As foreboding as this sounds, it is even more lamentable that flooding knows no geographic bias, with homeowners from Halifax to Victoria bearing the costs of flooding first hand. In short, there is no safe zone when it comes to the potential for residential flooding in Canada.

More specifically, as documented by the Insurance Bureau of Canada, property and casualty insurable losses jumped from an average of $405 million per year between 1983 and 2008, to an average of $1.8 billion per year from 2009 to 2017 (with data normalized for inflation and per-capita wealth accumulation). Flooding contributed more to this increase than any other factor. With this increasing risk, a new phenomenon has emerged in Canada beginning circa 2016 – growth in the un-insurability of the residential housing market. The percentage of homes across Canada that are uninsurable has not been quantified, as the number is dynamic and growing.

Additionally, with many Canadians struggling to meet their financial obligations, homeowners with limited insurance coverage could find themselves in mortgage arrears in the event of a flood. The average restoration cost of basement flooding in Canada is $43,000, which is compounded by an average of seven lost person-days from work per affected household. The Canadian Payroll Association reported that as of 2017, 47 per cent of Canadians would find it difficult to meet their financial obligations if their pay cheque was delayed for one week, thus suggesting that basement flooding, in the absence of adequate insurance, could result in homeowners not able to meet scheduled mortgage payments. One of Canada’s largest banks is currently tracking for spikes in mortgage defaults, following floods, in cities where insurance coverage has been reduced in recent years.

In light of flooding being Canada’s most formidable and growing climate challenge, the question so many homeowners are asking themselves is, “What, if anything, can I do to avoid a flooded basement?” Fortunately, there are a number of actions that can be engaged around a home to limit flood risk, at minimal cost with a positive return and that do not require special expertise. Despite this optimism, it is important to bear in mind that limiting risk is not the same as eliminating risk. If Noah’s flood hits, most houses will flood despite all pre-emptive actions.

Outside the home

Outside of the home, at the lot level, there are four simple steps that are often overlooked by homeowners that can limit the probability of water entering into a basement:

• Once in the spring and once in the fall, and following any major wind storm, leaves should be swept away from storm drains, which allows water to drain without restraint.

• During a major storm, homeowners should inspect their property for water pooling close to the foundation. Post storm, these areas of depression should be filled and graded to direct water away from the foundation.

• In the fall, after trees shed their leaves, eaves should be cleaned. Additionally, if downspouts drain into the weeping tile system, they should be disconnected, extensions added, and water should be directed to a safe discharge location two metres from the foundation.

• Plastic covers should be placed over window wells, thus allowing light to enter, but preventing water from filling the window well during major storms. Where possible, windows at grade level should be water tight.

Inside the basement

In the event that water does enter the basement, several precautionary steps can be taken to limit potential damage:

• Prior to a storm, sump pumps should be tested to ensure they have not seized and that they discharge water – this can be accomplished by pouring a bucket of water in the sump well. Additionally, because power often goes out during major storms, a back-up battery that can power a pump for up to 72 hours should be installed.

• A qualified plumber should inspect the water drainage line in the basement to determine if a backwater valve is required to limit water from backing up through the sewer system into the basement. Also, if a backwater valve is installed, it should be cleaned twice a year to ensure it seals properly – cleaning requires less than 15 minutes.

• Importantly, basement floor drains should be checked to ensure they are not blocked by obstructions.

• Finally, valuables and mementos should be stored in waterproof containers, at least a metre above the basement floor, to ensure they are not subject to water damage.

The extra mile

The return on investment for strong flood risk protection is high.

If you took 1,000 homes, put the average cost of flood protection actions per house at $500 (downspout extensions, plastic covers for window wells, sump pump, battery back-up for sump pump), the cost of protecting those homes would be $500,000.

Assume now that five per cent of homes that received that protection don’t flood over a period of 10 years. If you use the Insurance Bureau of Canada’s figure of $43,000 for the average cost of basement flood damage, the avoided cost for that non-flooded group of 50 homes would be $2,150,000. That creates a cost to benefit ratio of 1 to 4.3 ($500,000/2,150,000).

Otherwise stated, for every $1 spent on flood protection, the savings per 10-year period, per household, would equal $4.30.

That’s a big savings for individual homeowners, insurers, the housing market and Canadian society as a whole.

Also, given that even the least capable handyman could install the above equipment, the installation costs for flood protection equipment would be negligible or non-existent for most homeowners.

These kinds of steps will save homeowners money when it comes time to buy insurance. Large property and casualty insurers, such as Intact Financial, have said that by taking these steps, “Canadians could lower their annual premiums – anywhere from 5 to 15 per cent.”

Going forward

For homeowners who wish to do even more, a new option will soon be available.

In September 2018, Seneca College in Toronto launched Canada’s first college level training program in home flood risk assessment. The primary audience for this 14-week course is home inspectors, followed by municipal planners, builders, developers, landscape designers and, effectively, anyone interested in residential flood risk prevention. In January 2019, the course will be available on-line, thus making it accessible Canada-wide to thousands of home inspectors.

Going forward, homeowners should seek home inspectors with certification in home flood risk assessment. Over the next few years, as graduates from the course grow in number, all homes that go on the market should be subject to an assessment review and remediation. No one should buy a home without a thorough assessment performed by a qualified practitioner.

For many Canadians, their home is their primary investment vehicle and, ultimately, their retirement fund. Every homeowner should, at a minimum, implement the eight simple actions described above as a first line of defence against basement flooding, and every mayor and councillor should support a door-to-door campaign in communities to introduce homeowners to these steps.

These actions will not only serve the financial interests of homeowners and communities in the near term, but also position Canada to stop chasing climate change and to get ahead of the bigger floods that are yet to come.

The post Before the storm appeared first on Corporate Knights.

This is in line with the global economic shift to a sustainable economy increasingly driven by cost-effective technologies that offer investors a strong return on their investments, separate from any public policy considerations.

Making the clean transition in Canada will require average annual investments of $158 billion per year from 2019 to 2025 across the building, transportation, power and heavy industry sectors, according to Corporate Knights estimates.

Given the capital-intensive nature of this transition, the Canadian financial sector has a critical role to play to finance these transactions.

In an ambitious scenario, Corporate Knights estimates that by 2025 up to $110 billion in annual revenue will be available for Canadian financial institutions to reap.

To put these results in context, the 12 biggest financial firms in Canada had total revenue of approximately $435 billion in 2017– the $110 billion in potential sustainable finance revenues could represent up to 25 per cent of current revenue.

As well, the revenue opportunity for the Canadian financial sector from the socially responsible investments (SRI) wealth management segment around the world would be $18 billion by 2025, based on 12 per cent CAGR (including inflows.)

Sustainable assets under management are expected to reach US$63 trillion by 2025, driven by women, millennials and high-net-worth individuals.

Many of the world’s leading wealth managers have recently ramped up their sustainable product and service offerings, including BNP Paribas, UBS, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Taking a more holistic approach to values-based investing represents a growth opportunity for Canada’s global banks and insurers to boost their already sizable assets under management (currently at $3.6 trillion) in the coming years.

In an ambitious scenario, Canadian financial institutions could reap $18 billion in annual wealth management fees by capturing 5 per cent market share of the estimated US$63 trillion sustainable investment space by 2025, with cost-effective, holistic investment solutions that charge 0.5 per cent in fees.

With respect to infrastructure, a global build-out valued at over US$24.7 trillion is anticipated between 2019 and 2025, with half of it being financed by investors and the lion`s share occurring in emerging markets, which also happen to offer superior yields.

Six of the top 12 infrastructure investors in the world are from Canada, including Brookfield, CPP Investment Board, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP). Leading pension funds that set the standard for how Canada’s $3.6 trillion in pension assets are managed are already leveraging this opportunity, with Public Sector Pension (PSP) Investments and OTPP leading the way.

In an ambitious scenario, Canadian investors would provide 2.5 per cent of global sustainable infrastructure funds focusing on emerging markets, which would mean injecting about $100 billion per year on average starting in 2019. At an average emerging market debt yield of 5.8 per cent, this would generate $41 billion in annual yields by 2025.

Activity of this scale would also represent additional opportunities for the capital markets teams at the banks to facilitate this large allocation of capital with investment vehicles, derivatives and currency hedging instruments.

The Council for Clean Capitalism is a group of forward-thinking companies that seek public policies in support of an economic system in which prices incorporate social, economy and ecological benefits and costs, and people know the full impacts of their marketplace actions.

Signatories:

Council for Clean Capitalism Members

BASF Canada

Brookfield Global Integrated Solutions

Catalyst Paper

The Co-operators Group

Desjardins

HP Canada

Interface Inc.

Teck Resources

Sun Life Financial Canada

Vancity

The post Size of the prize appeared first on Corporate Knights.

But when the province of Quebec prepared to join California’s cap-and-trade system, “the light bulb went on,” Germain says. Cap-and-trade forces companies to buy credits for the right to pollute, which incentivises them to reduce emissions. Pondering the logic of such systems, he realized the province’s industrial emitters suddenly would be forced to manage their emission risk and therefore had a financial incentive to seek out better information about the carbon leaving their facilities. “I knew there was market demand,” he explains.

Germain launched his satellite startup in 2011 with seed funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada. Seven years later, GHGSat, one of only five Canadian companies flying satellites, is launching its second device and has completed two private placements, the first involving an equity infusion by U.S.-French oil services giant Schlumberger. GHGSat’s 15-kilogram satellite, which is the size of a microwave oven and known as Claire, was sent into orbit by the Indian Space Research Organization in June 2016, circling the earth every 98 minutes at a fixed altitude of 500 kilometres. It is fitted out with tools that measure infrared light and telescopic lenses.

The goal, still in the demonstration phase, is to use the on-board sensors to identify and then quantify industrial emissions, especially from very large or remote operations that are difficult to monitor, such as tailings ponds, shale oil pumping sites or pipelines. The satellite’s sensors are designed to calculate emissions within “pixels” that are 50 metres square, and assemble concentration estimates on areas extending over 250 of these units, which amounts to a 12-square-kilometre region. Early customers are not only emitters, but also regulatory bodies as well as competitors curious to find out how their rivals are doing in terms of emissions reduction. “We blazed the trail five years ago,” Germain says. “People didn’t think [this] could be done.”

