Event Week Speakers

Karel Mayrand, BA Honours, Political Science
MA, International Relations

Karel Mayrand is the Director General for Quebec of the David Suzuki Foundation and member of the Foundation’s management team in Vancouver. Prior to joining the Foundation, he was the co-founder and Director of Research and Consulting of the Unisfera International Centre, where he developed the Planetair greenhouse gas compensation program.

Karel Mayrand has been working in the sustainable development field for the past 12 years. He has advised several governments and United Nations agencies. He is regularly invited by the media to comment on environmental issues.

Alexandre Magnin, Sustainability Advisor

In 2007, Alexandre graduated from the Swedish Master's program, Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability (based on The Natural Step Framework). He then moved from his native France to Canada and became a Natural Step Associate in 2008. Alexandre has advised and assisted the National Film Board of Canada with their sustainability analysis and has also worked as a designer on several guidebooks and key concept designs for The Natural Step Canada.

With a degree in civil engineering, Alexandre's work builds on six years experience as the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a web agency specialised in viral marketing. Created in 2000, ViralGames recruits and builds communities of net surfers on its clients' web sites (Coca-Cola, Electronic Arts, Canal+, Microsoft, etc). Alexandre has well-developed skills in business development, management, design, administration and finance.

Alexandre works in both of Canada's official languages.

Sarah Brooks, Senior Sustainability Advisor

Sarah Brooks brings nine years of sustainability field experience to her work with The Natural Step Canada. As a Senior Advisor, she works with businesses, communities and other organizations to help them move strategically towards a sustainable future. A certified natural building instructor, Sarah has worked with people from over twenty countries to help them design and build structures from locally available, minimally processed and rapidly renewable materials. She brings numerous skills to her work as a Senior Advisor, including a background in curriculum design for sustainability issues, group facilitation and leadership, and group strategizing and mobilization. Sarah holds a masters degree in “Strategic Leadership toward Sustainability” from the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden where she completed her thesis on sustainable music festivals.

Chad Park, Principal Advisor

Chad is a founding member of The Natural Step Canada. As a Principal Sustainability Advisor, he regularly delivers presentations and workshops on The Natural Step Framework and sustainable development, and has provided coaching advice for dozens of organizations and communities across Canada. Prior to founding The Natural Step Canada, Chad worked with Mountain Equipment Co-op, the Canadian Eco-Industrial Network, the Sustainability Asset Management Group, and the Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland. His facilitation and envoy experiences have taken him around the world. Chad holds a Masters of Science in Environmental Management and Policy at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University in Sweden. He has served the Laidlaw Foundation’s Environment Committee and sits on the Board of the Ottawa chapter of the Young Environmental Professionals.

John Purkis, Director of Advisory Services and Learning Programs

John regularly delivers presentations and training workshops on The Natural Step Framework and has advised municipalities and community groups across the country. His strong background in community and municipal development make him invaluable as director of The Natural Step Canada’s advisory program. Prior to joining The Natural Step Canada, John worked with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), where he co-developed the Municipal Building Retrofit Guide and the Sustainable Community Profile. He also helped the FCM lay the foundation for their Capacity Building Program and worked as the Development Manager for the FCM Green Municipal Fund. John holds a BSc in Environmental Science from Brock University and a graduate degree from Concordia University, where he studied the organizational structure and power dynamics of the Sierra Club of Canada.