The ISIS Academy began with our first workshop on change and sustainability, presented at an international conference in Seattle, USA, in November of 1990. The workshop was a success, and requests to repeat the workshop immediately began to come in from other parts of the United States.

Starting in 1992, the training workshops (and the methods we use) had spread to Europe. By 1999, the one workshop had grown into a series of workshops, a set of tools, and the methodology for sustainable development that we call “ISIS.“

“ISIS“ can stand for a number things. Originally, it stood for “Indicators, Systems, Innovation, and Strategy“ – the core technical skills we teach in the practice of sustainable development. This methodology is presented in Alan AtKisson‘s highly regarded 2008 book, The Sustainability Transformation. (This book was originally titled The ISIS Agreement.)

In the past few years, ISIS has also come to stand for “Inducing a Shift for Integrated Sustainability”. This emphasizes that most often a systemic and paradigmatic change is central and essential to allow sustainability to become a core driver for organisations, communities and individuals.

For its first two decades, the ISIS Academy operated as a division of the AtKisson Group, one of the world‘s leading consultancies on sustainable development. The name “ISIS“ began to be used in 1999, and the phrase “ISIS Academy“ was first introduced in 2006.

In 2011, ISIS Academy GmbH – a new company, set up as a partnership between the AtKisson Group and the Academy’s director, Axel Klimek – opened its doors as a separate organization (still linked to the AtKisson Group of course).

For the history of the AtKisson Group, please visit http://www.AtKisson.com.