Early generations of satellites, say experts like Ray Nassar, an atmospheric scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, were never intended to track carbon in the atmosphere. But climate scientists and agencies like NASA have developed observational and computational techniques for not only measuring concentrations of carbon but, increasingly, distinguishing between natural emissions and those from human sources.

What’s becoming apparent – especially with the addition of machine learning onboard – is that these satellites can provide emissions data not just to regulatory bodies, but also to asset managers and investors seeking to mitigate climate risk.

For example, Carbon Delta, a Zurich firm that evaluates satellite emissions data using artificial intelligence, has amassed an inventory of 22,000 companies with tens of thousands of hard assets that give off carbon. Its algorithms generate what the company calls a “climate value at risk” metric, essentially a dollar value related to that portion of a company’s assets considered vulnerable to carbon taxes, regulatory penalties or other charges.

The shift for business came with the adoption of the Paris climate accord in 2015, says Carbon Delta co-founder Oliver Marchand.

“Before Paris, the corporate world wasn’t so much included in the solutions to climate change” because the onus was on national governments to implement reduction strategies, he says. With more multinational corporations involved, there’s been growing demand from both firms and large investors for company- and industry-wide emissions data that is both accurate and consistent but hasn’t been sanitized to make the company look good, he says.

The purchasers of this analysis are asset managers and institutional investors, including large sovereign funds and pension plans. Carbon Delta counts a number of Canadian firms among its clients, including Manulife, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Desjardins and TD Bank, according to Marchand.

David Lunsford, also a Carbon Delta co-founder and head of development, points out that the firm is now using its algorithms and satellite data to develop other metrics for investors, such as “two-degree compatibility” evaluations. These would essentially offer scenarios predicting whether a firm can survive if global average temperatures exceed two degrees Celsius.

The Bank of England and some of the bond rating agencies have been examining Carbon Delta’s methodologies, according to Lunsford. But the most encouraging signal is coming from the investment world itself. “We’re seeing a lot of asset managers seriously integrating climate risk into their management processes,” he says.

The prospect of using satellites to track carbon goes back to the 1992 adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its requirements that advanced economies create and report their emissions. Emissions data at the time mainly came from reporting at facilities and involved cataloguing carbon inputs, such as fuels used in power plants, Nassar, the satellite expert, says. But climate scientists have worked for years to find more precise ways of measuring emissions from urban areas or those related to activities such as the extraction and burning of heavy oils. “CO2 is easy to measure but hard to measure well,” he explains.

Satellites provided an opportunity to fill out the picture from above because they could detect plumes from smoke stacks or methane leaks. Earlier satellites could offer fairly accurate estimates of carbon concentrations high up in the atmosphere, but ground-level carbon has proven more difficult to gauge. The reason is that carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere and lasts for a long time, so it can be difficult to measure incremental changes due to human activity.

In recent years, climate scientists have developed methodologies for making more accurate estimates of low-level carbon using satellite imagery. For example, Nassar led a team that developed ground-breaking techniques for using satellite data to estimate the emissions from U.S. power plants. The group’s findings, published last year in an academic journal, showed for the first time that the satellite images could be used to calculate concentrations that came within one to 17 per cent of the readings generated by plant-level sensors. In other words, satellites, with their broad field of vision, could potentially collect vast amounts of reasonably accurate emissions estimates.

The satellite used in Nassar’s analysis was NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), one of a handful of relatively new orbiters purpose-built for the detection of atmospheric carbon.

Several scientific studies published in the journal Science in 2017 showed how vast amounts of carbon data gathered by such satellites has shone new light on the emissions cycles generated by complex atmospheric and terrestrial cycles, including forest fires, El Nino and extensive biomass loss due to harvesting. [pullquote]“The next step in our understanding of Earth’s carbon dynamics will be to build sensors, satellites and computer models that can distinguish human activity from natural processes,” the authors of the papers wrote in an essay on The Conversation blog.[/pullquote]

The challenge with these new satellites, Nassar says, is that their fields of vision are relatively narrow and episodic, even though they are able to detect tiny amounts of carbon. OCO-2, launched four years ago, can capture images eight kilometres wide but only returns to any given location twice a month – a frequency that may not be sufficient to develop rigorous measurements of industrial emissions. China and the European Space Agency are developing newer satellites, which can observe areas of 100 to 200 kilometres wide. As Nassar points out, a constellation of such satellites, deployed at different altitudes, could help overcome other observational gaps created by cloud cover.

Other unexpected applications have surfaced elsewhere. In Australia, for example, recent data from satellite tracking showed that promised carbon reductions from re-vegetation projects in Queensland, worth $1.07 billion and funded from carbon credits, were overstated: The plantings likely made little difference.

Montreal’s GHGSat represents one of the first private-sector forays into carbon-tracking satellites and has the first mover’s advantage of knowing customers’ needs.

Oil and gas companies, founder Germain and his team have discovered, aren’t just looking for carbon dioxide data. They’re also looking to spot potentially explosive methane and gas leaks from facilities.

Says Germain: “One of the most interesting things about this business is that almost universally, customers are interested in our science because they know they have challenges on their hands and want to address them.”

The post Race to the stars appeared first on Corporate Knights.

It’s not easy for Jim Estill to assess whether his unusually generous support for Syrian refugees has helped or hurt his business.

Estill is chief executive of Danby Appliances, a maker of washing machines, dishwashers and microwaves based in Guelph, Ontario. He emerged two years ago as one of the biggest single participants in the Liberal government’s much-publicized drive to offer Syrian refugees a new home in Canada. As of late August, Estill alone had sponsored 61 families, with another six on the way and likely more in the future.

“There has certainly been a lot of press, so Danby name recognition is higher than it was,” Estill told Corporate Knights in an email. “Most people view what we do favourably, so I am sure that results in some business.”

On the other hand, he acknowledged, “some people view it negatively, so that offsets some of what might be gains.”

Whatever the impact on Danby, Estill’s philanthropy has made a big enough splash that he was awarded the Order of Canada this past summer. A second government-sponsored award this year specifically recognized the company’s in-house training program, on-the-job language training, and conversation circles with staff and volunteers.

“The Danby tagline is, ‘Do the right thing,’” Estill said. “Hiring immigrants and diversity are both ‘right things to do’ – to give people a chance. We have found that diversity in our workplace has made us stronger and more innovative. More views and perspectives means better solutions are found.”

Estill describes his decision to sponsor the Syrians as simply a response to a humanitarian crisis. “Government did not seem to be working fast enough. I calculated how many families a city like Guelph could absorb. And I figured out what I could afford.”

Private sponsors have supported about 44 per cent of the 56,260 Syrian refugees admitted to Canada between November 2015 and August 2018, the federal government says. The sponsors agree to support their families for at least a year, typically at a cost of $20,000 to $25,000 per family, putting Estill’s contribution at well over $1.2 million.

He says most of the families he has helped are doing well in Canada. Over 80 per cent have found jobs and learned English. Nonetheless, as he points out, “these are people, so some do better than others.”

Estill also cites frustrations such as delays in the entry process and maintaining volunteers’ interest in newly arrived families.

But the toughest task of all has been to decide which families get the nod to start a new life in Canada. “It is like playing God and it causes lost sleep,” Estill wrote in a blog post on Danby’s website.

Zero:

For years, the name McKinsey has signalled integrity, discretion and smart ideas. The New York-based management consultancy’s client list includes many of the world’s top companies. It has typically hired the pick of the crop from the best universities.

That stellar reputation has taken some hard knocks as McKinsey has found itself in the thick of a high-profile corruption scandal in South Africa, and has been forced to cut ties with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

“The trust of our clients and the public in South Africa is now, understandably, very low,” Kevin Sneader, McKinsey’s global managing partner, acknowledged in July as he issued his second public apology for the firm’s dealings with Eskom, the government-owned power monopoly. “We came across as arrogant or unaccountable,” he added. “To be brutally honest, we were too distant to understand the growing anger in South Africa.”

Sneader’s apologies came in the wake of a settlement under which McKinsey agreed to repay almost one billion South African rand (US$74 million) in fees to Eskom. The firm acknowledged that it had overcharged the utility, and been too slow in admitting its mistakes.   

The problems stemmed from McKinsey’s involvement with Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, three brothers accused of corrupt dealings with South Africa’s disgraced former president, Jacob Zuma. Evidence has surfaced that the Guptas often determined the award of government contracts and key appointments.

McKinsey’s partner in the Eskom contract was Trillian Capital Partners, a company with close links to the Gupta family.

As part of its drive to turn over a new leaf, McKinsey has also parted company with its senior partner and several other staff members in South Africa, and has suspended all government business in the country. An independent committee has been set up to approve any new work. “This committee will set a very high bar for impact and the quality of the contracting process,” McKinsey pledged.

As for ICE, many of the firm’s employees were taken aback by news reports that McKinsey had collected more than US$20 million from an agency that has come under fire for its harsh treatment of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants in the U.S.

Sneader, who took over as global managing partner in July, promised in an internal note obtained by The New York Times that the firm “will not, under any circumstances, engage in any work, anywhere in the world, that advances or assists policies that are at odds with our values.”

The post Heroes & zeros: Danby and McKinsey appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Whales are particularly vulnerable to “fixed gear” fishing, in which traps set on the seafloor to catch crabs and lobsters are connected via ropes to buoys on the surface. In areas where fishing is dense, these hanging ropes create an obstacle course for whales and other animals, including leatherback and loggerhead turtles. Canadian waters also saw 80 humpback and 40 minke whale deaths last year, with entanglement as one of the main causes. Entanglement in fishing gear was the No. 1 cause of death for all large whales. On right whales’ migratory routes, calving and foraging areas along the East Coast of North America, from Georgia to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the whales must swim a gauntlet of an estimated one million vertical fishing ropes attached to crab and lobster traps.

The high death toll in 2017 was in part due to the right whales moving into new territory, where protections for them didn’t exist. In response to these deaths, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) put out an action plan in March of this year. Recommendations include slowing boats when whales are present, closing part of the gulf to snow crab fishing, looking for whales with airplane surveillance and underwater microphones, limiting the amount of rope that fishers can use, requiring fishers to report interactions with marine mammals, and testing new fishing technologies.

