Urban Century
As former premier of British Columbia, Mayor of Vancouver and City Councillor, Mike Harcourt helped British Columbia earn its reputation as one of the most livable, accessible and inclusive places in the world. His focus on conservation and sustainable development – and his resolve to contribute to the transformation of cities and communities around the world – has played a significant role in promoting quality of life for those in Canada and abroad.
After stepping down from politics, he was appointed by the Prime Minister to serve as a member of the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy, where he served on the Executive Committee and Chaired the Urban Sustainability Program. He was a Federally appointed B.C. Treaty Commissioner and was Chair of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Committee for Cities and Communities and co-chaired the National Advisory Committee on the UN-HABITAT World Urban Forum in Vancouver in 2006.
Harcourt is Honorary Co-Chair at the University of British Columbia’s President’s Advisory Council on sustainability, as well as Associate Director of the Centre for Sustainability Continuing Studies at U.B.C. In addition to acting as Chairman of Quality Urban Energy Systems for Tomorrow (QUEST) www.questcanada.org, he chairs the Canadian Electricity Association’s Sustainable Electricity Program Advisory Panel. Mike Harcourt is a trusted Advisor to Translink Transportation, cities and communities, and is a member of City of Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Team. He also was part of an advisory group that helped Whistler put together it’s Natural Step based on sustainable cities strategy.
Harcourt’s exemplary career as Lawyer, Community Activist, and Politician has been honoured, with the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service and the Canadian Urban Institute’s Jane Jacobs Lifetime Achievement Award. He was awarded the U.B.C. Alumni Achievement Award of Distinction for contributions to British Columbia, Canada and the global community in November 2008.
In 1993 Al Gore applauded Premier Harcourt, for permanently preserving the jointly shared ecosystem of the Tatshenshini River and Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park in Northwest British Columbia.
He is the author of: A Measure of Defiance and co-author of Plan B: one Man’s Journey from Tragedy to Triumph and co-author of City Making in Paradise.
Mike Harcourt is a Speaker and Advisor internationally on sustainable cities.
Air Quality and Climate Change – The Best of Both Worlds
Prof. Martin Williams is in the Environmental Research Group in King’s College, London. He was formerly Head of the Air Quality Division in the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the UK. He graduated in Chemistry from the University of Wales, Cardiff, and took a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Bristol. After postdoctoral research at UBC in Vancouver, Canada, he joined the air pollution division of the Government’s Warren Spring Laboratory, becoming the Division’s Head in 1982. After a period as technical assistant to the Chief Scientist of the Department of Trade and Industry, he joined the then Department of the Environment to head the Science Unit on Air Quality, becoming Head of the Division in 2002, where he had responsibility for policy on air quality and industrial air pollution control. He is currently chairman of the Executive Body of the UNECE Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution and holds a Visiting Professorship in Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of Southampton.
Sustainable Innovation: A Viable Strategy for Long-Term Business Success
Edith Mijares Ardiente is Vice President, Environmental and Energy Affairs of Chicago-based Navistar, Inc. (NYSE: NAV), one of the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial and military trucks, diesel engines, school and commercial buses and recreational vehicles. She was elected to this position in May 2000, after serving as director of environmental affairs since 1991. She is responsible for establishing corporate environmental policies and guidelines and providing technical and regulatory assistance to all Navistar locations and operations. Under Ms. Ardiente’s leadership, the company has been recognized for its environmental excellence and leadership as evidenced by over 100 environmental and energy awards received by the company for its operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. These awards were mostly for pollution prevention efforts with documented savings of over 100 million dollars. Over ninety percent of the company’s manufacturing operations are certified under ISO 14001 international environmental management system standard. She previously was manager of environmental protection for Borg-Warner Corporation; served as section chief of the RCRA (hazardous waste) permitting program and section chief of the air enforcement program at the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5; and was senior chemical engineer for Sargent and Lundy Engineers, all in Chicago, Illinois. Ms. Ardiente received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering, valedictorian, magna cum laude from the University of San Agustin in the Philippines. In college, she was a full university academic scholar and a Philippine National Science Development Board scholar. She received her M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She is a registered professional engineer (PE) and a qualified environmental professional (QEP). She was President of the Air and Waste Management Association in 2005. Ms. Ardiente has received numerous technical and civic awards, most recently an award from the President of the Republic of the Philippines for environmental excellence and community leadership.
