Germain ArchambaultPresident – General Manager, Le Group Lavergne Inc.
Germain Archambault is a graduate from the École Polytechnique de Montréal (BSc Chemical Engineering, 1979) and holds an MBA from McGill University – HEC University of Montréal. Germain Archambault is presently President – General Manager of The Lavergne Group Inc. Lavergne is a leader in the design and manufacture of engineering resins used in electronics, automobile and many other applications where specific resin properties are needed. The particularity of the Lavergne product line is that most products are made of, or contain recycled resins. The Lavergne Group is one of the largest producer of engineering resins of this kind, containing recycled materials, in North America. For more than 20 years, Mr. Archambault has managed companies producing plastics, plastic components and packaging. More recently he managed Interplast Packaging, a company that produces egg packaging made from 100% recycled PET. The sustainability strategy implemented by Mr. Archambault and his management permitted Interplast to become the largest producer of PET / RPET egg packaging in North America. He has been involved in many activities related to the environment and sustainable business practices for many years and manages his companies with sustainability in mind. Mr. Archambault is the Chairman of the board of the Council of Sustainable Industries, a non-profit organisation that promotes and accompanies organisations that wish to implement sustainability strategies within their organisations. He recently was the Chairman of the board of the Centre Patronal sur la Santé et la Sécurité au Travail (leadership centre for health and safety in Quebec). He has also participated on various government led sustainability efforts, more recently on the joint committee on recycled materials with the Quebec Government (Comité conjoint sur les matières recyclables). |
Dayna BaumeisterCo-founder and Keystone of Biomimicry 3.8
Dayna received a BS in marine biology from New College in Sarasota, Florida; an MS in resource conservation and a PhD in organismic biology and ecology from The University of Montana in Missoula, specializing in the dynamics of positive interactions among animal and plant life. Dayna has worked in the field of biomimicry with business partner Janine Benyus since 1998 as a business catalyst, educator, researcher, and design consultant. Together they founded the Biomimicry Guild consulting practice, The Biomimicry Institute 501c3, and most recently, Biomimicry3.8, a B-Corp social enterprise that trains, certifies, and connects biomimicry professionals worldwide. In her role as Biologist at the Design Table, Dayna helped more than 100 companies consult the natural world for elegant and sustainable design solutions, including Nike, Interface, General Mills, Boeing, Herman-Miller, Kohler, Seventh Generation and Procter & Gamble. |
Mike BiddleFounder and Director, MBA Polymers Inc.
Dr. Biddle started MBA over 20 years ago - literally from his garage – and grew it to the world’s leading multi-national company recovering plastics from end-of-life durable goods, such as computers, electronics, automobiles and now household waste. MBA has over 300 million lbs/yr of processing capacity in Europe and China.
Mike has received numerous international awards such as the prestigious 2012 Gothenburg Award (previous winners include Al Gore, Kofi Annan and Gro Harlem Brundtland), 2010 Economist Innovation Award, Intel Tech Museum Environmental Award, Tech Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum, Thomas Alva Edison Award for Innovation and many others.