Some methods outlined by the DFO have been tried on the U.S. East Coast for years, said Tim Werner, senior scientist and director of the Consortium for Wildlife Bycatch Reduction at the New England Aquarium in Boston, yet whale entanglement deaths have nevertheless been steadily increasing since 2000.

Now researchers and fishers in Canada and  on the U.S. East Coast are testing “ropeless” fishing gear that has the potential to reduce bycatch and make it possible for fishers to avoid closures. One type of system holds the rope and buoy on the bottom, next to the trap, out of whales’ way. To retrieve the trap, a device releases the buoy and rope to the surface rope, either at a timed interval or by sending an acoustic signal to the device to open. Another system has no rope at all but rather a bag attached to the trap that can inflate and lift it – if the contents aren’t too heavy.

One company, Desert Star Systems, has been selling the first type of system to fishers in Australia since 2013. On a cool coastal summer day, I drive through sand dunes just north of Monterey, California, to Desert Star’s headquarters, a low-slung, no-frills concrete building, next to a small regional airport. I find CEO Marco Flagg on the floor with a fellow engineer, wrapping rope around a plastic colander to test an idea about improving their product.

Flagg, a friendly, open German immigrant, is optimistic that his invention can help to save the whales.

Acoustic release technologies have been available since the 1960s, but early models were expensive and unreliable, he said. Desert Star’s patented technology, called a fusible link, uses a jolt of electricity to melt a wire, releasing a lever that allows the buoy and rope to rise to the surface. To make this work in cold water, the heating must be very fast. “We do this by charging a capacitor first, which can deliver the stored charge very rapidly,” said Flagg. In two-thousandths of a second, the wire reaches 1,400 degrees Celsius and melts. The speed also limits the energy required, he said. “One set of four AA alkaline cells is enough for about 50 release cycles.”

Later we go down to a dock at Monterey Bay so Flagg can demonstrate the device. The trap splashes into the water and sinks. Flagg calls for it, broadcasting codes that identify himself and the equipment through a sonar transducer. The lever releases and the float bobs right up.

Desert Star’s market for this product has been primarily in Australia, where lobster fishers were losing gear to storms and ships cutting their lines and to other fishers poaching their traps.

In North America, acoustic releases haven’t been widely used, primarily due to cost. But with endangered species teetering on the brink, the perceived value of the gear may begin to change.

Other companies with varied technologies, some at early stages of development, include SubSea Sonics in El Cajon, California; Fiomarine in Tasmania, Australia; Sea Mammal Education Learning Technology Society, a nonprofit out of Washington state; and EdgeTech, based in Massachusetts.

EdgeTech, another company that already has commercial products, has a simple system, said Rob Morris, product line sales engineer for the firm. “There’s a high-torque motor that just turns a shaft and unwinds a screw,” he said. “And the screw falls away and the system releases, so there’s no lever or anything that could become entangled with biofouling.” The system has a 99 per cent success rate, Morris said.

SNOW CRABBERS TEST GEAR

Desert Star and EdgeTech ropeless fishing gear are being tested in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by the Acadian Crabbers Association, said the group’s director-general, Robert Haché. Ropeless technology “is not pie in the sky. It’s ready and easily adaptable to our fishery,” he said. Whether it’s affordable is another question.

Because of the price, “Having this system installed on 30,000 to 40,000 traps in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence at this time is totally unrealistic,” said Haché, adding that he hopes that economies of scale will bring the price down.

Flagg says the Desert Star device costs from US$755 to US$1,995, depending on quantity purchased. Because it has a life expectancy of “well over 10 years,” he estimates an annualized cost, with maintenance, of about $200 per year.

EdgeTech’s new system, developed with lobster fishers in the United States, will cost around US$4,000, Morris said. He also estimates a lifespan of 10 or more years for his device.

The fishers who use Desert Star devices in Australia find that it pays off, said Flagg, The cost of the device is “offset by savings due to reduced poaching, equipment loss to ship strikes, weather, and the like.”

In North America, the devices may allow fishers access to zones otherwise closed, “and thus realize very substantial savings in ship time compared to more distant, alternate grounds,” said Flagg.

Haché said that nearly 30 per cent of the snow crab fishing area was closed last spring, and that using ropeless technology just in those areas would be an advantage.

Werner from the New England Aquarium said he’s been impressed with the quick response and positive attitude from DFO and Canadian fishers toward solving the problem – something he doesn’t see as much at home in New England. That readiness to change could be because the Gulf of St. Lawrence snow crab fishery recently lost its marine stewardship certification due to the whale entanglement issue.

Whatever the motivation, Haché said his group’s primary interest in ropeless traps is “to coexist with the North Atlantic right whale. There’s no future for us unless we can accommodate this cohabitation.”

The post Sharing the seas appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Gunn’s Hill – owned by the Oxford Community Energy Cooperative (OCEC), the Six Nations of the Grand River and developer Prowind Canada – is Ontario’s first community-sponsored wind farm and Canada’s first wind initiative to include both coop and Indigenous ownership.

The $9-million project included individual investments of $1,000 to $10,000 from 136 coop members. The project is meeting its goal of providing a rate of return of between 10 and 11.11 per cent to investors, OCEC executive director Miranda Fuller says.

“The project isn’t just good for the environment but also directly connects citizens to their power supply,” says Fuller. “The idea of the community owning the power is a very powerful thing.”

Gunn’s Hill, which produces 18 megawatts or enough energy to power 6,700 local homes, is one of a small but growing number of community-owned renewable energy projects either operating or under development across Canada, despite numerous challenges ranging from costs and financing to sometimes fierce opposition from local residents.

In July, a new government in Ontario used local frustration with another wind farm – the nine-turbine White Pines Wind Project in Prince Edward County – to justify cancelling the project despite it being nearly completed. Shortly after, the government cancelled 758 renewable energy contracts for projects at varying degrees of development, two of which were also operated by OCEC.

Gunn’s Hill had its share of opponents when it was being developed, Fuller says. But it was approved following intense public consultation with locals and Indigenous communities.

“There will be some people that will never like it, that’s human nature,” she says. “You can’t negate someone’s feelings towards something and invalidate them, but you can open the experience to them and I think community coops do that.”

Besides the environmental benefits, these community projects have social and economic advantages, says James Tansey, a professor in the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

“It can be as much about community building as it is about energy provision,” says Tansey.

With community-owned renewable projects, local members are largely in control of how the project is developed and managed, ensuring they’re aligned with community goals.

“That’s what makes them so exciting,” says Binnu Jeyakumar, electricity program director at the Pembina Institute. “You have a great participation from a whole variety of people … and you don’t have to be a homeowner to participate.”

But community renewable ownership faces unique barriers in Canada.

In Europe, where energy is much more expensive, governments have been more open toward local ownership as a solution. Canada has cheaper sources of energy, such as hydroelectricity and coal, as well as a more centralized energy planning system, which community-power proponents say undermines the development of smaller-scale renewable projects.

Still, some community projects have forged ahead in Canada and range in size from a few kilowatts to many megawatts. Examples include Toronto’s iconic 750-kilowatt wind turbine on the edge of Lake Ontario – the first turbine to be constructed in an urban centre in North America – and the 60 kW Nelson Community Solar Garden outside of Nelson, British Columbia, which describes itself as Canada’s first community solar garden.

A 2016 Toronto Renewable Energy Coop (TREC) study, done in collaboration with York University, shows a typical solar project in Ontario resulted in $2.06 in economic activity for every $1 in electricity purchases made through the province’s feed-in tariff program.

It also said the economic impact on the local community increased by 47 per cent when capital came from local investors and local firms. When that local ownership was combined with local solar manufacturers, the economic impact increased by 77 per cent.

Despite the positive economic numbers, the biggest challenge for community projects is often local buy-in, says David Cork, managing director of TREC and co-founder of the Ottawa Renewable Energy Co-op.

“Everyone thinks the problem is raising the money,” says Cork. “It turns out it isn’t. If you have an iconic project that’s meaningful to the community … then people will get behind it and they will invest.”

Community renewable projects generally bring a return on investment of between four and six per cent, he says.

Wind farms in particular face tougher community buy-in because of the size of the turbines, reported impacts on wildlife and noise complaints.

A 2017 Western University study of local wind farms shows that involving nearby residents in wind-farm planning and providing equitable local benefits can help increase support.

Authors Chad Walker and Jamie Baxter pointed to Ontario’s 2009 Green Energy Act, which reduced local input in the development of renewable energy projects in the province and, in turn, caused a lot of opposition and conflict in rural communities.

“The general lack of financial benefits and opportunities to invest in local wind projects in Ontario may be added to the long list of things responsible for intense pushback to development in the province over the past decade,” Walker said in releasing the report last year.

In Nova Scotia, on the other hand, where there were requirements for community-owned development, support for local wind projects was three times higher and perceptions of health effects were three times lower, the authors said.

The type of model best suited for a community depends on its unique needs and objectives, says Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association.

“If you’re looking for the lowest possible cost you’re going to do one thing; if you’re looking for something with community participation you’ll design a different type of framework to enable that,” Hornung says.

In Alberta, for example, the province’s renewable electricity program requires projects to have a minimum 25 per cent Indigenous equity ownership, “to encourage the greatest participation by Indigenous communities, create the greatest degree of competition among respondents, and provide the lowest cost for Albertans.”

In Oxford County, revenues from wind energy sales feed into a $25,000 annual community fund that is awarded to a related community project benefiting the region.

Fuller, the OCEC executive director, says years of hard work and consultation paid off, and recommends communities forge ahead with similar renewable projects – even if the provincial government is going the other way.

“If you have passion and if this is something you see a need for and a desire in the community you need to keep working and pushing,” she says. “It’s worth it.”

The post Power of the people appeared first on Corporate Knights.

In 2006, I joined the first cohort of the Bridge to Business program, an MBA program at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

Despite a professional resume that read like a classic, type-A overachiever, I didn’t feel at home in my new crowd.

I’d been nationally recognized as a community leader, managed an award-winning million-dollar education program, received my own share of awards and had a strong network. On paper, I looked like a perfect MBA program candidate.

But in other ways, I didn’t fit in.

In addition to chasing success, I was also a formerly homeless high school dropout who was juggling a full-time job with school and desperately trying to find my way to feeling confident and at home in the world.

On that first day in the MBA bridging program, listening to peers and professors speak in very gendered ways about business, the boardroom, cottages and golf, I felt the chasm between their experiences and mine grow.

