Colin Grant once coached a Scottish skier to an Olympic-medal win. Can achieving his goal of implementing sustainability at the world level be far behind?

Grant is the founder of Visible Strategies, whose “see-it” software for tracking sustainability helped in the greening of Al Gore’s Live Earth concerts last month. The inventor, coach, and public speaker moved to Vancouver from Scotland in 2001. He started his company with the goal of making the world a better place—particularly for his young son Jack.

“Vancouver is a hotbed for dialogue about sustainability,” says Grant. “Everyone talks about it, but if you can’t see it, how can you do it?” Armed with a vision of how individual actions in communities can solve problems at the world level, Grant and his team devised see-it.

“The software captures the energy, passion, and lack of cynicism people have when they talk about a sustainable future. It forces you to look forward, change, and stay on track,” says Grant. “see-it engages individuals in an organization on how to connect vision and action to achieve their goals for sustainability.”

The approach seems to be working: one client, Mayor Martin Chavez and the citizens of Albuquerque, New Mexico, won a 2006 World Leadership Award for their sustainable water management plan.

Grant is also a member of the City of Vancouver’s Climate Leaders and Mayor’s Sustainability Business Advisory groups, and an advisor to the International Centre for Sustainable Cities. He hopes to meet with Al Gore post-Live Earth to connect high-level will with action by creating a draft plan for sustainability that every city, province, state, and country in North America—and eventually the world—can lock into. Now that’s a legacy.