Happy New Year… again!  The calendar turns another page, and we pause to take account of the last twelve months and re-state our best wishes for peace, health and happiness for the coming year.

As I’ve plodded through 2015, I’ve come to realize the challenge of measuring progress over the course of 12 months.  Instead, in January I began to think in terms of the last 5+years and the next 5 to come.

Why?

Years ago in my first year at the University of Waterloo, “K-W 2020: Toward a Sustainable Society” was chosen for a series of team projects (K-W referred to Kitchener-Waterloo, not Kim Walker).  The year 2020 was identified as the turning point for achieving Sustainability worldwide.

Since completing that project, the world has made many steps forward and many steps back on the multi-dimensional path toward sustainability.  I can’t deny my disappointment and frustration at times.  But I also acknowledge the incredible progress I have seen over the course of my working life.

The progress I refer to is not on a global or national political-economic scale.  It is at a much more human scale.  At the human level, I see fundamental changes in values, attitudes and lifestyle choices.  I’m looking forward to 2020 with great curiosity if not great hope.