I soon realized that as a woman and as a person of colour, I would always feel like an other in business school.

This year’s ranking of the top sustainable MBA schools by Corporate Knights offers a reason to think things have changed. But only more data gathering can say for sure.

For the first time, the Better World MBA ranking includes two measures of diversity – race and gender.

Those at the forefront of ensuring dignity is respected in public spaces – diversity and inclusion practitioners, (dis)ability advocates, radical feminists, LGBTQ+ activists and champions of religious diversity – might be wondering why only two measures were taken.

Well, it’s a start. The first batch of data also challenge your assumptions.

Globally, the data points to a startling and promising revelation: At the institutional level, business school faculties are generally more diverse than the countries where they are situated.

For example, the U.S. school in the Better World MBA ranking with the most racially diverse faculty is the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where 59 per cent of faculty members are considered racially diverse. This makes the faculty twice as diverse compared to the rest of America.

That’s right, America’s most diverse business school is in the South.

Even the most established schools – the original bastions of the Old Boys’ Club – are racially more diverse than the U.S. population. The school in the MBA ranking with the highest diversity indicator in that camp is Rutgers Business School, which is 1.83 times more diverse than the U.S.

Diversity problem? What diversity problem?

In Canada, where 22.3 per cent of the population is considered racially diverse, the result is similar. Halifax is apparently not just home to some of Canada’s most important moments in the country’s racial history. It’s also home to the second most racially-diverse business faculty, the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University. Over half of the business school faculty, 51.3 per cent to be exact, are racialized.

That makes the Sobey School twice as diverse as Canada. Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal, with 44.8 per cent faculty diversity, is similarly close to twice as diverse as the country. In fact, of the 13 Canadian business schools included in the ranking, eight are outperforming the country in terms of diversity, where at least one-third of faculty are racially diverse.

But there’s a caveat.

A 2016 study by the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) confirmed that while gains have been made in expanding faculty diversity, most of those gains have been off the tenure track.

When students demand the hiring of more diverse faculty, they don’t want superficial changes. They’re asking the school to make tenure commitments to ensure diverse faculty remain on campus.

That way, when students are sitting in the welcome lecture on Day One of an immersive MBA bridging program at a top business school and see diverse faces leading the classroom, their immediate reaction isn’t suspicion about how long that “diverse” professor will be in their role before they are forced out the door – but instead belief they’ve found a mentor with whom they can build a strong relationship.

Race was only one dimension of the diversity measures. The ranking also looked at gender.

A quick look at the numbers reveals a clear winner: The University of Exeter Business School, with 45 per cent female faculty. The lowest school in the ranking was the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Hong Kong with only 10.6 per cent.

Like the race measure, the data is most useful as a starting point – a baseline measure we can use to assess future progress.

Plus, we have plenty of data showing the dearth of women in business. Let’s at least let the effects of the Lean In movement, made famous by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg only four years ago, sink in before feeling we’re in a rush to find more.

Building on this year’s ranking, we should begin collecting data on other measures of diversity: people with various (dis)abilities, LGBTQ+, religion, newcomers, first generation immigrants, and more.

If next year’s data add nothing else but this information, we’d be in a much better position to evaluate diversity in business education.

That all said, I will say that from 30,000 feet, it is clear: Business schools are doing better than we thought on the diversity issue.

They’re doing this by proactively ensuring that diverse racial groups are represented among faculty. As the faculty diversity metric is gathered in future rankings, there will eventually be enough data to compare year-over-year changes and conclude whether business schools are getting better or worse in their commitment to diversity.

More importantly, this data will help us discern the most important questions at the core of diversity initiatives everywhere: How does faculty diversity in business education programs help students, staff and others feel welcome and included? In what way does faculty diversity contribute to one’s sense of belonging in business school?

It matters on Day One of any MBA program.

The post A snapshot on race and gender appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Petroleum and mining companies, working on the edge of human civilization, have long faced criticism for changing landscapes and discharging waste. Tech firms, which might seem insulated from scrutiny because they’re headquartered in big cities, own electricity-hungry data centres and source their metals from mines in the developing world.

If and when a media outlet uncovers a practice that the public deems subpar, a CEO needs to know how to defend the company’s actions, or know how to improve.

What that CEO learned in school is going to matter a whole lot in that moment.

Since its origins in the Ivy League schools of the U.S. Northeast, the master of business administration degree has become the academic gateway for people looking to run or be a part of a profitable business. MBAs are now offered around the world; in more recent years, sustainable MBA programs have proliferated, offering students coursework in everything from resource use to sustainable accounting.

Social issues are a critical part of sustainability, and no social impact may be as important as those affecting diversity, inclusion and marginalization.

Companies are routinely accused of underpaying or underrepresenting women, people of colour, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities and those who identify as LGBTQ+.

Using board diversity in Canada as one measure of the problem, change is happening at a glacial pace.

The number of women on the boards of companies listed on the Financial Post 500 index increased by only one percentage point in 2017 over the previous year, according to research by the Conference Board. Sixty-six per cent of those on the FP500 boards reported as male while 33 per cent reported as female.

There was also a decrease in the number of visible minorities and people who identify as LGBTQ on boards in 2017, it says.

At the same time, 94.4 per cent of those surveyed for the report said they think diversity is important and 86 per cent claimed their board is diverse.

That’s a big disconnect between values and reality. The corporate board room is still very much the domain of straight white men.

Companies with little diversity aren’t doing their shareholders any favours.

A correlation exists between women in corporate leadership positions and high firm performance, a global survey of 21,980 firms in 91 countries published by Washington, D.C.’s Peterson Institute for International Economics in 2016 says.

The survey also discovered that it’s important to have a strong pipeline of female managers capable of taking positions across a company. The correlation between gender diversity and performance was greatest when women were in executive roles, followed by female board members, but the presence of women CEOs had no noticeable effect, the survey says.

To speed up the slow pace will require raising awareness and expanding the pool of diverse business leaders, starting with business schools that can reflect more diverse power structures within the make-up of their faculty.

That’s why Corporate Knights, for the first time, ranked schools on the gender and racial diversity of their faculty.

The research and the results revealed some interesting facts.

For one, some universities in Europe took issue with the metric, arguing that measuring ethnicity further isolates and marginalizes individuals.

At Corporate Knights, where we believe in the adage “what gets measured, gets managed,” we think differently. Allowing important lines of inquiry to proceed without measurable facts will only lead them to languish among society’s and policymakers’ priorities. Leaders need numbers to make the case for change.

Who would have known that two of the most racially diverse business school among the 141 in the ranking would be the University of Connecticut’s School of Business and the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax? Within each school, 51 per cent of faculty identified as visible minorities.

Overall, out of the 20,074 faculty included in the ranking, 24 per cent were classified as racially diverse and 28 were female. Among U.S. schools, 2.5 per cent of faculty identify as black.

Looking at the overall scores, the top-ranked schools are regular contenders for the crown.

This year’s first place sustainable MBA is the Warwick Business School’s program, which tied for second place last year. In second place is the University of Exeter Business School, last year’s first-place winner. The Schulich School of Business at York University dropped from second to third in the 2018 edition of the rankings.

Rounding out the top five is Griffith University’s Griffith Business School in Brisbane and the University of Vermont.

Every school in the top 40 should be proud of its achievement. Beating out over a hundred other leading global schools is not easy.

This year’s ranking was sponsored by international banking group BNP Paribas. We thank them for providing support.

A note on methodology:

The 2018 Corporate Knights Better World MBA Ranking universe automatically includes all schools on the most recent FT100 MBA Ranking. All business schools accredited by the Association of MBAs, AACSB International and EQUIS, as well as all current champions in the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Management Education initiative, are invited to participate.

The schools were graded on five indicators: institutes and centres, curriculum, faculty research, female diversity and racial diversity. Data for these indicators was collected from publicly available sources. Outreach was conducted to reach the schools for verification and confirmation prior to completion of the ranking.

The institutes and centres indicator was given a weight of 10 per cent and was measured by counting the number of research institutes and centres up to a maximum of five that are fully or substantially dedicated to areas of sustainable development. The ranking (see page 30) points out the number of institutes and centres doing sustainable development research at each business school.

The curriculum indicator, weighted 30 per cent of the final score, was measured by determining the proportion of a school’s mandatory courses in its full-time MBA program that integrate relevant sustainable development themes. The ranking indicates the percentage of courses devoted to sustainable development among all courses.

A school’s research indicator, worth 50 per cent, comes from two sources: the number of peer-reviewed publications in academic journals with sustainable development topics between 2015 and 2017 that were authored or co-authored by a faculty member of the business school, and the number of citations per faculty member. The number of publications was given a 30 per cent weighting while the number of citations received 20 per cent.

To illustrate this indicator, the ranking shows the number of publications and the number of citations with sustainable development as a core theme published at each business school over the past year.

Gender diversity, which is sourced from a school’s website, was given a five per cent weighting. The ranking shows the percentage of women faculty at each business school.

Racial diversity was measured by looking at the percentage of faculty members who can be identified by photo, name or biography as clearly not part of a country’s majority race or ethnic group. The diversity of the school’s faculty was then weighted to account for the overall diversity of the country. where the school is based. This indicator also received a weighting of five per cent.

In the ranking, the racial diversity figure is the percentage of faculty who are not part of a country’s majority race or ethnic group.

Click here for the list of 2018 evaluated schools.

Click here to go back to the ranking landing page.

The post Making the grade appeared first on Corporate Knights.

“It’s not enough for a scientist, community, or society simply to think up an idea to solve an environmental problem; the idea must also be put into practice – the hybrid corn must be planted, the new farming credit system must be set up and operated, the community must educate itself to change its behaviors – before the ingenuity can be said to be fully supplied.”

The Top 30 Under 30 in Sustainability’s class of 2018 couldn’t agree more.

Eighteen years after Homer-Dixon warned of the complexity of the 21st century’s looming problems, and asked whether humanity could provide enough smart ideas to survive, the need for ingenuity and a readiness to act have only grown stronger.

Liberal democracies are facing nationalist upsurges, the climate is changing in line with predictions about global warming, mass migration is straining borders and those who have been denied a voice in the debate over human dignity are making themselves heard.

