Commission for Environmental Cooperation

Executive director of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of North America since January 2016, Mr. Chávez studied at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in Mexico. He holds a certificate in regional planning and environmental protection from the University of Oslo and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He graduated from the program in Advanced Studies on Environment and Sustainable Development (LEAD-México) at El Colegio de México, and pursued doctoral studies on environmental urban history at the Universidad Iberoamericana. Mr. Chávez has worked on environmental issues for more than 25 years in the public, private, social and academic sectors, and in collaboration with organizations such as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNDP), the World Bank (WB), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Frank Van Gool is a Certified Management Consultant, IAF Certified Professional Facilitator and current chairman of the Intersol Group, an Ottawa-based collaborative engagement firm. He has been practicing public consultation and engagement and has been serving as a consultant to government, NGOs and private sector companies since 1991. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Environmental Science at the University of Guelph and MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business in 1989, he has become an expert in decision-making and consultation in complex stakeholder contexts. He has conducted evaluations of public consultation mechanisms and developed public consultation policies for government departments. He has led national consultations on a wide range of topics and taught hundreds of managers on effective consultation strategy and implementation. Recognized as an expert in collaborative regulatory decision-making, Van Gool participated in the British Columbia Royal Commission on Workers’ Compensation and provided analysis and findings of the Board’s consultation and regulatory decisionmaking process. Most recently, he assessed and provided recommendations to Canada’s aviation regulator to modernize its stakeholder engagement mechanisms for consulting on regulatory changes. He also prepared an engagement strategy to coordinate efforts that will lead to addressing the problems of water quality in the Great Lakes.

David Donaldson is program manager for Green Growth at the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), where he works to ensure the successful implementation of CEC efforts on transportation, clean energy, and sustainable production and consumption, including the North American Initiative on Food Waste Reduction and Recovery. David holds a Master’s degree in agricultural economics from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Before joining CEC, David worked fifteen years at the US Environmental Protection Agency in the regulation of pesticides and chemicals that deplete the ozone layer

Michael VanderPol is a senior program coordinator for the Waste Reduction and Management Division of Environment and Climate Change Canada. In this role, he provides guidance and subject matter expertise on a variety of waste-related issues, including food and organic waste, and represents both his department and Canada on steering committees and working groups on food waste. VanderPol is the Canadian government expert assigned to related work under NAFTA’s Commission for Environmental Cooperation.

General director of the Primary Sector and Renewable Resource area of the Undersecretariat for Environmental Development and Standardization, Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), Edda Fernández Luiselli is part of the steering committee for the CEC’s North American Initiative on Food Waste Reduction and Recovery. She is also co-chair of UNEP’s 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP) and a member of the Committee of Regional Experts, representing Latin America and the Caribbean.

Claudia Fabiano joined the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery to work on Sustainable Management of Food in 2016 after 14 years in EPA’s Office of Water. In addition to her role at EPA to reduce wasted food in the US, she is an active member of Washington, DC’s Food Recovery Working Group and manages a composting cooperative. She has BS in environmental studies from The George Washington University. In her free time, she’s either enjoying the outdoors or coming up with creative solutions for how to cook what’s left in the fridge.

Tamara Shulman is the planning lead for Tetra Tech Canada and managing consultant for the Commission on Environmental Cooperation’s food waste research study. After a decade spent working in the San Francisco Bay Area, Shulman returned to the Vancouver metropolitan area in
2008 and has been instrumental in shaping organics management programs across the food waste hierarchy for public and private sector clients. She has over 20 years of experience conducting waste reduction and diversion-related research and developing strategies for zero waste planning, market studies, waste characterization, commercial sector technical assistance, and residential collection programs.

Joslyn Higginson heads the Public and Regulatory Affairs department at Food and Consumer Products Canada (FCPC), the largest trade association representing Canada’s food, beverage and consumer goods manufacturers, where she oversees a team of eight experts, specializing in health and nutrition, food safety and compliance, environment and sustainability and government relations. In this role, she is responsible for developing advocacy and public relations strategies, conducting FCPC’s lobbying efforts with governments and NGOs, and has built several crossindustry coalitions and alliances to address key challenges facing the consumer packaged goods sector.

