4 Ravnitzky st
tel aviv
Israel
- Environment/Sustainable development
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Youth and education
We seek to create alliances and financial support, both inside Israel and abroad, to put this vision of sustainability which we believe is the key to Israel's future, squarely on the agenda of Israeli society and the Jewish people.
Sustainability represents the call for the "triple bottom line" of profits, people, and planet, which has been adopted in the realm of corporate social responsibility (CSR) worldwide. For too long, the environment has been a narrowly-defined niche issue, and the focus of much work has been reactive and confrontational in nature. We represent a broad, proactive agenda, integrating economic, political and social change, and training and partnering with key players in all those realms.
Through creating a home for leaders and developing and disseminating ideas and skills, the Heschel Center:
Creates frameworks through which potential change agents can become sustainability leaders, and support the implementation of their initiatives.
Connects theoretical knowledge with practical skills, and spreads the vision of broad sustainability in creative ways.
Heschel's flagship initiative, The Sustainability Leaders Fellows Program, now concluded its 19th cohort of 14 new Fellows, continues to be the leading training program for social-environmental leaders in Israel. With 340 alumni, the Fellowship represents leadership in diversity. The program targets potential change makers in positions of influence – business, politics (including several MKs), media, free professions, social change; Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews, center and periphery—providing them an in-depth learning process along with the tools to develop joint projects that have a real and lasting impact. The successful alumni network implements our vision of promoting sustainability through a widening interlinked community, whose work we catalyze and nurture
The Center for Local Sustainability works directly with municipalities, regional councils, and their leadership and professional staffs in national and local training programs tailor made for their realities and needs, and has created 20 Local Sustainability Centers in the social and geographic periphery of Israel.
The Center for Sustainability Studies provides intensive transformative learning courses for leaders, professionals and change agents from all over Israel, currently including: Strategic Planning for Sustainability, Community-Based Sustainable Education, Regional Fellows programs, and tailor-made programs for different organizations and institutions such as the Israeli Scouts, Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and the Society of Nature Protection in Israel.
The Center is focusing its efforts on developing a new online platform to engage a more massive amount of people and bring them to the world of sustainability.
The Israel 2050 Project (The Heschel Climate Project)
Probably our most ambitious wide-scale collaboration yet is the multi-sectoral participatory process for the Israel 2050 plan, which Heschel has spearheaded as part of the climate initiative. Inspired by the Paris Climate Accords, Heschel headed the 2016 Maof Seminar, which led to our recruiting relevant officials in the Israeli government and convincing them to champion the Israeli Climate Plan 2050, which includes a complete transition to renewable energies. After engaging with various stakeholders to join the process, we organized the largest climate convention in Israel's history, with a separate event that included 11 roundtables, and that has laid the foundation for the 2050 plan.
The Heschel Center has succeeded in recruiting leading strategic partners in government, civil society and industry: five central government ministries (Energy, Transportation, Industry, Treasury, Environment), the OECD, the IDI (Israel Democracy Institute), and the Manufacturers Association of Israel. Through our work with key people in the government, we have convinced the government to be the lead partner, and to adopt the program as a government initiative, with all that entails. As part of our plan for a broad-based process, we have enlisted a wide range of supporters from civil society, academia and the commercial-industrial sector. Additionally, we have prepared a professional knowledge base and relevant materials that will serve the working groups in the multi-sectoral participatory process of fulfilling the Israel 2050 plan. We have also developed a methodology for locating and successfully utilizing experts from abroad who can share their experience and best practices from processes similar to those we are trying to promote.
Today, the Heschel Center is focusing on bringing the voices of the underserved - people with disabilities, youth at risk, the elderly, etc - to the 2050 planning process and ensuring that the plans are bettering their conditions.
In addition, the Heschel Center has launched its Renewable Energy Project, aiming to develop a plan for Israel to transform to a 100% renewable energy economy. The plan includes an important component of proving the economic case for a weak municipality to earn income by providing renewable energy for its residents.
Convene partners in round tables about the various aspects of climate change and just transition, impart skills and methofdolgies to lead meaningful conversations, deliver courses and lectures on various topic related with sustainability and climate.
Out of the realization that we cannot deliver change working in silos we wouldlike to expand and reach out to fellow organizations that share our vision of a more sustainable region and world. We have embarked on a regional cooperation project, setting up a a regional hub for climate change in the eastern mediteranean. In that capacity we wish to reach out and forge new partnerships in the region.