I co-lead programs about once a month at the United Nations, NY. This month’s, Putting Values to Work: Breathing Life into Sustainable Development, was hosted by the United Nations Foundation this past Thursday.

Our program was scheduled to coincide with the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. It was so encouraging to be part of a system-wide sustainability conversation – and to see that the language of sustainability is now much more integrated, deepened, and heightened on the world stage than ever before. The dialog I lead was based on coaching methodologies so that it wasn’t just another talking heads meeting but real, concrete actions steps were determined.

There was a lot of talk about how our food choices are so critical in sustaining ourselves. We need to be much more conscious about connecting the dots between the kind of chemical and political adulteration we do to our food supply and our lack of ability to sustain our environment. Food’s critical at every level – all the way from the cellular to the international governance level.

Also, we talked about how little choices like holistic household cleaners and connecting with nature can make a such a big difference in the long-run. We also got deeply into the language of sustainability and how important it is to keep speaking it and developing it.

There was general agreement that even though it sometimes feels futile to sit around and talk about it, that focused dialogs like the one we were having automatically raise the bar on the whole sustainability conversation. We talked about how the word “sustainability” itself is actually really lame. Who wants to just sustain? Let’s be vital!

My work at the NY UN is through the International Vision Collective (IVC), a non-governmental organization creating a values-driven international system.   Since IVC’s work draws on coaching principles, the part where people got to what steps they were going to take was really inspiring – but confidential!