[1]: 217 Members of the managed network required abiding by four criteria:[1]: 217–8 Équiterre was founded in 1993 by a group of young people including Steven Guilbeault, Laure Waridel, Sidney Ribaux, Patrick Henn, François Meloche and Beth Hunter who had participated in various preparatory conferences at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the previous year.

This group shared the view that issues of poverty, the environment and North-South inequities must be considered in order for real change to occur in society.

[1]: 217 One driver behind the formation of Équiterre was the consolidation and industrialization of agriculture in Quebec, which over the course of the twentieth century had reduced the number of farms from 200,000 down to 28,000, resulting in rural depopulation and economic depression.

[1]: 216 In 2002, Équiterre started a program to connect its production network to daycare centers in Quebec to introduce locally grown food into the diets of young children.

[1]: 218 [4]: xv (preface)  Far afield from agriculture, the organization is also certified to conduct energy audits for the Quebec and Canadian federal governments, and has a staff coordinator of energy-efficiency programs.