Prior to joining FCPC, she worked in politics, serving as senior advisor to federal and provincial Cabinet ministers and has worked in several election campaign war rooms. She also spent several years designing climate change advocacy campaigns for various environmental NGOs, in Canada and internationally.

Eva Goulbourne is the associate director of ReFED, an ambitious initiative to reduce US food waste by 50% by 2030, where she leads all strategic communications and stakeholder engagement. ReFED seeks to unlock new philanthropic and investment capital, along with technology, business, and policy innovation, which is projected to catalyze tens of thousands of new jobs, recover billions of meals annually for the hungry, and reduce national water use and greenhouse gas emissions. ReFED was formed to create a Roadmap to Reduce US Food Waste, the first-ever national economic study and action plan driven by a multi-stakeholder group committed to tackling food waste at scale. An expert in developing multistakeholder communities around agriculture and food issues, Goulbourne was previously part of the World Economic Forum’s New Vision for Agriculture initiative, where she launched and led a 120-person global network of food experts from over 30 countries to share best practices in agriculture.

John Lillard is an R&D project leader on the Innovation Team at Campbell’s Canada, working to create products that are not only healthy for consumers but also healthy for the planet. He has an undergraduate degree in food science and human nutrition and a Master’s in food science, as well as a culinary degree. Lillard is actively working on food waste initiatives at Campbell’s, with the support and assistance of their global Corporate Social Responsibility team, Provision Coalition, and Enviro-Stewards. He is also a member of Provision Coalition’s food waste working group and steering committee, comprising industry, government and academia leaders focused on identifying opportunities and solutions to reduce and divert food waste from entering landfills. Along with his wife, Marcy Lillard, he is also owner/operator of Mindful Grocer, an online education portal and retail site devoted to food waste reduction and sustainable living.

Gail Tavill is Vice President of R&D Readiness, Sustainability, Nutrition and Process Engineering at Conagra Brands. She co-chairs the Food Waste Reduction Alliance on behalf of Grocery Manufacturers Association members and chairs the policy committee. Gail is also an advocate for the packaging industry through AMERIPEN, an organization that proactively influences packaging policy in the US. After 10 years with Kraft Foods, Gail joined ConAgra in 2000 holding progressive leadership roles in R&D and impacting a wide variety of branded packaged food products. She established the role of sustainability at Conagra and continues to lead in that area. Gail earned a BS in Packaging from Michigan State University and an MS in Environmental Management from the Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She serves on the Board of Directors of Forgotten Harvest in Detroit, the nation’s largest food rescue organization.

Cher Mereweather is one of Canada’s leaders in food manufacturing sustainability. As executive director of Provision Coalition, an organization she founded with the country’s top food and beverage professional associations, she works directly with manufacturers to transform their business culture and operations. An advocate for change and a passionate spokesperson, Mereweather has dedicated her career to advancing sustainability concepts within the Canadian food industry and sustainability solutions at the firm level. Most recently, she has sharpened Provision’s focus on the reduction of food loss and waste, developing innovative technologies and online tools that will modernize facility processing.

As founder and CEO of the Institute for Development Planning (Instituto para la Planeación del Desarrollo—IPD), a scientific-technological institution with more than 450 food studies and projects, Roberto Guadarrama Sistos is a board member of the National Crusade against Hunger and the Food Waste Technical Group. He is also the advisory coordinator of the South-Southeast Special Commission of the Mexican Senate. IPD has provided consulting to international and regional organizations (such as UNDP, FAO, Unido, World Bank, OAS and IADB); federal, state and municipal government agencies; various entities in the social sector; business organizations (such as Concamin, Canacintra, Cofupro and Conacca), and private companies in Mexico and abroad (including Mexicana Airlines, Hilos Timón, Pemex, Pronase, IBM and Richardson-Vicks).

