Global Revitalization Centre for the GTA

This Thursday, leaders in the GTA’s restorative development industry gathered to support plans to develop a 700-acre global centre for restoration/revitalization research and training at Seneca’s King Campus.

Representatives from the Revitalization Institute, Ontario’s Centres of Excellence, Canadian Urban Institute, ReNew Canada, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation, and the municipalities of Aurora and King, plus senior Seneca College staff, were all at the King Campus.

The Revitalization Centre’s emphasis will include: technology application and transfer, jobs development, applied research, education and training, and ideas generation-all with an emphasis on restoration of natural resources and revitalization of communities.

The Global Revitalization Centre will aggregate restorative research, tools, and curricula from around the globe, and act as a living laboratory of renewal to help guide specific initiatives in communities and regions worldwide.

The strategy is based primarily on trends documents in Storm Cunningham’s books, The Restoration Economy (Berrett-Koehler, 2002), and reWealth (McGraw-Hill, 2008).  Cunningham is CEO of Resolution Fund, LLC in Washington, DC, and is a distinguished visiting professor at Seneca College. In 2004, Cunningham founded the non-profit Revitalization Institute (now based in Toronto) in the DC area. He is also a regular contributor to the ReNew Canada blog.

“In a world that’s increasingly desperate for climate change resiliency, Great Lakes restoration, and economic recovery, this Revitalization Center will be the place to go for restorative leadership training,” says Cunningham. “It will also contribute to a new vision for Ontario’s transformed economy as the ‘Silicon Valley’ of the $2-trillion-per -year global restoration economy.”

Bill Humber, Executive Director of Revitalization Institute, says in addition to the above-named institutions early enthusiasts for the creation of the Global Revitalization Centre include McMaster University, the City of Oshawa, the Clean Air Partnership, and the Clinton Climate Change Initiative.