Amid this complexity, Corporate Knights found young people who dare to be unafraid.

For the past three years, this magazine has asked readers to submit nominations for the top 30 leaders in Canada pushing for a more sustainable world. Each time, bringing the number down to 30 has been a challenge.

These are people who aren’t satisfied with talking about the world’s problems. They’re taking steps to solve them – one small step at a time, on their own or within teams. Some aren’t looking for the limelight. Instead they’re working inside government agencies and big companies to effect change on a mass scale. Others are entrepreneurs staking money and reputation on an idea that just might work.

It’s not like they’ve got a lot to lose.

By 2030, when a 29-year-old today will be 41, climate change impacts could push 100 million people into poverty unless urgent action is taken to build a more resilient planet, the World Bank says.

To reduce the impacts of climate change, the global economy needs to undergo massive shifts in how capital is allocated. Transitioning to a low carbon economy will require around US$90 trillion in new infrastructure over the next 15 years, according to the bank. International Energy Agency estimates say keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius will require on average US$3.5 trillion a year in energy investment until 2050, when that same 29-year-old will be 61.

Their lifetimes will be spent building the transition, so it’s no surprise many in this year’s Top 30 Under 30 are making waves in renewable energy. Others are working to make agriculture more sustainable. Another theme that runs through their work is making cities more efficient and habitable.

Nominations for the list opened in the spring with the only requirements being the person had to be under age 30 and either work in Canada or be a Canadian working abroad. An internal team brought the submissions down to 45.

To help us pick the final 30, Corporate Knights leaned on the esteemed minds of four outside judges:  Ontario Environmental Commissioner Dianne Saxe, Green Economy founder Mike Morrice, Centre for International Governance Innovation president Rohinton Medhora and Minerva BC CEO Tina Strehlke. Their time and effort were crucial in putting together an impressive group of winners. Along with Corporate Knights editor-in-chief James Munson, the judges brought the list down to 30 for 2018.

As the need for ingenuity continues, we expect candidates for 2019 to be just as awe-inspiring. So be sure to let us know  about that young, ambitious problem solver who is pushing for change at the office or around the community when next year’s nominations open again in the spring.

Stephanie Brown

29, San Francisco

Born in Calgary and raised in Ottawa, Stephanie is passionate about advancing the triple bottom line: profit, people and the planet.

She pursued this passion by working on sustainable food and agricultural initiatives as a CIDA youth intern with a women’s shea butter cooperative in Ghana, followed by sustainability marketing work with Cotton Incorporated and the Environmental Defense Fund.

After earning master of public policy and MBA degrees from Duke University, Stephanie pursued her interest in corporate social responsibility by joining Amazon as a pathways operations manager. In her two years with the company, she co-led a fixed-cost initiative across its network of 25 fulfilment centres in which she spearheaded a series of sustainability projects focusing on increased recycling and reduced utilities usage. Through her efforts, the centres have adopted clearer signage and a robust recycling program for pallets. On the utilities front, she has helped reduce electricity usage across Amazon’s network of warehouses by establishing clear guidelines for motion light sensor timing.

“Opportunities to tackle waste are all around us and simply need a champion who is willing to address them with optimism, creativity and commitment.”

William Gagnon

26, Yellowknife/ Montreal

William influences change for holistic sustainability in industry, not-for-profit organizations and politics.

He works for the Northern Centre for Sustainability in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The building, at the front row of climate change, aims to become an innovation hub that will inspire action toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the first sustainable Living Building in the Circumpolar North and the first carbon-negative building in Canada.

William and his team are also leading Yellowknife’s Smart Cities Challenge, which received an initial award of $250,000 from Infrastructure Canada. They used the SDGs as a benchmarking tool to do big-picture design for what the future Yellowknife smart city could become: the project will give back to Yellowknifers their starry sky visibility, allowing for downtown aurora borealis viewing.

William, who has had a long-time affiliation with the Green Party, was recently accredited by the Living Future Institute as a professional who can design buildings to the highest environment standards.

Gay and a “northern” vegetarian (eats local “happy meat” once in a while), William practises yoga, cross-country skis to the office, and is a carbon-neutral individual.

“If your job is not aligned with your values, quit. Walking the talk is critical if you want to implement change. A big paycheck won’t buy you purpose, and purpose will bring you happiness.”

Eryn Stewart

26, Ottawa

Eryn is a visionary young leader at the forefront of Indigenous inclusion and leadership in Canada’s clean energy economy.

She led the development of the 20/20 Catalysts Program, Canada’s first and highly successful Indigenous clean energy capacity-building program. Now in its third year, 20/20 has supported over 60 Indigenous clean energy champions.

Eryn works full-time at Lumos Energy, a leading advisor to Indigenous communities on clean energy projects. Her work focuses on clean energy in northern communities pioneering community energy planning and energy education initiatives.

In 2017, Eryn was one of 20 emerging leaders selected by the Arctic Council to take part in the Arctic Remote Energy Networks Academy, a program to promote information sharing across the Arctic on the integration of renewable energy in remote communities. 

She is now working on another Arctic Council project – a clean energy toolkit for communities across the circumpolar Arctic – alongside her partners at Gwich’in Council International.

“I have had the upmost privilege of working with remarkable people, specifically Indigenous people, who are leading clean energy initiatives in their respective communities across our country. I am continuously inspired by their ambition, their strength and their determination.”

Brandon Nguyen

18, Toronto/ Philadelphia

Passionate about promoting environmental education, Brandon founded the Toronto Coalition of EcoSchools when he was 15 years old, partnering with professors and NGOs to host community programs and NGO events. He represented the coalition at the 2016 UN Youth Assembly and is currently chair of its board of directors. During high school, Brandon was also the only high school executive on the Toronto Youth Cabinet from 2016-2017 where he represented 330,000 youth in municipal dialogues.

Recognized for his experience in environmental education, Brandon was selected as the youngest delegate to attend the fully funded 2017 UNLEASH Innovation Lab in Denmark, where he helped to develop insights and solutions to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals alongside delegates from over 129 countries.

He has been recognized as a Top 25 Environmentalist Under 25 by The Starfish Canada, as well as a Global Environmental Education 30 Under 30 awardee by the North American Association for Environmental Education and the Global Environmental Education Partnership.

“My advice to someone trying to make a difference would be to be adaptive in your plans. It’s sometimes easy to get lost in the details of the larger scheme. Know your end goal, but understand that there are an infinite number of paths to get there.”

Julie Guérin

28, Toronto

Julie is trying to save the planet one solar panel at a time.

From her professional career in the renewable energy field, to co-founding the Emerging Leaders for Solar Energy (ELSE), Julie has helped residents in remote communities across North America to “go green.”

She manages the delivery of rebates for low-carbon home renovations funded by Ontario’s carbon market proceeds at the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator. Prior to this, she was director of operations at MPOWER Energy Solutions, a Canadian startup where she played a significant role in the early commercialization of the Tesla Powerwall, an electric storage unit for households.

As a co-founder and chair of the board of directors at ELSE, an incorporated not-for-profit organization that enables solar energy in remote communities across Canada, Julie has helped grow the organization in three provinces over the past two years, giving it a presence at over 15 universities. Under her leadership, ELSE finished the installation of a 6 kW micro-grid at the OrcaLab research station in British Columbia and a 20.8 kW solar project for a health care facility in Lubicon Lake, Alberta, and contributed to the 100 kW community-owned solar project on Haida Gwaii.

“Making a difference requires both perseverance and courage. Often, people will remind you of the failed inventors who never made it… and you can’t let this discourage you. Instead, use this as motivation. Show them it can done by doing it – and then invite them to join you.”

Jessica Lui

25, Toronto

Jessica has made significant contributions to environmental and social responsibility through her professional and philanthropic endeavours.

She served as a UN youth ambassador where she contributed to the development of the 2030 Sustainability Development Goals. In her current role as a management consultant at Deloitte, Jessica supports executives in adopting socially and environmentally responsible business practices.

While working full-time, Jessica also founded a social enterprise: Global Professionals Practicum, a youth-led social enterprise dedicated to investing in and developing young adults pursuing STEM careers in underserved communities. Since its founding in 2014, the organization has partnered with over 50 educational organizations to deliver programming that furthers educational equality and inclusion. She was recognized for her work as an inspiring social entrepreneur at the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University, hosted by then U.S. president Barack Obama.

In Canada, she serves as an advisory board member for Venture for Canada, a non-profit that matches Canada’s top university graduates with jobs at over 130 startups. Internationally, Jessica represents the voice of youth on global humanitarian issues as an advisor of the UN International Youth Council and UN Women.

“Dream big. Do the things that scare you. Gain courage, strength and confidence every time you step outside of your comfort zone.”

Caroline Brouillette

26, Montreal

Caroline is a social impact strategist at Credo, a certified B Corp based in Montreal. Motivated by the vision of a world where organizations have the audacity to think beyond short-term shareholder and taxpayer value, she works with non-profits, businesses and public institutions that seek to rethink, accelerate or measure the impact they have on society and the environment. Caroline has led mandates for clients including Hydro-Quebec (Corporate Knights’ Best Corporate Citizen, 2018), the city of Montreal, hunger-focused non-profit La Tablée des Chefs and the McConnell Foundation.

Last April, Caroline represented Canadian youth at the Y7, an official stakeholder engagement summit of the Charlevoix G7. She was Canada’s theme lead on climate change and environment issues, and contributed to a recommendation urging governments to protect all bodies of water through immediate action on plastics. She worked with different stakeholders to push for youth recommendations to be included in the final G7 communiqué. As well, she led the process of issuing youth recommendations for the Halifax Ministerial Meeting on Working Together on Climate Change, Oceans and Energy, through which the G7 leaders were asked to take bolder action to decarbonize our economies and to beat plastic pollution.

“It’s easy to feel discouraged by the challenges our societies face. But our generation inspires me because we care for social justice. We strive for positive social impact on our peers, our communities and the world.”

David A. Klar

29, Toronto

David founded the Global SDG Awards in 2018 to increase private sector engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals framework through competition. Over the past eight months, his organization has become a platform to recognize private sector sustainability and SDG leadership. The competition’s esteemed panel of over 75 expert judges comprises recognized corporate responsibility leaders from a wide range of countries and industries. Its mission is to create a race to the top and to inspire others with examples of next generation sustainability leadership. With a peer-reviewed methodology, the submission questions were developed to reflect emerging sustainability best practices.

