Living Systems and Leadership: Cultivating Conditions for Institutional Change
Since its founding, the Center for Ecoliteracy, where Zenobia Barlow is executive director and Michael Stone is senior editor, has supported and advanced education for sustainable living in K–12 schools. One of our particular concerns has been leadership and systemic institutional change. We have sought to understand both how schools can themselves change and how to facilitate societal change for the sake of creating more sustainable communities. We have worked with thousands of leaders from schools across the United States and on six continents. In 2009 we established a Schooling for Sustainability Leadership Academy.
Inspired by systems theorist and Center for Ecoliteracy cofounder Fritjof Capra, our work has been strongly influenced by systems theory, especially the Theory of Living Systems. This article will explore the implications of this theory for leadership and change. We will illustrate its applications with examples from food systems change, an increasingly important area in schooling for sustainability, concluding with a discussion of the Center‘s current work at multiple levels of scale in the Oakland Unified School District, a large urban district in California.
Zenobia Barlow is a nationally known pioneer in creating models of schooling for sustainability. Cofounder and executive director of the Center for Ecoliteracy (CEL), she has designed strategies for applying ecological and indigenous understanding in K-12 education, including “Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability,” “Rethinking School Lunch,” and the “Food Systems Project.” She is a contributor to the Center for Ecoliteracy’s book, Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability. She also co-edited Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World, and co-authored Ecoliteracy: Mapping the Terrain. Prior to joining the CEL, Barlow was editor of an international publishing company, a university program director, and executive director of The Elmwood Institute, an ecological think tank. 
Michael K. Stone is a senior editor at the Center for Ecoliteracy, a nonprofit that advances ecological education in K-12 schools. He is the primary author of the Center’s book, Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability and co-editor of Ecological Literacy: Educating our Children for a Sustainable World. Prior to coming to the Center, Michael was managing editor of Whole Earth magazine and the Millennium Whole Earth Catalogue, among other publications. He was also a founding faculty member and academic vice president of World College West in northern California. 
