The Maurice Strong Legacy Scholarships: A Testimony to Humanism Lipman, Geoffrey

“History is biography” so said Ralph Waldo Emerson and he might have been foreseeing the incredible life of Maurice Strong a simple man at heart, with a brilliant mind and a guiding hand in so many building blocks of today’s global sustainable development agenda. Be it the UN system, the , the , the Earth Council and so many more public and private sector entities. Including I’m happy to say in the influential Travelism – Travel & Tourism – sector where he had a deep personal passion for its potential as a sustainability change agent.

We first met in Geneva 25 years ago. I’d just become the President of the newly created World Travel & Tourism Council and as a business leaders group, with a big growth mission; we needed a complementary green vision. It was in the offices he had established for preparing the most important event of a life, already packed with remarkable international achievements. The 1992 Rio was in his mind the greatest opportunity to reset the interconnected path of human and planetary development, but as Maurice so clearly said in his end of life reflections “The planet will be fine…it’s the people I worry about.” And the results of Rio, with Maurice flanked by 100 world leaders and embodied in Agenda 21 formed a launch pad for the series of Summits which led to the long-term change Roadmaps of the Paris Climate Accords and the Sustainable Development Goals.

From that first meeting, we never looked back – he was teacher, mentor and partner- as he was to so many. From Rio, where despite his immense responsibilities he always found time to talk, guide and befriend an innocent in the complex environmental world. I was proud then to know him and even prouder when we launched a year later the first sectoral Agenda 21, with the Earth Council and took it on a world tour together with UNWTO. He pushed us into creating the first sectoral certification scheme Green Globe and establishing a University based environmental research centre. To the extent that WTTC plays a lead role in sector sustainability today, the foundations were laid under Maurice’s guidance in its first decade. Since then as I danced between private to public activities, Maurice was always there to listen and to offer insightful suggestions. We were together on many occasions in , in Latin America, in the Middle East, in Jeju, in the USA, in Europe, but most engagingly and significantly in China.

Maurice loved China and spent much of his later years in advancing publicly the view that China can be the leading light in a sustainable future, despite its difficult starting point. He also believed that the Chinese leadership fully understands its potential in this area and is transforming its economy accordingly. I had worked with the Chinese Tourism leaders in the late 90’s as they opened up International Tourism in a very measured, strategic way, and joined Maurice in exploring that potential. It was fascinating to see how well respected his views were at every level of Chinese decision making - up to the highest reaches in both the public and private sectors. But even more interesting was to experience his deep-felt love of the people and the culture. He was most at home in a small restaurant where he took his dinner most evenings, enjoying the ambiance, the simple food and handing out sweets to the children, in whom he delighted. During these times we talked increasingly about education and his firm belief that the next generation will be the ones who make or break the response to existential climate change. He had written to a few friends about a concept of a World Environment University, urging them to explore the possibility in their area of expertise, and was until the end ever hopeful of some traction. He had asked me to look after the Travel & Tourism dimension and he encouraged the progress as we sought to build an interested community inside the sector. As the project developed, it became clear that the original bricks and mortar

Professor Geoffrey Lipman Co-Founder SUNx and TraneXus The Maurice Strong Legacy Scholarships: A Testimony to Humanism Lipman, Geoffrey thoughts had to move, sharply into the cyber world and that travelism could perhaps become the leading edge of his education vision.

In 2012, during the Rio+20 Summit, Maurice and I appeared on a platform organized by UNWTO to promote sustainable Tourism. I presented him with the first copy of my co- authored book on Green Growth & Travelism – with essays from 50 Leaders inside and outside the sector. It was dedicated to him for his inspiration and never-ending persistence in encouraging us to go green and his commitment to the industry’s potential. In the preface, which he handwrote, he was as ever gracious in his praise for the industry and equally tough in his admonition that we simply were not going far enough fast enough. He pointed to climate change as the most serious challenge facing humanity and stressed the urgency of curbing carbon emissions. When he repeated these views in Rio, even the most trenchant pro-growth advocates joined in the standing ovation he received.

And indeed, he had received a similar reaction when addressing the WTTC industry stalwarts in Tokyo that same year. He had a way of saying the most controversial and challenging things, with a calm, lucid approach and always with the voice of reason. As we advanced, the Travelism education project, it evolved into a climate focused initiative, simply based on the premise that if existential means anything that’s where we should concentrate. It took on a key partner in , with whom I’d sparred years earlier when the then UN Commission for Sustainable Development explored tourism – he leading the NGO’s and I the Industry. His UN expertise, multi-stakeholder perspective and shared beliefs have vastly improved the design.

In one of our last meetings in before his death, I sat with Maurice explaining the plan to create a network of prefabricated, solar powered, community learning and innovation centres, cloud connected and manned by smart, bright graduates. Its goal would be to help the sector build climate resilience through Impact-Travel – good and bad impacts measured; green growth based and 2050 focused. His face beamed with pleasure until I mentioned we would call it SUN, the Strong Universal Network. He simply didn’t want that, until I made the point that it would help to get worldwide recognition and support. When I added that we hoped to target One Belt One Road countries in the system expansion, he reluctantly conceded – his love of China showing through.

I think he would have been equally pleased with our announcement on July 1st 2017 of the Maurice Strong Legacy Scholarships. We had planned to give 10 Packages of a graduate scholarship plus enrolments to our SUNx Impact-Travel System. Then we saw that it was Canada’s 150th Anniversary and thought how great it would be to go out on a limb and seek 150 Scholarship Packages. So that’s what we did. We did it because despite all his global accomplishments, Maurice was at heart a great Canadian. He cherished his humble roots, his time spent with First Nation peoples, his sustainability transformation of Ontario Hydro and his international service for Canada.

It’s this humility and humanity that we want to embed in the Maurice Strong Legacy Scholarships. As we build partnerships and sponsorships around the world, we will look for those who share a vision of responding to climate change from the ground up, as well as the top down. We believe this growing network of smart young people – committed to advancing the case for climate resilience through Impact-Travel – will do much to keep Maurice Strong’s vision alive.

Professor Geoffrey Lipman Co-Founder SUNx and TraneXus