ONE Members:
First, congratulations on continuing to grow and keep ONE vibrant during the 30 years since our first program, and I hope you have a great celebration in Copenhagen!
Second, I wanted to let you know that, since the Chicago ONE meeting last year in which many attendees expressed the need and desire to do more on the Global Climate Emergency issue, I have been thinking about how I (and you?) might contribute to that effort. In discussing that topic online with several ONE members (past and present) since that meeting, I have decided to commit the rest of my ONE efforts to that issue and have been doing a bit of research (and writing) on the topic since then.
So, my third point is that I would be willing to solicit and collect suggestions from any ONE member (again, past or present) on how ONE might best energize its future climate-related efforts over the next year and beyond. I do plan to attend the 2026 AOM meetings in Philadelphia, so that might be a good time and place to launch one or more of our collective climate efforts. As you may know, Paul Shrivastava and I (who were two of the original "gang of five" ONE organizers) co-edited a book last year on Sustainable Universities and Colleges and I co-edited a book with Gordon Rands (another "gang of five" member) the year before on Multi-level Climate Actions, so I think we (and others) are primed to help promote this conversation (and subsequent action). I have identified a couple of dozen other academic (or academic-including) climate action organizations with whom we might collaborate (both some with which you may be familiar, such as the U.N. and World Bank-related groups, and some with which you may not be familiar, such as This Is Planet Ed, Living Future, and the Global Climate Action Portal). For starters, I think we want to invest maximum effort in the areas Paul identified in our 2024 book that uses the acronym ROOTS for Research, Operations, Outreach, Teaching, and Students and other Stakeholders in Higher Education. I am also interested in connecting with (and promoting climate action throughout) our many cultures and cultural elements (e.g. social media, rituals/traditions, arts/literature, political economics, architecture, the sciences, etc.), by advancing climate action in academic and professional fields beyond Management and beyond Business. Of course, while I think ONE can and should lead these efforts, I welcome other AOM divisions and interest groups and individual members to join us in doing so.
So, have a great conference, pass the word, and please connect with me online either during or closely following the conference, if you agree that we are in a Global Climate Emergency (requiring multi-stakeholder Global Climate Emergency Management) and want to help advance that critical effort! Thanks!
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Mark Starik
University of Wisconsin Extended Campus Sustainability Management Program (
mark.starik@gmail.com)
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