“As a technological optimist, I believe that we can (and will) create a more sustainable society. Entrepreneurs, corporate intrapreneurs and investment firms are at the leading edge of a new approach to solving social and environmental challenges.”

Adam Yereniuk

28, Edmonton

Adam is shaping the country through the development of solar power systems across Western and Northern Canada. Adam’s goal is to generate 100 per cent of Canada’s energy from renewable sources.

His path has taken him from the coal-mining industry to the forefront of the solar power industry in Alberta, Canada’s most fossil-fuel reliant province. In this environment, Adam has shown that the capability of sustainable energy sources surpasses conventional carbon-intensive fuels.

In under four years, Adam’s company – Kuby Renewable Energy – has become a leading solar photovoltaic contractor. Among its most notable installations is Red Deer College’s 1,400 kW facility. Kuby has installed more solar panels than the Alberta industry average every year since inception and is offsetting more than 2,000 tonnes a year of C02 emissions as of mid-2018.

In addition to his role as the director of operations at Kuby, Adam is also project chair for the Alberta chapter of Emerging Leaders for Solar Energy, a Canadian non-profit aimed at facilitating youth involvement in the solar industry.

“For those trying to make a difference: Keep on hustling. Continue to put in the work, consistently improve yourself and remember that it is a marathon, not a sprint. Making change happen takes time; be sure to enjoy the ride along the way.”

Jen Couldrey

29, Toronto

As the executive director of the Upside Foundation of Canada, Jen is leading the movement to embed giving back into the Canadian tech and innovation community. Through Upside, early-stage high-growth companies donate equity (typically stock options), which, upon a liquidity event, converts to cash for their charity of choice. Jen has grown the organization from 50 companies to over 200. She has built the organization’s brand and reputation, which now receives regular media coverage, and is driving the conversation to help the tech community be more conscious and purposeful about its social impact. Jen is passionate about building the business case for social responsibility to make it easy for companies to decide to give back.

Prior to Upside, Jen worked in corporate social responsibility consulting at SiMPACT Strategy Group, helping Canada’s largest companies to measure and report on the social and business impact of their community investments. She has also worked with a local women’s group in Kenya to establish a sustainable business model for a health-focused entrepreneurial venture.

Jen has been recognized as one of the Top 30 inspirational women making a difference in tech by Ryerson DMZ.

“I believe that people are generally good, and everybody wants to make a difference. The easier we can make it for people and organizations to find causes they care about and give generously, the more impact we can unlock. “

Rhiannon Moore

25, Vancouver

Rhiannon is a researcher for the Ocean Plastics Lab at Ocean Wise and is completing her master of science at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on plastic pollution in Canada’s Arctic, where she is evaluating the amount of microplastic contamination in the beluga food web.

In 2017 Rhiannon participated in the Canada C3 expedition as a leading scientist, and in 2018 was the recipient of the W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research. When not in the lab or in the field, Rhiannon spends much of her time participating in outreach and education events to raise awareness about plastic pollution.

“The world is changed by your actions, not your opinion. Go beyond being a keyboard warrior. It is the things you do in your day-to-day life that will truly make a difference.”

Thomas Lavergne

29, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Thomas is a 29-year-old Métis associate environmental engineer with the Saskatchewan Research Council. He is passionate about not only making the world a more sustainable place through his work but also encouraging others to do the same.

He works alongside a team of engineers and scientists responsible for the cleanup of 37 abandoned mine and mill sites in northern Saskatchewan where the goal is to return the sites to a state that supports safe future use by local residents for traditional purposes, such as hunting and fishing. As part of this project, Thomas’s focus is on environmental monitoring and assessment.

Thomas led the development of a unique Student Environmental Monitoring Program that encourages Indigenous young adults living in remote northern communities to consider an education and/or careers in environmental monitoring through hands-on work experience in the field. In its three short years, this week-long program has made a real impact on 14 young lives.

In his personal life, Thomas is an avid cyclist who has used this sustainable form of transportation for the past six years for his daily commute – even through the cold Saskatchewan winters.

“Education opens doors for those who want to make a difference. Learning opportunities come in many different forms; embrace them. Further, when given an opportunity to share your knowledge with others. do it. You may be surprised what you will learn yourself.”

Justin Wiebe

27, Toronto

Justin is Métis, born in the Métis Nation Homeland and Treaty 6 Territory in Saskatoon and now living on the Dish With One Spoon Treaty territory in Toronto.

He does incredible work advocating for more equitable systems and opportunities with a focus on Indigenous youth. As a capacity-building specialist at the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Justin works to support youth-led initiatives and systems change collaboratives in building and implementing impactful initiatives. In addition to his work at the foundation, he sits on the board of Canadian Roots Exchange and The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada. Justin leads initiatives with intention, and is committed to building relationships and bridges as a means of making change.

Justin is a recipient of Social Planning Toronto’s Frances Lankin Inspiring Leader Award. As someone who constantly seeks to expand their understanding, teaches others with generosity and patience, and fiercely advocates for young people, he is a leader whose impact is already evident and will continue to build.

“Build meaningful and reciprocal relationships with folks, and take collective action. Don’t be afraid to try, be reflective and never stop learning, we’ve had too many years of people afraid to try to do things differently.”

Emily Bland

23, St. John’s, Newfoundland

Emily is a farm girl from Newfoundland with passions for social enterprise and sustainable agriculture.

While attending Memorial University she joined Enactus, a volunteer organization made up of 77,000 university students who create projects that address social, economic and environmental challenges around the world. She was president of its Memorial chapter for two years, helping it win Enactus’ world championship in 2016 and reaching runner-up in 2017.

The project at the heart of the team’s victories was SucSeed, a social enterprise that specializes in small-scale hydroponic grow tanks and supplies. These grow tanks allow users to grow plants year-round as they operate indoors without the use of soil or sunlight. Their produce grows twice as fast and the units conserve water, using 90 per cent less than traditional growing methods. To increase impact, each of the grow tanks is built by at-risk and homeless youth in partnership with Choices for Youth. With the support of the Enactus team, Emily transitioned SucSeed into a standalone social enterprise. SucSeed is a SheEO venture that has impacted over 150 communities across Canada and sold over 1,000 hydroponic grow tanks to date.

For her accomplishments, Emily won the 2018 Next 36 Satchu award, which targets young entrepreneurs.

“Making a difference starts with finding your passion. Find that issue that hurts your stomach to think about, then brainstorm a solution that can make a real difference. Then do it. Don’t just think about it. And dream big about what you want to accomplish.”

Shirin Karoubi

27, Toronto

Shirin is a passionate sustainability advocate. Her work spans Toronto and Vancouver, where she has helped with a variety of projects and supported numerous communities. Her greatest accomplishment is founding Toolbox, a Trillium Foundation-supported non-profit aimed at developing healthy relationships among youth as well as breaking down gender tensions in the trades by teaching woodworking and electronic skills to youth with a focus on women.

In addition to her non-profit work, Shirin works in the climate change directorate of the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks to develop pilot projects that address environmental concerns with unique solutions. These pilots involve partnerships with industry, various levels of government and communities targeting areas of waste, wastewater, stormwater management, nutrient recovery, sustainable procurement and greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Shirin also works at the Toronto chapter of the Canada Green Building Council. She helps every year with its annual Design Charette that focuses on a specific case study within the Greater Toronto Area to improve its sustainability. In 2017, in partnership with the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the competition focused on bringing an existing school scheduled for renovations to net zero.

“It is becoming more apparent that self-sufficient sustainable communities are needed to ensure our survival. This necessary sustainability comes both in the form of social and environmental.”

Brianna Aspinall

29, Toronto

Originally from Alajuela, Costa Rica, Brianna moved to Canada to attend the University of Waterloo’s Environment and Business program.

In 2017, Brianna founded Carbon Conversations TO, bringing an established model from the United Kingdom to the Toronto public for the first time. Carbon Conversations provides a place for people to explore their fears about climate change and identify actions they can take to make a difference. She led the initiative that secured funding for the initial workshops in 2018, and now manages the program with a dedicated team of five other individuals.

She also established the first native plant and herb garden at her multi-story apartment building. While also securing financial contributions, she engaged the landlord and five other tenants so that together they could build, grow and maintain the garden.

Brianna has also volunteered with several environment not-for-profits, including Sustainable Waterloo Region, Local Enhancement & Appreciation of Forests in Toronto and the David Suzuki Foundation – all roles that helped make her community more sustainable.

“I believe we have the potential to prioritize and apply solutions to climate change and social inequality. By listening to ourselves and others we can find ways to collaborate and be inspired by one another to transition to a new society.”

Sabina Hyseni

26, Toronto/ Geneva

Sabina is currently working for the United Nations Children’s Fund in Geneva, analysing companies on their environmental, social and governance practices and advising on major multicountry public private partnerships.

In 2018, Sabina prepared a paper on “Understanding the effects of pesticides on children” through UNICEF. The paper advises corporations, governments and civil society on how to reduce the adverse environmental and health impacts of pesticides on future generations.

The paper benefited from engagement with stakeholders such as the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on toxic wastes.

Sabina is currently the host of her own podcast entitled “Talking Dirty Business,” where she speaks on major environmental, social and governance issues affecting today’s business landscape.

“For anyone trying to make a difference, do what you love. Sustainability is needed in every aspect of today’s society. In order to achieve it, we need passionate, tireless leaders.”

Devon Fernandes

24, Waterloo Region, Ontario

Devon is a co-founder of the Kitchener-Waterloo Library of Things (KW LOT) – a space where community members borrow infrequently used items such as tools, kitchen items and camping equipment. He gained support from local organizations and politicians to start the library and raised over $28,000 in funding. When he put out a call for community donated items to stock the library, the KW LOT team received over 350 items within hours.

While starting the KW LOT, Devon was also working as an environmental sustainability consultant at the Sustainable Societies Consulting Group, serving as a councillor on the Waterloo Riding Youth Council and sitting on the board of directors at Extend-A-Family Waterloo Region, an organization that helps children with disabilities.

Devon’s commitment to environmental advocacy led him to speak alongside other community leaders at Waterloo’s city council to advocate for the city to set an 80 per cent reduction target in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. For all his work, he has already been recognized as a winner of KW Awesome and one of Canada’s Top 25 Under 25 Environmentalists by The Starfish Canada.