Mike’s TED talk has received praise from around the world with over 3/4 million views as it has been hosted by over 50 different websites. A new Big SHFT 3-minute documentary features Mike as one of “10 Innovators Changing the World”. |
Alan BlakeExecutive Director, PAC NEXT
Alan Blake joined PACNEXT in September 2012, and over the past year has been sharing their vision of A World without Packaging Waste and engaging industry partners to find better end-of-life solutions for all packaging materials. Prior to PACNEXT, Alan retired from Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati with 30 years experience in the consumer goods industry including 20 years of global packaging design and development expertise. He led P&G's global packaging sustainability program with a focus on their 2020 goals and long term packaging sustainability vision. Alan has served on the Sustainable Packaging Coalition Executive Committee and the board of GreenBlue and is currently a member of the board of The Packaging Association (PAC). |
Shelley CarrollCouncillor, City of Toronto, Ward 33 Don Valley East
Elected in 2003, Shelley committed to creating a more inclusive and equitable city — one that is economically sustainable and environmentally friendly. In her first term, she worked as a member of the Budget Committee to make City Hall more efficient, finding over $200 million in savings while protecting essential services. She served as Chair of the Works Committee, which deals with Toronto's most pressing issues like garbage, recycling, water, sewers and roads. In 2006, Shelley became Toronto's Budget Chief, managing the City's $9.2 billion budget, and achieved $576 million in ongoing operating efficiencies over 4 years. Shelley has been a Don Valley East resident since 1967, where she lives with her family. She was involved in her community long before becoming an official public servant, working with parents and teachers of the North York Parent Assembly for a better education system. |
Joseph ChiodoDesigner and Inventor, Active Disassembly
Dr. Joseph Chiodo conducts R&D in eco-design, designing for circular economy systems, product disassembly and dematerialization. He will soon be Head of Product Innovation, Corporate and Social Responsibility at a therapeutic and pharmaceutical company. Dr. Chiodo is currently writing a series of illustrated educational reference guidelines for circular economy and eco-design manuals. Throughout his career, he has led cross continental R&D consortiums, and advised numerous academia, companies, and governments including Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Mitsubishi, the EU Commission, the UK Department of Trade and Industry, and various recycling technology providers, focusing on eco-design engineering, remanufacturing and smart materials. His work includes numerous patents, technology, and applied science and product inventions. Dr. Chiodo invented ‘Active Disassembly’ (AD) – a technology that employs conventional and smart materials in the design of releasable fasteners and actuators to aid the non-destructive dismantling and selective disassembly of component and product reuse. This process retains the added value of products and their products, fostering upcycling. This retains precious metals, critical materials and rare earth metals, saving 80% of the environmental impact at each subsequent lifecycle preventing the need for new mining, energy use and other environmental and natural resource processing.
His work has been published widely, and Dr. Chiodo continues to be the recipient of numerous awards for these achievements. Through his website, he has authored some of the world’s most downloaded ‘Design for’ strategy documents. His work, ‘The World’s First Self Recyclable Mobile’ was presented to the Queen of England; most recently, Dr. Chiodo was the recipient of the Emerald Literati Network 2013 Awards for Excellence for an Outstanding Paper: Assembly Automation, Highly Commended Volume 1 number 32, Smart materials use in active disassembly, Joseph Chiodo, Nick Jones. |
Steve CreedDirector of Business Development, WRAP UK
A graduate engineer from the University of British Columbia, Steve Creed has been living and working in the UK since 1979. During the first 20 years he worked in a number of consultancy roles leading to being appointed as Managing Director of Stanger Science and Environment, an environmental consultancy business that was part of Carillion plc. As Director for the Environment at Carillion he contributed to the development of their approach to sustainable development. Steve joined WRAP in February 2002 as Director of Business and Procurement Programmes, with a remit to stimulate growth of the reprocessing sector and procurement of recycled goods and products. He has directed the development and implementation of several of WRAP’s Business Support services. He also directed several business and consumer focussed initiatives including the setting of targets for recycled content in construction projects which have now been adopted by several public and private organizations in the UK. He directed the development of WRAP’s programme to accelerate the growth of the recycling sector and the development of a specific programme for Third Sector enterprises. In his current role as Director of Business Growth, one of his key responsibilities is leading the expansion of WRAP’s proven approach to delivering resource efficiency, but outside of the UK. This includes working with international organizations such as UNEP, FAO, the Ellen McArthur Foundation as well as in-country organizations similar to WRAP. |
Rich GilbertCo-founder, The Agency of Design (United Kingdom)
Rich Gilbert is the co-founder of The Agency of Design, a design consultancy helping organisations design a better future by re-thinking our physical and digital worlds.
