The Roundtable on a Beautiful City was referred to the Mayor and the function has been rolled into Live Green Toronto and the Public Realm Office. The following information is provided for archival purposes.

Additional profiles of members of the City of Toronto's Roundtable on the Environment will be added to this site as they become available.

A group photo was taken at the December 2005 meeting.

Susan Antler
Susan Antler serves as the Executive Director of The Composting Council of Canada, a national non-profit organization which is located in Toronto and is dedicated to the advancement of composting and compost usage. Susan has helped spearhead a wide-range of policy, communication and training initiatives to support the implementation of composting programs across Canada. Recently, she managed the coordination and review of the national compost quality standards and implemented a voluntary quality assurance program.

In addition to her work with The Composting Council of Canada, Susan also directs the Canadian initiatives of the RBRC: Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation, a voluntary industry-initiated recycling program focused on rechargeable batteries and cell phones.

She writes an environmental column for the Annex Gleaner and devotes considerable volunteer time with a variety of environmental and cause-related organizations. She holds a MBA in Marketing from Queen’s University.

Robert Blazevski
Robert Blazevski has been working with MintoUrban Communities for the past four years as VP, Urban Development and Planning. With more than 15 years of experience in land development, Robert has been involved in the approvals process for about 30 major land development projects in the Greater Toronto Area.

Robert's areas of expertise include strategic project management and the expediting of municipal and other approvals, including major Official Plan and zoning amendments. He is also a member of committees addressing issues of planning and development.

John Cartwright
John Cartwright is the President of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, representing 190,000 union members in Canada's largest urban centre. A carpenter by trade, John was formerly the Business Manager of the Construction Trades Council and co-chair of the Metro Jobstart Coalition. He has served on the boards of the Waterfront Regeneration Trust, the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance, the Toronto 2008 Olympic Bid and the Labour Education Centre.

John has been very involved in apprenticeship and training issues, as well as the development of the Canadian Labour Congress's Green Jobs Strategy.

Roger Keil
Roger Keil is a Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, where he has taught urban and environmental politics since 1992. His research has focused on politics in large cities affected by globalization. More recently, he has embarked on a study of SARS and the Global City (with Harris Ali). Among his publications are the books Los Angeles (Wiley, 1998) and Nature and the City (with Gene Desfor; University of Arizona, 2004). He has just completed another publication: The Global Cities Reader (with Neil Brenner; Routledge, 2005). Roger is co-editor of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

While Roger's work has been centered in academia, he is also involved in the public domain as an activist and writer. He is a founding member of the International Network for Urban Research and Action.

Robert Kerr
Robert Kerr has been with the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (located at ICLEI's World Secretariat in Toronto) for 10 years - the past three as Director of the ICLEI Canada Office. ICLEI is an association of cities, towns, counties, metropolitan governments and local government associations with more than 474 members. The focus is advocacy as well as policy and program support for sustainable cities.

A graduate of Trent University (physics and environmental resource studies), Robert has worked in the environmental and sustainability field since 1979 at all three levels of government.

Mark G. Mitchell
Mark Mitchell obtained his education at the University of Washington, where he completed an honours degree in mechanical engineering in 1972. Currently Vice President and Director of Keen Engineering, he has served Keen's clients for more than 30 years.

In 1990, Mark developed a decision-making matrix to assess the application of green engineering options to the Body Shop's headquarters - which is credited with helping to launch the green movement in Canada. He has established business solutions for integrated design that improve buildings' quality, in part by reducing the size and complexity of the mechanical and electrical systems.

Mark chairs the Canada Green Building Council - Toronto Chapter, established to help transform the building industry in North America.

Steven Peck
Steven Peck is the founder and executive director of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the association that represents the green roof industry in North America. He helped to create a report on green roof design guidelines that was published by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and he chaired the Design and Accreditation Committee responsible for the development of Green Roofs Design 101.

Over more than a decade, Steven has researched for public policy on environmental and economic issues. He prepared Canada’s Report on the Status of Sustainable Communities for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. He actively advocates for, and promotes, the green roof agenda across North America. Steven’s knowledge of green roofs and the green roof industry has also made him a popular speaker on the topic in Europe.

Gord Perks
Gord Perks has worked in the environmental movement since 1987, when he was with Pollution Probe. Since then, he has worked with Greenpeace Canada, the Better Transportation Coalition and, since 1997, with the Toronto Environmental Alliance - where his emphasis has been on waste reduction and public transit.

As pulp and paper campaigner for Greenpeace Canada, Gord won provincial support for Ontario's Zero Discharge Regulation, phasing out chlorine in pulp mills. At Pollution Probe, he was the principal author of the Canadian Green Consumer Guide - Canada's best selling non-fiction book in 1989-90. Gord has been the Environment columnist for Eye Weekly in recent years. He is also an Adjunct Professor with the University of Toronto's Environmental Studies Department.

Judy Simon
A management consultant specializing in environmental and energy issues, Judy Simon has extensive experience working with government, regulatory agencies, non-governmental organizations and industry. Having started her career in the private sector researching alternative energy technologies, she then spent nine years in the Ontario Ministries of Energy and the Environment, and was subsequently with the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In addition, she was a part-time member of the Ontario Energy Board from 1992 to 2002, taking the lead in environmental matters. Recently, Judy has been working primarily on energy efficiency issues in various capacities.

In addition, Judy has been the President of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Environmental Law Association since 1997, and she is a member of the City of Toronto's Grants and Loans Committee of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund.

Karen Sun
Karen Sun is a dedicated environmentalist whose interests include urban ecology and sustainable community development. She holds a degree in environmental sciences and is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto with a masters degree in planning.

Karen has worked for environmental groups, including the Federation of Ontario Naturalists and the Nature Conservancy of Canada. She has also worked for the City of Toronto's Urban Forestry Services. She currently sits on the Board of the Toronto Bay Initiative, is an active member of Planning Action, and works for Toronto and Region Conservation Authority as the planner for Humber Watershed resources.

Peter Victor
Peter Victor is an economist who has worked on environmental issues for over 30 years as an academic, consultant and public servant. He was the first economist to apply the physical law of the conservation of matter to the empirical analysis of a national economy, and was one of the founders of the emerging discipline of ecological economics. His current research includes a systems analysis of the Canadian economy exploring the interplay of growth, employment, poverty and the environment.

Peter is Professor of Environmental Studies at York University. He recently served as Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environmental Sciences and Standards Division in the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. He continues to provide technical advice on issues such as emissions trading, environmental restoration, emerging issues and education for sustainable energy development. In addition, Peter is President of the Royal Society for the Advancement of Science - Canada's oldest science organization - and was founding President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics. He chairs the Great Lakes Innovation Committee, among other roles in the environmental field.

Tim Woods
Tim Woods, Environmental Affairs Officer with Nestlÿ Canada Inc., was first given the environmental portfolio at Nestlÿ in 1986. At that time, one of Tim's roles as Director Technical Services was heading Nestlÿ Canada's product development and packaging services.

Prior to moving into the corporate offices he held senior management positions in manufacturing - in charge of factory operations in coffee processing, frozen foods manufacturing, food canning and food service areas of Nestlÿ's ever-growing businesses. Tim has a degree in chemistry and is a Certified Environmental Auditor (CEA) - responsible for the company's environmental management systems.

Other members of the Roundtable on the Environment
(detailed biographies not available)

Paul Muldoon
Executive Director and Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA)