Beth Savan

Dr. Beth Savan is a Senior Lecturer (Emeritus) in School of the Environment, Associate Graduate Faculty Member in the Department of Geography and Planning, and a Research Associate in the Cities Centre and School of Public Policy and Governance. She obtained her Ph.D. in insect ecology from the Imperial College of Science and Technology at the University of London (England), and have received numerous large research grants, most recently to work on: accelerating adoption of cycling for transportation; green revolving funds; energy conservation on campus; climate change internationally; and barriers and factors facilitating Community Based Research in Canada.

Sustainability is Dr. Savan's primary work. She focuses on sustainability programs and planning, financial instruments to advance resource conservation, active transportation, particularly cycling, energy conservation, changing behaviour to conserve resources, community based research, environmental education, community based social marketing and environmental assessment. She was the inaugural Sustainability Director at the University of Toronto, where she was responsible for establishing the Sustainability Office, managing its staff, and overseeing energy and resource conservation programs. They engaged over three thousand students a year in sustainability activities on campus, contributed to new university policy and programs incorporating sustainability, and created curriculum building sustainability into new and existing courses.

She has been active as a government advisor, on environmental non-governmental organization boards and on foundation grants committees. Recently, she chaired the Environmental Assessment Review Panel for the Ontario Minister of the Environment and earlier, she co-chaired the City of Toronto’s Sustainability Round Table, and was a Chair, Vice Chair or member of several Ontario Advisory Committees. She has served on the Board of Directors of Cycle Toronto, the Sustainability Network and the Toronto Atmospheric Fund and co-chaired their Grants Committee.

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