Webinar guidelines

We welcome your proposal to present your expertise during an upcoming webinar. Providing professional development opportunities to our members and the wider network of sustainability professionals is core to ISSP’s mission. Our webinars provide regular opportunities for professionals to build technical skills, expand their leadership capabilities, and connect with experts. These 1-hour, for-credit events are offered for and by our ISSP community.

Webinar format

ISSP webinars are presented as 1-hour sessions, including approximately 40 minutes of expert presentation followed by 10-15 minutes of Q&A. You will be introduced by an ISSP staff member, who will also serve to field audience questions. Only the speaker and ISSP moderator will have an active camera and audio; attendee names are visible but no cameras and each will remain muted. These events provide deep-dive, instructional research or advice to help professionals build skills. Past events have included greenhouse-gas inventory tutorials, renewable energy policy updates, and how to prepare science-based targets for nature.

Engagement tactics

The webinars do not offer breakout room capabilities. (The format is presentation-style rather than a workshop.) Even still, ISSP webinars should be highly engaging—we encourage you to consider designing questions into your presentation (polls, thought experiments) and include time for audience response. Consider whether you want to address comments and questions during the presentation or hold them until the end.  We encourage providing takeaways or a homework assignment. Creativity is encouraged and appreciated!

Webinar platform

ISSP uses Zoom Webinar. Zoom Webinar offers the expected features of live webinars, including built-in Q&A, camera-plus-slide view, and polls. Presenters are expected to send a predesigned PPT and PDF to ISSP a minimum of 5 days prior to the scheduled webinar. You must have access to a computer for screen-sharing and audio. ISSP will schedule a tech check prior to the webinar to ensure everything is working properly.

Webinar audience

ISSP’s webinar attendees are sustainability professionals working around the world in many different industry sectors. A typical webinar audience will include attendees from corporations, consultancies, universities (students and faculty), governments (including UN agencies), and nonprofits.  Attendees include those with decades of experience and individuals in mid-career transition into the sustainability field, as well as students and individuals newly graduated from sustainability educational programs. Webinar presenters should assume that the audience understands the basic concepts of, and the case for, sustainability. Your presentation is intended as a deep-dive learning experience for knowledgeable attendees.

Webinar costs and credits

Our webinars are free and open to everyone. Webinars provide ongoing, credential maintenance credits—typically 0.5 credit per event—for attendees seeking to maintain their Sustainability Excellence professional credential (the SEA or SEP). Presenters will benefit from exposing ISSP’s total combined audience of more than 20,000 professionals to their expertise and services. (ISSP webinars are not sales-oriented but limited mention of your own company, website, or service is permitted.) Webinars are recorded for later access by ISSP members.  Presentation slide decks and other resources are also made available, as appropriate.

Webinar schedule

We schedule one webinar per series each month at a time suitable for presenters. Tuesdays - Thursdays and the 11am or 12pm ET-US tends to work best for our audience.

Preparation requirements

If your proposal is accepted, a staff member will schedule an initial preparation call to discuss all the details of your presentation. It will be determined at this point if any additional preparation calls are needed. You will schedule a tech check with an ISSP staff member at least 1 week before the webinar to test your internet connection, and you will be required to submit any slides or presentation materials at least 5 days before the webinar.

Recording Policy

Webinar recordings are shared after the event with ISSP members, and the recording live permanently in our archive that all members can access afterwards. The recordings cannot be shared outside of the membership.

Thank you for sharing your expertise! The ISSP network is eager to learn and make a difference. We look forward to working with you and creating a successful event.