“Regardless of your field, you can always promote environmental and social sustainability. If you want to make a difference, think about how you can make sustainable outcomes the norm in your field that ultimately benefit the planet and society.”

Leah Luciuk

26, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

While studying at University of Saskatchewan, Leah was president of the Environmental Studies Student Association. She organized academic, networking and social events, including a local concert called EcoBash that raised money in support of the first solar co-operative in Saskatchewan. She also coordinated the Saskatchewan Environmental Society (SES) Student Action for a Sustainable Future program, educating students about how to create measurable greenhouse gas reductions. During her time with SES, she created a toolkit to help other communities in Saskatchewan start their own renewable energy co-operative.

Leah now works full time with Saskatchewan Parks as the park program coordinator for the northeast region of the province, striving to protect and enhance natural and recreation spaces. She also volunteers with Ocean Bridge, a cohort of Canadian youth delivering projects across the country that focus on ocean literacy and conservation. During Ocean Bridge’s wilderness expedition to Haida Gwaii this past spring, the cohort connected with local residents, removed invasive species, conducted an intertidal survey and cleaned up over 1,150 kilograms of ocean debris.

“Surround yourself with others who are trying to make a difference, and always be visible to those who see things differently than you.”

Palash Ranjan
Sanyal

28, Rome, Italy

Palash is a sustainable development practitioner who focuses on the energy-food-water nexus. He has worked with TED Talk, Global Voices, WaterAid Bangladesh, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and other international organizations. He is currently mentoring with the Greenpreneur accelerator program, which seeks to bring sustainable business ideas to market, and working with IFAD.

With the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Environmental and Sustainability, Palash worked as a teaching assistant for the Department of Geography and researcher for the Global Institute for Water Security. He organized Climate Reality events and youth policy consultations on Canada’s youth policy for students. He represented students and connected with different department proponents as a member of the students’ council both in the School of Environment and Sustainability and the Graduate Students Association. He was selected as a science ambassador from the College of Arts and Science to work with Wollaston Lake First Nation. 

Palash is currently doing an internship at the International Fund for Agricultural Development in Rome.

“To me, sustainability is a transition between past, present and future where no one feels the effects of others. This may sound unrelated, but during high school, I was really moved reading about (economist) Ragnar Nurkse’s vicious circle of poverty. For me, it was always a cycle of past, present and future – the cycle of sustainability would be benevolent.”

Clare Church

26, Toronto

Clare works on both an international and local scale to promote sustainability among communities.

Globally, she works at the International Institute for Sustainable Development as a research officer dealing with the relationship between the environment, conflict and peacebuilding. This past year, she spearheaded a report that sought to understand how the transition to a low-carbon economy would impact conflict and violence dynamics in mineral-rich fragile states. The report found that some of the supply chains for green energy technologies lack the transparency or responsible sourcing governance required for a conflict-free low-carbon transition. She travelled around the world and brought stakeholders together to discuss this important issue. Currently, she is working on several follow-up projects on the topics of mineral recycling, the circular economy and climate change adaptation.

At the local level, Clare is a writer and editor for community-based consultancy Zero Waste Forest City. She writes the popular 720 to 0 blog, which documents her efforts to transition to a zero-waste lifestyle, one week at a time.

“I’m incredibly optimistic, because the solutions are already out there: communities around the world already hold the key to building a more sustainable future. It is imperative that we listen to them, provide support, and build local capacities to ensure that their voices are heard when and where they are needed most.”

Ethan Elliott

16, Stratford, Ontario

Ethan knows what it takes to be a great leader and what actions to take to bring positive environmental change in his community. As a dedicated member of Ontario Nature’s Youth Council and its youth-led campaign to protect native pollinators, he has brought the issue of pollinator decline to his hometown of Stratford. Ethan convinced the city to become Ontario’s second Bee City, an initiative led by Bee City Canada, which encourages municipalities to make commitments to protect pollinators and their habitat.

As the youth representative on Stratford’s Energy and Environment Committee, Ethan continues to bring the initiative to schools in the city, including Stratford Central Secondary School. He has resurrected the school’s gardening program, successfully planned and delivered a planting event to benefit pollinators and educated fellow peers about the issues around pollinator decline – all leading to Stratford Central’s Bee School designation.

Ethan is a young leader who is very passionate in contributing to the conservation movement through advocacy and education, and continues to be a positive influence on youth and adults who have had the pleasure of working with him.

“Don’t wait to make change; do it now. Our future relies upon action from all of us.”

Isabella O’Brien

16, Dundas, Ontario

Isabella first learned about ocean acidification at age 11 and she has been conducting scientific research on mitigating acidification issues in saltwater and freshwater bodies ever since.

Using spent oyster shells, currently a waste product of the marine aquaculture industry, Isabella developed a technique to use the calcium in these shells to combat the effects of ocean acidification as well as the emerging problem that acid rain has spawned in our freshwater lakes, namely ecological osteoporosis. Isabella’s work returns minerals from the sea to the ecosystems that need them and from which they originated, addressing both acidification issues as well as the emerging global issue of shell waste disposal.

She has earned major awards and recognition at national and international science fairs, and her work has been featured at museums in the Muskoka region. Isabella is also the ocean youth ambassador for the international NGO LemonSea, using social media (@EnvScienceGirl) to raise ocean acidification awareness. She also presented her research at the United Nations’ climate change conference in 2015 in Paris.

Her determination and dedication to environmental stewardship has shown that a young person with a curiosity and a passion for solving the world’s greatest environmental issues can be unstoppable.

“It is up to us to protect our planet. We must be the generation to stand up for our environment and ensure a sustainable future.”

Kaitlin Carroll

25, Toronto

Kaitlin is passionate about the creation of low-impact buildings that allow us to live in healthy, beautiful and resilient communities. She is a key component of the TowerWise team at The Atmospheric Fund (TAF), a regional agency that specializes in urban climate solutions. As TAF’s building energy and environmental researcher, Kaitlin works with the TowerWise energy retrofit team to examine indoor air quality and energy use within the built environment. Recently, she presented her research at the Clean Air Council, a regional meeting of 27 municipalities and health units across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

Outside of work, Kaitlin is the co-chair of the Emerging Green Professionals (EGP) Committee at the Canada Green Building Council’s Greater Toronto chapter, advocating for students and young professionals in the sustainable building industry. Kaitlin is the lead organizer for the annual EGP Design Charette, which challenges young building professionals to create innovative design solutions for local community concerns, including zero-carbon retrofits for Toronto schools and sustainable urban neighbourhood revitalization in Scarborough.

She is also a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC) and fluent in Japanese.

“Although there are a number of challenges to creating a more sustainable society, these challenges have created an open dialogue and produced collaborative solutions.”

Erinn Drage

23, Mammoth Lakes, California/ Halifax, Nova Scotia

Erinn is an outstanding advocate for protected areas – both within Canada and abroad. She dedicates her professional and personal lives to studying environmental protection, wilderness conservation, human-wildlife interactions and Indigenous protected areas, among so many other areas.

Erinn played a strong role in coordinating support for the Government of Canada’s largest ever investment in conservation: $1.3 billion in the 2018 federal budget. Her work involved representing key conservation organizations on Parliament Hill and rallying MP support across party lines.

Not only is Erinn vital to research and coordination in the area of conservation policy, but she is also a key contributor to conservation in the field. As an educator, she guides keen learners onboard polar trips with Quark Expeditions. As a researcher, she writes wilderness character narratives for the Society for Wilderness Stewardship and the U.S. Forest Service. As a creative individual, she produced a documentary on youth engagement, historic trails, and the great outdoors of the Sahtú region of the Northwest Territories that is slated for release in November 2018.

“Sustainability is about balance. It’s not about learning to balance on a thin beam though – it’s about building a stable platform on which we can all stand confidently, with no fear of falling off. In my opinion, that platform can only be built on empathy, passion and a profound understanding of the value of nature.”

Saeed Kaddoura

28, Calgary

Saeed’s career is dedicated to examining the complexities of achieving a sustainable low-carbon economy.

Saeed leads the New Energy Economy website, a public engagement project that celebrates success stories of sustainability in Alberta and supports Albertans toward joining the renewable energy transition. At the same time, he is involved in setting up the Business Renewables Centre Canada, a market-based platform that matches renewable energy developers with commercial and industrial buyers, helping companies reach their ambitious sustainability goals through voluntary investments in renewable energy projects.

As Canadian workers face the coal phaseout, Saeed recognizes the complexity of balancing environmental priorities with the needs of workers affected by this transition. At the 2018 Alberta Climate Summit, he organized a panel that brought together labour and municipality leaders from Canada and the U.S. for a frank discussion on the opportunities and challenges facing communities and workers in Canada as they encounter shifting energy sector job trends.

Saeed’s involvement in these projects exemplifies his commitment to a holistic approach for mitigating climate change, one that focuses on people, businesses and the environment. In his spare time, his love for food inspires his hobbies. When not tending to his urban farm, you can find him tweeting about food sustainability.

“As global citizens we need to start thinking of the collective role we play on Earth. I feel that recognizing that we are only one part of a larger ecosystem with a delicate balance is the first step to achieving sustainability.”

Meaghan Mendonca

29, Toronto

Meaghan is a community builder, creating connections for people that enhance the places we live and work. She is employed as a senior transportation advisor at transportation manager Metrolinx.

Meaghan’s impact is exemplified through her leadership in the delivery of new sustainable customer travel options to and from GO Transit Stations, including the rollout of electric vehicle charging, carpool parking, secure bike facilities and partnerships with Bike Share Toronto and car share providers. These programs enhance the GO customer experience and reduce local traffic congestion and the region’s greenhouse gas emissions, while saving customers time and money. The impact of climate change on transit operations and the built environment is increasingly relevant for Metrolinx as it electrifies GO Transit and undertakes the largest infrastructure investment in Canadian history. Meaghan played a key role in the integration of climate resiliency planning into how Metrolinx designs, builds and operates the transit of the future. This work is expected to increase transit service resiliency in extreme temperatures and precipitation, reduce energy costs and better enable us to consider the lifecycle of materials.

For her work, Meaghan was listed as one of the top 25 emerging public transit leaders for the class of 2019 by the American Public Transit Association.