Rich trained and worked as an industrial designer before studying for an MA and MSc at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London. An embodied energy catalogue of his life, a dislike for toothbrush design and 3 toasters later, he was thoroughly engaged in the complex challenges of achieving a sustainable future.
Today he is part product designer, part service designer and part strategist, working with a range of clients from medical startups to multinationals and government departments. Recent projects range from hand sanitizing door handles to rethinking DIY for the circular economy. |
Jason Graham-NyeCo-founder & CEO, gDiapers
Jason has had a circuitous route to the Executive Suite of a diaper company. He started his career with Nomura Securities in Tokyo as an Equity broker, making tremendous money but not a lot of meaning. He returned to his native Australia to teach Japanese at high school. This was meaningful work but, alas, it nearly did bankrupt him. Around that time he met his future wife and together they went dating 200 times. They co-authored two dating guidebooks that morphed into “2’s Company” Boutique Event Management. With all the romance, a wedding and babies were inevitable. And with babies came the question of which diapers to use. Once they learned that one disposable diaper takes 500 years to biodegrade, and that every day 50,000,000 diapers are going into landfill, they were on a mission to find an alternative. They happened upon a flushable, compostable diaper technology from Tasmania, licensed the rights outside of Australia & New Zealand and moved 10,000 miles to Portland, Oregon to launch gDiapers.
Jason is a regular speaker and has appeared on programs such as Donny Deutsch ‘s “Big Idea” on CNBC and the Today Show. He is a member of YPO and has been chosen to be on CNBC / YPO’s speaking roster. He is passionate about disruptive innovation in product design, company culture and the venture capital world. |
Nadine GudzDirector, Sustainability Strategy, Interface
As Director of Sustainability Strategy with global carpet tile manufacturer, Interface, Nadine drives and develops sustainability leadership through education, community engagement and innovative market solutions.
With more than 16 years experience in the fields of environmental education and planning, Nadine taught in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University and served as a research fellow with the Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability before joining Interface. Her areas of expertise include sustainable business strategy, organizational change and learning, materials stewardship, and ecological design. Based in Toronto, she serves on a number of local and international boards and committees.
Nadine is a LEED Accredited Professional and moonlights as a Doctoral candidate, researching the links between organizational learning and stakeholder theory to accelerate sustainable business. |
David HockingDivision Manager, Corporate Communications, Metro Vancouver
Through his career he has held a variety of communications positions, including Communications Director for the David Suzuki Foundation, one of Canada’s leading environmental organizations, and Public Affairs Director for Petro Canada, formerly Canada’s national oil company. He has also worked as a consultant in communications and in human resources, as a journalist, and as a public school teacher in Montreal and in Calgary.
He has also been an elected official – a municipal councillor for the Municipality of Bowen Island and a member of the Board of Metro Vancouver. |
David KatzFounder and CEO, The Plastic Bank
David Katz is the President of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (E.O.) Vancouver Chapter and recent winner of the organizations Global Citizen Award. This award is given to one member of the E.O. each year that uses their entrepreneurial skills to make positive change. This award recognizes David’s new venture, The Plastic Bank.
The Plastic Bank provides an opportunity for the world’s poor to collect and trade plastic waste as a currency. The Plastic Bank recently received the Recycling Committee of
British Columbia Innovation Award for creating the world’s first 3D printed items from recycled ocean plastic. David is also the Founder and CEO of a very successful GPS tracking business of over10 years, Nero Global Tracking. Nero Global Tracking provides software as a service to thousands of vehicles nationally, allowing its customers to reduce the expenses associated with a mobile workforce. |
Alexa KieltyZero Waste Specialist, San Francisco Environment, City and County of San Francisco
Alexa Kielty has been working for San Francisco’s Department of the Environment’s Zero Waste Program since 2001 and has had the opportunity to help develop San Francisco zero waste policies and programs from the ground up, assisting the City reach its current 80 percent diversion rate. She has played an integral role in working with the residential sector, particularly multi-family buildings, working to get them into compliance with the strongest recycling ordinance in the USA. Most recently she has launched San Francisco’s Zero Waste Textile Initiative in partnership with non-profits and for-profit sectors. She is a graduate of University of California Santa Cruz Environmental Studies program with a focus in Agro-ecology.
