I grew up exploring the outdoors and forming memories with friends and family in nature. This passion for the outdoors has translated into a passion for sustainability and making deliberate decisions to take care of our planet both personally and professionally. I am always looking to learn more ways to practice a sustainable lifestyle day-to-day and enjoy exploring innovative ways to do so. Social impact is an important part of my life. I am the founder of a local charity that aims to make extracurricular activities more accessible to youth facing barriers, with a focus on musical experience. I also enjoy going on multiday backcountry canoe and hiking trips.

What is your personal definition of sustainability?

I view sustainability within the context of the ongoing relationship between decisions and consequences. Historically, the relationship between business decisions and environmental consequences has been negative and short-sighted. Sustainability means transforming this into a thriving and mutually beneficial relationship that calculates long-term consequences across all stakeholders, including our planet. Sustainability is not isolated to a chosen industry, population, or business. Resources are being depleted at an unsustainable rate, and climate risks are becoming increasingly prevalent. Sustainability means making decisions to reverse these effects and mend our relationship with the planet.

What role do you see sustainability playing in your professional career?

Self-discovery at Ivey has played a crucial role in guiding my commitment to a career path with sustainability and social impact at its center. Reflecting on conversations and experiences has led me to actively pursue roles in sustainability and driven my engagement with combining passion and purpose.

Climate risks are not industry specific, and this is continuously being recognized across businesses. Therefore, sustainability is going to impact all future professional careers. Completing the course The Finance of Climate Change, through the EDHEC Business School, helped put my goals of influencing positive sustainable change into perspective. Sustainable practices that capture economic value, such as the circular economy and reverse supply chains, are progressively being employed. Investors are also placing more value on company’s environmental impact. Taking these trends into account, I want to focus my professional career around amplifying this movement through driving sustainable innovation and influencing the standardization of ESG measurement and reporting.

What sustainability projects have you been engaged in?

Art and nature are intertwined; as a Camp Coordinator I developed activities for campers to learn and engage with nature while creating art. Through taking trips to nearby rivers and wooded areas, campers learned how to create art from nature without disrupting the natural habitat. This is very impactful for kids as they get to engage with sustainability early in their life and carry those memories with them, which was a large part of what drove my passion for sustainability. I also worked to create craft activities that used scrap materials or re-used old projects to decrease the amount of new supplies the camp was purchasing.

Habitat for Humanity ReStores are a great way of recirculating furniture and other supplies. I was a team member in a week-long project to help the organization and presentation of the retail storefronts which created a better customer experience and aimed to increase traffic in the stores.

As an ambassador for Schulich’s Corporate Social Responsibility Society, I work to connect Ivey and Western students with opportunities related to sustainability. This included marketing the CORE 2022Conference. This opportunity allowed students to learn through sustainability workshops, keynote speakers, networking opportunities, and a case competitions.