Will Science Provide the Solution for Meeting Energy & Environmental Challenges?
Dr. Lev-On is the Executive Director and co-founder of The LEVON Group, LLC, an international consultancy and facilitation firm that engages with diverse stakeholders in the areas of air quality management, “clean” energy technologies, sustainability & climate change strategies, and emissions estimation and reporting. She is known internationally for advancing the state of the art of greenhouse gas emission estimation methodology and the development of reporting protocols as a backdrop to scientifically robust climate change mitigation strategies.
Prior to establishing her own company, Miriam was the lead air quality scientist at Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) where she chaired the company-wide clean air task force that was structured to assist worldwide operations in assessments, studies and development of air quality and climate change strategies. While in the petroleum industry (ARCO and then BP) she helped convene - and was the first chair of - the American Petroleum Institute (API) Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) Working Group, leading to the development of the API GHG Methodology Compendium which serves as a global reference for the oil and natural gas industry and others.
Miriam holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California at Santa Barbara and throughout her career she has continued to investigate the link between understanding the kinetics of trace constituents in the atmospheric and their role in air quality and climate change strategies.
Miriam is the A&WMA chair of the International Affairs Committee and the vice-chair of the technical council's division on Pollution Prevention, Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change.
HB Lanarc Consultants Inc.
Mark is a LEED™-accredited planner who holds professional degrees in both Landscape Architecture and Community and Regional Planning.
Mark‘s consulting work focuses largely on integrating sustainability principles into the mainstream development industry, with an eye to developing competitive advantage for his clients and their projects. He frequently works closely with development teams to find cost-effective ways of developing in a more sustainable manner, including projects from small infill to large-scale master-planned communities, in both the rural and urban context.
Mark also works extensively with the public sector, including serving as the City of Vancouver’s first Manager of its Sustainability Office, with a focus on strategic planning and greenhouse gas management. Prior to private practice, he served as a city planner with the City of Vancouver, both as a rezoning planner and as the sustainable development planner and project coordinator for policy phase of the Southeast False Creek model sustainable urban development project, now the site of the Athlete’s Housing for the 2010 Olympics. Southeast False Creek was declared the greenest neighbourhood in North America in 2009 by the US Green Building Council.
Mark is one of the more innovative thinkers of his generation in his field and is credited with developing planning concepts and frameworks such as the 8 Pillars of a Sustainable Community, and the acclaimed Resilient Cities Manifesto in 2009. He has just coauthored a book on an innovative approach to sustainable food systems in cities called Agricultural Urbanism (Green Frigate Books). His concept of Experience-Driven Planning when applied to the Vancouver Island Town of Ladysmith won the top award for small town planning in Canada in 2009 from the CIP.
He has served on numerous Boards and has taught at both SFU and UBC, and has lectured on a wide range of issues. He was selected as one of Vancouver’s top 40 under 40 in 2004 by Business in Vancouver Magazine. In 2009, Mark was appointed to the City of Vancouver's Greenest City Action Team alongside such leaders as Dr. David Suzuki and former BC Premier Mike Harcourt. In 2010, he was awarded the “Planner of the Year”, the highest recognition by the Planning Institute of BC.
An acclaimed speaker, Mark is widely known for his ability to “make sense of sustainability” in a pragmatic way that leads to action.
Mr. Praful M. Kulkarni, President and CEO of GKKWorks, is a
Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation and serves on numerous boards, including
the Design-Build Institute of America, Indian
An architect by education, but an entrepreneur at heart, in 1991 Praful founded
gkkworks to pursue his dream of spawning his own venture for global
sustainability while becoming a “master builder.”
Today, gkkworks has over 300 professionals throughout the
Praful was born in