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Emma LangsonConsultant, Plastic Oceans Foundation
Emma grew up in Hong Kong and returned to the UK, where she began her career in Marketing and PR. Over the past 9 years she has had a successful career in fundraising and was a member of the Institute of Fundraising in the UK before moving to Vancouver BC in 2009 with her family. Her involvement with Plastic Oceans Foundation came from her natural interest in the marine environment having lived by the coast in HK, the UK and now BC. When she learned about the extent of the problem of plastic waste in our oceans and how it is affecting not just marine wildlife, but ultimately human health, she felt compelled to do something about it and has joined Plastic Oceans Foundation as a Consultant. Plastic Oceans Foundation are not only working to reduce our dependence on single-use plastic but are making a documentary feature film to inform the public about the issue. They believe this problem can be turned around within a generation.
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Brock MacdonaldExecutive Director, Recycling Council of British Columbia
Brock Macdonald joined the Recycling Council of British Columbia (RCBC) as Communications Director in 2004 and served in that capacity until he was appointed to the role of CEO in 2006. From 2000 to 2004 he was communications manager for Product Care Association; one of B.C.’s first regulated industry stewardship agencies. Brock is a former educator and an award-winning print and broadcast journalist whose business communications and marketing experience includes the computer software, manufacturing and sports entertainment sectors. His primary focus now is leading RCBC’s efforts to assist governments and industry in the implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility programs and other waste prevention initiatives as strategies in a systems thinking approach to develop a sustainable zero-waste based, closed-loop economy. |
Brad MarchantChief Executive Officer, Enterra Feed Corporation
Brad Marchant is Chief Executive Officer with Enterra Feed Corporation - an innovative company that up-cycles pre-consumer food waste, primarily fruits and vegetables, from grocery stores, markets, greenhouse operations, food processors and food distributors, using a natural insect-based system to grow natural proteins, oils and an organic fertilizer. Enterra's hatchery operation captures complex food nutrients from feedstock that is normally lost to composting or waste-to-energy operations, and closes the food loop to create renewable food for animals and plants. Brad is a specialist in technology company start-ups, financing, and operations with over thirty years of experience in plant operations, business commercialization and management. He focuses on unique technology combinations using process biotechnology and production engineering to define sustainable business practices. Enterra is Brad's fourth start-up company. |
Lewis PerkinsSenior Vice-president, Development and Textiles & Apparel
Prior to joining the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, Lewis consulted to companies both big and small on creating programs and awareness for environmental and social initiatives. Perkins led the "green" charge as director of sustainable strategies for The Mohawk Group, a leading carpet manufacturer and commercial division of Mohawk Industries. He continues draw on this passion and experience to help advance the Institute’s mission of scaling Cradle to Cradle Product Certification worldwide. Over the past two decades, Perkins has served in a strategic role with such organizations as The Clean Air Campaign, 360i, USWeb/ CKS and The Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center. Perkins holds a Master of Business Administration in marketing and strategy with a focus on social responsibility from Emory University and a Bachelor of Arts from Washington & Lee University. His passion for nonprofit work has put him in an advisory or leadership role with EarthShare of Georgia, The Green Chamber of The South, The Captain Planet Foundation and Sustainable Life Media. Perkins has been a featured speaker on sustainability at 2009 Forbes Magazine Green Visionary Series, Sustainable Brands, LOHAS Forum, The White House Council for Environmental Quality GreenGov Symposium in 2010 and for the 53rd & 54th Annual Grammy Awards Green Summit panel. |
Mary PolakMinister of Environment
Mary Polak was re-elected to the B.C. legislature in May 2013, having represented the constituents of Langley since 2005. She was appointed Minister of Environment June 10, 2013.
