May 5, 2009

U of C student chosen to attend national sustainability conference

Haskayne School of Business student Katrina Demers is among 180 college and university students chosen from more than 900 across Canada to attend a conference on sustainability leadership entitled, Impact! The Co-operators Youth Conference for Sustainability Leadership.

“I am honoured and excited to be a part of this amazing opportunity,” said Demers. “It is now more clear than ever that we have to work together to generate solutions to change our current environmental situation. I am eager to be given the tools and experiences that will help me become a leader in sustainability initiatives.”

David Suzuki, will be the keynote speaker at the conference. Other speakers include Peter Schiefke, national manager of The Climate Project Canada, and experts in such fields as community engagement, networking and activism, poverty, ethics, working with government and the media, innovation and leadership and people management.

During the months leading up to the conference, Demers will be working on a research project with a group of 20 students. They will be looking into the sustainability practices of 10 nationwide organizations. Each group of students represents a different sector of the economy and will research nine issues of sustainability pertaining to each organization including: engagement in the community, contributions to social development, caring for employees, caring for consumers, protecting the air, protecting the water and responsible management. Demers and her group will be looking into the sustainability practises of the city of Canmore. The team hopes to learn from Canmore’s current initiatives and generate new sustainability practices for the city’s future.

Demers joins her colleagues, aged ages 19 to 25, at the University of Guelph from September 24 to 27 where they will team up with experts to develop real sustainability solutions to take back to their campuses, communities, and current and future workplaces.

“In many ways, students already are leaders in sustainability,” said Kathy Bardswick, president and CEO of The Co-operators. “This conference is a way to give young people the tools and networks to become catalysts for a more sustainable society.”

The work of the conference participants begins long before the event itself. Already, participants have started an online sustainability course, are conducting interviews with Canadian business and sectoral leaders and are exploring existing sustainability practices within a given sector.