The Study Begins

This blog will serve as a journal for my studies of Sweden's Sustainability movement. The study will focus on the structure, culture, and benefits of what has been described as one of the most successful and pervasive national environmental-, climate-, and energy-policy systems in the world.

The focus of this writing will be to capture lessons learned and construct comparisons to my home country, the United States. My first two weeks' posts will be written from Sweden thanks to a generous grant I won from the US Department of State and the 2009 Swedish-American Exchange Fund, which was set up in 1976 as a two-hundred year birthday present from Sweden to the US. The objective of my study is to create a case study of Sweden's successes in a format that clearly outlines best practices, pitfalls to be avoided, and concrete potential next steps for regions or states interested in imitating Sweden's successes. The study will have a particular focus on how enlightened sustainability policy can create economic development benefits for post-industrial economies.

The conversations I will be having with leaders here in Stockholm, Växjö, Uppsala, and elsewhere will be the introduction and springboard to what I envision will be a long and fruitful conversation. I will be interviewing thought leaders and experts on sustainability from the various Government Ministries, Trade Groups, and Technical Centers that have contributed to the current state of Sweden's Sustainability landscape.

In the meanwhile, I will humbly accept comments and feedback both on this blog and also by email (andrew dot walleck AT gmail dot com) from any interested groups. I will also be posting updates and thoughts on twitter (user: andrewwalleck.)

I thank you for your interest and hope you will join me in seeking to build our understanding of how humans have created world-class methods of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.