NRT: Canada’s Round Table

From the beginning, the National Round Table was meant to be different. In 1988, the NRT was established to bring “leadership in the new way we must think of the relationship between the environment and the economy and the new way we must act.” In 1993, Parliament legislated our mandate setting out in statute the NRT’s uniquely independent, national policy advisory role on sustainable development.

For twenty-five years, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy was at the forefront of some of the most important debates on how to sustain Canada’s prosperity and future. A true consensus-builder, it brought together hundreds of leaders and experts with first-hand knowledge in a diversity of areas — forests, brownfields, infrastructure, energy, water, air, wetlands, greenhouse gases, and more — and produced dozens of landmark reports and dialogues that recommended constructive policy actions and enabled changes in our communities.

The NRT was “Canada’s Round Table”, as the only national organisation with a direct mandate from Parliament to engage Canadians in the generation and promotion of sustainable development advice and solutions.

We took our charge seriously.