for businesses to sell waste to those who can use it in their manufacturing processes.

1999

• A new strategic plan is adopted. It includes new vision and mission statements: "Our Vision: Better living for all—sustainably; Our Mission: To champion innovation, enabling societies to live sustainably."

• Jim MacNeill steps down as Chair of the Board, and is succeeded by Jacques Gérin.

• There are more than three million downloads from IISD's Web sites.

• In partnership with the World Conservation Union (IUCN), IISD launches a Trade Knowledge Network to strengthen the voice of Southern countries at international negotiations on trade.

• IISD's Measurement and Indicators Program introduces the "Dashboard" concept as a communications tool for the measurement of sustainable development. Using three dials and based on a vehicle's dashboard, the concept indicates the level of well-being of the economy, the environment and social health.

• IISD launches a project that lets the world see through Inuit eyes the effects of climate change in the western Canadian Arctic. The video, Sila Alangotok, planned and produced in collaboration with the people of Sachs Harbour, creates a stir when launched in several centres around the world with visual and oral history documentations of dramatic arctic environmental change. In 2003 it airs on BBC World's Earth Report reaching millions.

• IISD's first community-based project to use an Appreciative Inquiry approach is launched in two Southern Indian states. MYRADA, a Bangalore-based NGO engaged in micro-credit, watershed development and poverty-alleviation is our partner.

• IISD expands cooperation with UNEP, contributing chapters to the second Global Environmental Outlook Report and helps design an integrated environmental assessment and reporting course and guidebook now used in several world regions.

2000

• Implementation of the Strategic Plan for 2000–2005 replaces IISD's Programs with a structure based on five strategic objectives where the Institute believes it can make a real difference: Economic Policy; Trade and Investment; Climate Change; Measurement and Indicators; and Natural Resources Management. The Institute also retains two areas of strategic function: Reporting Service and Knowledge Communications. This new structure favours innovative and interdisciplinary research.

• IISD's new Geneva office extends our global presence and increases our ability to access to key European decision-makers.

• To press for progress on badly needed reform of the WTO, IISD releases a Statement on Trade and Sustainable Development, suggesting the WTO address the full range of trade liberalization impacts, enhance equitable developing country participation in WTO work; and promote reforms advancing SD.

• The governments of Canada and the United States formally support IISD's right to intervene in a major trade law case under NAFTA. This is the first time such support has been granted to an environmental non-governmental organization.

• An International Investment Regime? Issues of Sustainability by the late Konrad von Moltke explores what international investment rules would look like if they aimed to achieve both economic growth and environmental protection. The proposed solution is radically different from any pursued to date.

2001

• IISD co-convenes a successful, high-level workshop on trade and sustainability in the Americas in Quebec City on the heels of the Summit of the Americas.

• IISD, in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme, produces Environment and Trade: A Handbook, a plain language guide to the issues that almost immediately goes to a second print run and has tens of thousands of downloads. It is eventually translated into French, Spanish, Russian and Mandarin.

• IISD publishes Strategic Intentions, a book that captures five years of research and experimentation with knowledge networks and communications.

2002

• IISD releases Conserving the Peace: Resources, Livelihoods and Security at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The book examines how natural resource management is linked to social tension and conflict, and how protecting environment can address the roots of insecurity.

• Also at the WSSD, IISD releases 10 + 10, an assessment of sustainable development's top 10 achievements and failures since Rio.

• In cooperation with the Global Knowledge Partnership and TakingITGlobal, IISD established the Youth Creating Digital Opportunities Coalition to ensure attitudes and perspectives of youth are considered in the World Summit on the Information Society. The focus is on potential of young people as leaders in using ICT to achieve more sustainable development.

• IISD's collaboration with the Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development – North America project draws to a close. The cooperative effort involved about 150 people and brought the issue of sustainable development to the attention of an entire sector.

• The ENB team continues to expand its products, selling conference reporting services to governments and international organizations under its new moniker, "IISD Reporting Services." At the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conferences and the WSSD in Johannesburg, Reporting Services is hired to publish ENB On the Side, a companion publication to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, reporting on side events at these meetings.

2003

• IISD "walks the talk" by completing a 375 tonne carbon offset credit purchase to offset carbon dioxide emissions from staff travel in 2002–2003.

• A Memorandum of Understanding with the UN Environment Programme provides a direct conduit for IISD to offer regular policy advice on ecosystem management and human development.

• IISD is invited to advise the International Organization for Standardization on the feasibility of corporate social responsibility (CSR) standardization.

• In cooperation with Kenya's Mazingira Institute, IISD co-publishes There is a Better Way, an innovative comic book based on the pioneering work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. The book reaches mass audiences in poor countries and emphasizes the notion of development as freedom.

• With the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, IISD publishes the Doha Round Briefing Series. This thirteen-part series, produced in English and Russian, sheds light on the WTO negotiations for a non-expert audience.

2004

• IISD was accepted by a NAFTA Tribunal as an amicus, in Methanex v. The United States, making IISD and a U.S. NGO the first civil society groups to be recognized in this way and a major step forward for the transparency of such processes.

• IISD signs a five-year agreement with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), which will see the Institute working on a series of projects supporting AAFC initiatives associated with the Department's Agriculture Policy Framework.

• IISD serves as the Secretariat for a Manitoba task force on emissions trading and releases a report on how the province can take advantage of economic opportunities.

• The Institute revives its natural resources focus with a new program called Sustainable Natural Resources Management.

• The Strategic Plan for the 2005–2010 period is approved by IISD's Board of Directors. It retains the mission and vision statements and articulates four new strategic directions, including the imperative to "establish sustainable development at the centre of decision making."

• IISD launches its second Compendium of Sustainable Development Indicator Initiatives, a guide to who's doing what in the field of sustainability indicators.

• The Institute initiates a new Innovation Fund for its researchers, supported by several private sector and individual donors.

2005

• GlobeScan releases a 2004 survey of sustainability experts that ranks IISD as the most effective sustainable development research institution in the world.

• Release of IISD's Model International Agreement on Investment for Sustainable Development – Negotiators' Handbook, an effort to promote transparency, legitimacy, accountability and sustainability in the international investment regime.

• The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is released. IISD was involved in the development of the conceptual framework that explores the links between ecosystem services, human well-being and poverty.

• David Runnalls presents to Parliament's Environment and Sustainable Development Committee on how Canada can achieve emission reduction objectives in part through the use of the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms of Joint Implementation, the Clean Development Mechanism and International Emissions Trading.

• The Climate Change and Energy team is contracted to author the "lines of enquiry" pieces that will serve as background to the discussions at the first meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

• The Van Lennep Initiative, now known as the Global Subsidies Initiative, designed to eliminate those subsidies distorting trade and undermining sustainable development, moves forward with the convening of an Eminent Persons Group.

2006

Highlights coming soon.

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