A transition is happening. Over the past few years, our world is increasingly paying attention to the collective problem we have at hand: climate change. It has become more clear that no single discipline, sector, or country can single-handily be responsible for driving change, and that cross-consultation and collaboration is necessary. The question becomes "How?" How do we enable innovation across all sectors? How does climate and social justice relate? How can business react to or influence public policy? And, most importantly, how could we turn climate risks into opportunities for growth and resiliency?
Join our expert panelist for insights into answer these questions as they discuss the importance of cross-disciplinary solutions and innovations and how our bright minds, diverse backgrounds and creative thinking can create a brighter future, together.
Moderator: Tim Gray, Executive Director, Environmental Defence
Tim grew up on the shores of Lake Huron and acquired his love of nature there. He has over 30 years experience developing and implementing environmental policy change efforts. These have included major shifts in land conservation, forest practices and climate change. Starting out his career as a biologist and policy analyst, Tim has spent a lot of time learning skills that move complex environmental issues toward resolution. He has worked with other change makers on the front lines of conflict and has also taken his skills inside to work on government advisory committees and in complex negotiations with industry. Tim completed an H.BSc. at Wilfrid Laurier University and a M.Sc. at the University of Toronto.
Speakers:
Denise Pinto, Innovation Manager & Lead Design Facilitator at Accenture's Canada Innovation Hub
Denise is a design strategist, social innovator, and systems thinker focused on helping companies contribute to inclusive and sustainable economies. As a Lead Designer for Accenture’s Canada Innovation Hub, she helps leaders across North America invent a more impactful and ethical future for their businesses and allocate resources toward realizing those visions. Based on over a decade of work with government, non-profit, and corporate clients, Denise is relentless about creating a structured innovation approach for ESG (environmental, social and governance) transformation using design thinking methods. With climate change and social unrest intensifying, she believes solutions require all of us to respond with new ways of thinking. Although much of her work is focused on Fortune 100 companies, she is most passionate about finding opportunities for coalitions and cross-industry partnerships to break silos and overcome orthodoxies. It’s been said that a conversation with Denise will leave you with a host of frameworks and processes you can use today to align your business with the global movement of stewards advocating for systems change. Denise is a 2021 Fellow of The League of Intrapreneurs, a BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt program. She was formerly the Creative Director for Courage Co-Lab, a company she co-founded to help bring creative thinking to the social sector. She held the role of Executive Director of the global community project, Jane's Walk, which engaged residents in over 200 cities around the world to walk together and more deeply understand their own neighbourhoods through dialogue. Denise was also a recipient of a Medal of Excellence at the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's Urban Design Awards, and in 2016, was named a Vital Person by the Toronto Foundation. She has delivered keynote talks around the world, including in Vienna, Hong Kong, and at Brown University in Rhode Island. Denise holds a Bachelor of Design from the Ontario College of Art and Design, a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Toronto, and a specialization in Knowledge Media from the Knowledge Media Design Institute.
Yannick Beaudoin, Director General, Ontario and Northern Canada of David Suzuki Foundation
Dr Yannick Beaudoin is Director of Innovation and for Ontario with the David Suzuki Foundation. He brings a ‘new economics for transition’ lens to the organization to enable the transformation of Canada towards social and ecological sustainability. Until recently, he was Chief Scientist of GRID-Arendal, a center collaborating with the United Nations Environment Programme, located in Norway. From circular economy to the SDGs, he has worked to enable placed-based sustainability approaches all over the world. He applies an art of change and participatory social processes to a variety of themes that include: adaptation to uncertain climate futures; embedding of local, traditional and indigenous knowledge in policy-, decision- and choice-making; promoting a transition to a sustainable relationship between society and Nature. Activities involve working with governments, local communities, industry, academia and other actors to design societal systems, processes and approaches that increase human well-being while preserving and enhancing Nature. Most recently, Yannick has been facilitating conversations with decision makers across Canada, highlighting various examples of beyond-GDP economics. He has been co-leading the inception of the Well-being Economies Alliance for Canada and Sovereign Indigenous Nations (WEAll Can) which seeks to enable co-creative and design spaces to help in re-imagining the purpose of an economy. Yannick holds a Phd in Marine Geology from the University of Toronto and a Masters in Economics for Transition from Schumacher College/University of Plymouth in the UK.
Oana Branzei, Professor of Strategy and Sustainability at Ivey Business School, Western University
Oana Branzei (she/her) is the Donald F. Hunter Professor of International Business and Professor of Strategy and Sustainability at the Ivey Business School, Western University in Canada. She is also the founding Director of the Sustainability Certificate program, the founder, convener and host of PhD Sustainability Academy, an annual event of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability, and the co-founder of the Spring Institute. Ivey champion for the United Nation’s Principles for Responsible Education for a decade (2011-2021), she has recently launched the ESG/SDG platform for Ivey Publishing. Oana heads her global Resilience Lab, originally formed with funding from her Early Researcher Award, and collaborates with rapid-response research teams tackling real-time social and environmental crises on five continents. Professor Branzei was also a Western Faculty Scholar (2018-2020), currently sits on the Western University Research Board and Senate, and serves on Western’s Interdisciplinary Development Initiatives adjudication committee and the Advisory Board of the Africa Institute. Oana chairs the Social Sciences Panel for the Early Researcher Awards for Ontario’s Ministry of Innovation (2018-present) and was an adjudicator for Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Ontario COVID-19 Rapid Research Fund. She studies, teaches and advocates for inclusive organizing (prosocial, cross-sector, circular, place-based, and regenerative) that respond to grand challenges (GCs), attend to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) priorities and advance the Social Developmental Goals (SDGs). Her academic research has been published in the Academy of Management Discoveries, Business & Society, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of World Business, Journal of International Business Studies, Organization, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal.
Twitter: @OanaBranzei
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