“Sustainability needs to be integral in how we plan, build and live in our communities. Striving for equal opportunities for future generations means we need to better evaluate the longer-term impacts of the business and infrastructure decisions we make today, so potential exists tomorrow.”

Lauren Castelino

17, Markham, Ontario

At only 17, Lauren is already a change maker. Her journey started when she joined her environmental club at her elementary school. Soon after, at just 15 years old, she successfully received a government grant to launch an all-natural, vegan and cruelty-free skincare line called Naturally Be-Youthiful.

Lauren was later encouraged to join Global Figure, a youth-led non-profit that aims to engage, equip and empower youth for a more sustainable future.

At her high school, Lauren co-founded her school’s first Eco Club, and wrote grant proposals that led to the club securing $3,750 in funding for their events. Lauren also founded her school’s Garden Project, where she created an organic vegetable and herbs garden. Produce from this garden was then used in the school’s cafeteria and donated to local soup kitchens.

Recently, Lauren founded a non-profit, Pitch It Green, where high school students will have the opportunity to pitch sustainability-focused business/ non-profit ideas and be evaluated by industry professionals. Lauren has raised funds to support this project through an environmentally-friendly subscription box service called Ecopreneur Box, where the sustainable products of local ecopreneurs are featured.

“The sustainability movement is not limited to what already exists. There is a tremendous amount of room for innovation. If opportunities are unavailable, create your own.”

Kristina Mlakar

25, Mississauga, Ontario

At the age of 25, Kristina works as the national operations manager for the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), a non-profit that drives shifts in the transportation sector.

Kristina leads CUTRIC’s National Smart Vehicle Demonstration and Integration Trial which will integrate fully autonomous and electric shuttles in up to 13 cities across Canada. The project goals are to: deploy autonomous shuttles as a “first-mile/ last-mile” solution to overcome current accessibility and convenience barriers for ridership; empirically demonstrate greenhouse gas reductions through increased ridership on mass transit and the displacement of fossil fuel internal combustion engines with battery electric propulsion systems; and ensure that autonomous and connected vehicles are deployed in a manner that considers 21st century urban design challenges and rural service challenges.

Outside of CUTRIC, Kristina has previously worked with the Advanced Energy Centre at MaRS Discovery District to provide a foundation for future customer engagement tools within the ever-changing technological landscape of the energy sector. Kristina also volunteers with Women in Renewable Energy to coordinate student attendees at the Ontario Energy Network Luncheons, which gives students interested in the energy sector an opportunity to network and learn from industry leaders.

“Being a sustainability champion is important to me because the people in the world whose lifestyles contribute least to climate change are the ones who feel the largest impacts. This is not just. Therefore, I see it as my moral obligation to integrate sustainability objectives into our Western society.”

Aaron Wilhelm

27, Toronto

Aaron’s leadership and commitment to sustainability at Toronto Hydro has been instrumental in the energy company being recognized by Corporate Knights on the Future 40 list in 2017 as well as on the Best 50 Corporate Citizens list in 2018.

His detailed analysis of data and development of key initiatives helped the utility divert 90 per cent of its waste to recycling in 2017, both from office buildings and electrical facilities. Specifically, his work helped reduce paper consumption by nearly 500,000 sheets and reduce vehicle idling by nearly 20 per cent.

In 2018, Aaron planned and coordinated a Sustainability Road Show that travelled across Toronto Hydro locations to help introduce employees to sustainability programs. He is currently planning a Shoreline Cleanup activity.

Aaron also works tirelessly with Toronto Hydro’s facilities team to identify and quantify opportunities for further waste reduction in energy and water portfolios, helping the utility win a Building Owners and Managers Association of Ontario’s Best Silver certification for its Commissioners Street location.

He also plays a critical role in the maintenance of Toronto Hydro’s environmental management system as well as being responsible for authoring its corporate responsibility report.

“Sustainability is about preserving our ability to enjoy the natural environment while improving the quality of life for everyone. I haven’t met a person who does not see beauty somewhere in the natural environment or recognize the value of helping those around us.”

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As Alberta moves to retire coal-fired power, the province will have to replace it with new sources. The current plan calls for a mix of natural gas and renewable generation to fill the void, with renewables to meet two-thirds of the capacity lost due to coal-plant retirements.

However, several studies suggest Alberta would benefit from greater electricity trade with BC Hydro, which could provide hydroelectric power to its neighbour when needed and offer a market for wind-generated electricity when supply in Alberta exceeds off-peak demand.

Federal ministers have talked about the importance of connecting interprovincial grids to maximize the benefits of investments in green energy. Ottawa is considering financing for regional transmission projects through its new Canada Infrastructure Bank or through federal climate-change programs that earmark more than $2 billion for the two western provinces.

Increased energy trade between Alberta and British Columbia holds great promise but there are major hurdles that must be overcome. They include the tendency of provinces to prefer costlier domestic generation to imports, as well as a mismatch in the two markets. BC Hydro enjoys a near monopoly, while Alberta has a competitive wholesale pricing system.   

Still, with all governments looking to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the electricity sector, western Canada would benefit greatly from the expansion of interprovincial transmission capacity, said Nicholas Martin, a policy analyst at Calgary-based Canada West Foundation.

“The most effective way to [decarbonize the electricity system] is to develop a lot of good wind resources in the Prairies and have a lot more interprovincial transmission capacity to send it where it needs to go and back it up with hydro from Manitoba and B.C.,” Martin said in an interview.

Co-operation among provinces on electricity trade has been elusive. And now is a fraught time for energy relations between Canada’s two most westerly provinces.

Earlier this year, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley suspended talks on electricity trade as a result of the B.C. government’s efforts to block expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. United Conservative Party opposition leader Jason Kenney has pushed Notley to be even more aggressive in punishing B.C. for its government’s actions that are seen to damage Alberta’s economy by denying export markets for its crude.

Proponents of greater B.C.-Alberta electricity trade argue it is in the interest of electricity consumers and producers in both provinces, given the determination to reduce GHG emissions in the system.

Notley has committed Alberta to closing its coal-fired generating stations by 2030. That represents 6,300 megawatts (MWs) of electricity capacity, or nearly 40 per cent of the province’s total. Under the NDP plan, renewables – mainly wind – would support 30 per cent of the province’s electricity capacity by 2030.

Natural Resources Canada recently completed a study on Regional Electricity Cooperation and Strategic Infrastructure (RECSI), which was done in collaboration with the four western provinces, the Northwest Territories and their main grid operators. It concluded that two B.C.-Alberta interties, or transmission connections, could be added at an annual cost of $122 million, and would reduce GHG emissions by two megatonnes at an average cost of about $63 per tonne.

Canada West Foundation’s Martin said the RECSI study did not include any savings that would accrue from not having to build natural gas plants to cover the variability of wind power. Nor did it calculate the benefit to Alberta wind producers of having access to an export market when their supply exceeded demand in the province.

(The Saskatchewan Party government in that province has committed to rely on renewable power for 50 per cent of its power capacity by 2030, as it closes coal plants that are not equipped with carbon capture technology. The RECSI study argues two proposed interties with hydro-rich Manitoba would save the two provinces $22 million and reduce GHGs at a cost of less than $42 per tonne.)

A University of Ottawa study, published in February, also concluded provinces can achieve emission reductions most efficiently by expanding regional grids. Hydroelectricity is the perfect complement to wind power, because water can be held back when the wind is blowing and released when it dies down.

That work, by Brett Dolter and Nicholas Rivers, found that expanding wind power capacity brings cheap emission reductions. The most cost-effective way to balance the variability of wind would be with existing hydro dams and enhanced electricity trade between the provinces, they concluded.

One Alberta-based analyst has calculated that an additional 1,700 MW intertie between the provinces would provide $194 million per year in savings to Alberta ratepayers and $120 million per year in extra revenue to wind producers in Alberta. The intertie, which would come at a cost of $2.1 billion, would reduce annual GHGs by 2.2 million tonnes. The analyst provided his conclusions to Corporate Knights on the condition he not be named because his company has not authorized the analysis.

Alberta and British Columbia already have 1,200 MW of cross-border transmission, but it is currently restricted to 850 MW due to concerns about the impact on the entire grid if the transmission lines went down in a storm.

The two provinces have discussed how to expand usage of that line and Alberta has put out a call for “demand response proposals” that would reduce peak demand, said Blake Shaffer, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Calgary who has worked for BC Hydro and TransAlta.

Shaffer said the great value of an interprovincial transmission line is that it carries electricity both ways: supplying power to Alberta at peak times on summer afternoons when the wind is low, but also providing a market to Alberta producers when there is a surplus in the province.

It can be a tough sell in Alberta, however, which would be importing when the market is tight and prices are high and exporting when there is surplus power generation available and prices are low.

“Alberta would have a trade deficit [in electricity] in terms of dollar but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing,” Shaffer said.

As well, the fact that BC Hydro dominates the wholesale market in that province, while Alberta has an openly competitive system with many private players, complicates how electricity could be traded. Some market reform would be required to maximize the value of an expanded interprovincial grid, the Canada West Foundation said in a 2016 study.

The critical question is: What is the alternative? Without imports, Alberta would have to run high-price natural gas plants designed specifically for covering peak demand, which would be costlier for consumers than relying on B.C. hydroelectricity, Shaffer said.

The studies on the cost effectiveness of regional transmission assume governments intend to continue driving down emissions in the electricity systems.

However, it is not clear what a new Alberta government would do if Kenney defeats Notley in next spring’s election. He currently has a commanding lead in the polls.

He may follow the lead of Saskatchewan’s conservative government and maintain an ambitious renewable power target. But he has vowed to eliminate the carbon tax, which provides incentives to use renewable power and import hydroelectricity rather than rely on natural gas.

Alberta has vast pools of natural gas, and producers who have struggled for years with rock-bottom prices are eager for new markets.

Given the current political climate, Kenney may be loath to pursue a policy that could be construed to benefit British Columbia at the cost of Alberta gas producers.

Still, Shaffer said the retirement of the coal-fired power plants is providing plenty of opportunity for gas producers.

“My view is a combination of resources is the best option,” he said, “and having a greater amount of interties with BC Hydro doesn’t preclude a significant amount of natural-gas capacity development in Alberta.”

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