Prior to her new cabinet post, she served as the Minister Transportation and Infrastructure, Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, Minister of Children and Family Development and Minister Responsible for Child Care, Minister of Healthy Living and Sport, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health for the Conversation on Health.
Before being elected to the legislative assembly, Polak served as a trustee and former chair of the Surrey school board. |
Toby ReidFounder and CEO, Solegear Bioplastics Inc.
Toby Reid is the founder & CEO at Vancouver-based Solegear Bioplastics Inc., an advanced materials technology company focused on providing customers with bio-based plastics for their product and packaging manufacturing needs.
With customers in the cosmetics, electronics, IT, personal care and toy industries, and awards for product development and entrepreneurship, Toby has represented Solegear speaking on bioplastics and green chemistry at international conferences and tradeshows.
Solegear was most recently awarded the Best Emerging Technology Award by the Globe Foundation and also was recognized with the Global Cleantech Cluster Association's Later Stage Award in Lahti, Finland at the end of 2013.
Toby received his Bachelor of Commerce from Dalhousie University, specializing in Finance and Marketing, with a self-admitted "intense crush on biology". His passion for sustainability and entrepreneurship led him to found Solegear in 2006, and he now has four international patents in the green chemistry space to his credit. |
Sandy RodgerLead, Project MainStream, Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Sandy joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in 2013 to lead MainStream. This is a joint project with the World Economic Forum and McKinsey, establishing CEO-level collaboration to accelerate the transition to the “circular economy” – the new economic model which is regenerative and restorative by design, with materials in cycles of re-use, rather than the one-time use which dominates today’s “linear economy.”
Sandy is a business leader with 30 years industrial experience, leading manufacturing, supply chain, and R&D. He served on the board of a $9Bn Unilever business, led a business turnaround for Diageo, and was Diageo’s corporate head of R&D and safety / environment. He is an engineer with an MBA and Environmental Systems Masters, and has wider sustainability experience at urban/community level.
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Mark TrotzukPresident, Boardroom Eco Apparel
Mark Trotzuk is the Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Boardroom -Eco Apparel, a clothing design and manufacturing company based in Vancouver BC. Mark holds an economics/agriculture degree from The University of British Columbia and after playing one season of professional hockey in Germany, returned to Canada. In 1996, Mark opened a clothing design and manufacturing Business called “Boardroom Custom Clothing” which is now in its 18th year of operation. In 2005, Mark initiated a big change at Boardroom by launching ECO-Apparel - a clothing brand made exclusively from environmentally friendly materials that is committed to environment, health, and safety at every level of manufacturing from raw materials to distribution.
In 2008, Mark’s passion for the environment brought him the opportunity to train with Al Gore as a presenter for The Climate Project - a Canadian initiative to increase awareness of global warming and climate change. Mark is also an “Ambassador” for the David Suzuki Foundation, delivering interactive workshops to workplaces interested in greening their business.
Fun Fact: When travelling, Mark has been known to collect plastic soda bottles in cities and towns that do not have proper recycling bins and brings them home to properly dispose of them - even though he realizes that flying plastic bottles thousands of miles back to Vancouver on a plane defeats the whole purpose of trying to mitigate impacts to the environment.
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Saskia van GendtCaptain Planet, Method Products PBC
Saskia is Captain Planet for Method Products PBC based in San Francisco. Method designs cleaning and personal care products that work for people and the planet. Using lifecycle analysis and systems thinking, Saskia applies the science of sustainability with the strategy of business to influence and improve all aspects of the company. She leads greenskeeping projects for North America covering packaging, ingredients, supply chain, green building, and third-party certifications through Cradle to Cradle and B Corp. Saskia studied industrial ecology at Leiden and Delft Universities and environmental science at Northwestern University. Prior to Method, Saskia led material sustainability projects in packaging and green building at the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. |