With extensive professional experience in globalization analysis, value chains, technological innovation, agri-food policies and multilateral negotiations, Guadarrama Sistos has been a full-time professor and researcher for 11 years at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and has authored publications on economic policy, technological progress, and food and agriculture issues. He completed his bachelor of economics degree at UNAM, and holds masters and doctoral degrees in the same discipline from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

Hilary French is a program management officer at UN Environment’s North America Office, where her work focuses on promoting North American engagement with UN Environment’s work on climate change, sustainable energy, air quality, sustainable consumption and production, resource efficiency, and the green economy. She has previously served as a special advisor to UN Environment on a broad range of issues, including civil society engagement and globalization and the environment. She came to UN Environment from the Worldwatch Institute, where she served in diverse capacities, including as vice president for research, as director of the Globalization and Governance Project, as senior advisor for programs, and as a senior researcher.

Tammara Soma is a 2014 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholar and the project manager of the Food Systems Lab. She is a food system planner and a doctoral candidate in urban planning at the University of Toronto with a specialization in food waste. Soma has extensive experience working in food justice advocacy, having worked with organizations such as Sustain Ontario and FoodShare Toronto. Her community service includes serving as a member of the steering committee of Food Secure Canada, and she was one of the founding members of the Toronto Youth Food Policy Council (serving as its Vice-chairperson from 2009 to 2010). Soma blogs for the Huffington Post, writes for Alternative Journal, and is the co-founder of the International Food Loss and Food Waste Studies group.

Patrick Wooliever is a sustainability engineer at Tetra Tech, with 25 years’ experience in sustainability, food waste and recovery, and materials management. He is the US lead for the Commission of Environmental Co-operation’s North American food waste research project. Recent food projects include research for a US EPA white paper on successful food recovery approaches that included interviews of more than 50 expert stakeholders across the US and Canada, a study identifying more than 500 food recovery options in six metropolitan areas, and a project to implement wasted food reduction in the hospitality industry. His sustainability projects have taken place across the US and into Mexico, Japan, and the South Pacific.

In her role as Walmart Canada’s senior director for public affairs, Christine Bome is responsible for leading the team that drives Walmart Canada’s sustainability initiatives, develops the community giving strategy that provides funding to local community charities, and is responsible for governmental affairs. She served as director of the Canadian Stewardship Services Alliance and currently serves on the board of directors for Multi-Material Stewardship Western. Bome joined Walmart Canada in 2007 after serving as a senior campaign advisor to the Premier of Ontario. Over her 20-year career in public service, she was responsible for bringing together a wide-range of stakeholders to support the development public policy at both the federal and provincial levels of government.

Lori Nikkel is responsible for ensuring that Second Harvest, Canada’s largest food rescue organization, delivers its mission efficiently and effectively. She has twenty years of program and senior leadership experience in the food security sector and is an exceptionally passionate champion of environmental and social justice issues related to food. Among her many accomplishments, Nikkel played an instrumental role in the Ontario Government’s increase of their funding commitment by more than C$32 million dollars to support child nutrition throughout Ontario.

Karen Hanner is the Managing Director of Manufacturing Product Sourcing for Feeding America, the leading US hunger relief and food rescue organization. She leads a team committed to partnership development with over 200 major CPG manufacturers to ensure unsellable food and grocery products are donated to food banks to avoid being wasted. Hanner is also a Feeding America representative on the Food Waste Reduction Alliance and led the development of the National Wasted Food Rescue Summit hosted by Feeding America and she oversees the Purchasing and Disaster Relief teams for the food bank network as well. Prior to joining Feeding America in 2008 Hanner held positions in marketing and supply chain management at Kraft Foods, Keebler, Nestle, and Market Day. She holds a master’s degree in management from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s of science degree from Georgetown University.

Bartosz Zambrzycki has dealt with waste management since 1998. First serving in the Polish Ministry of Environment and European Environment Agency and then in the Directorate General for Environment of the European Commission (DG ENV), he currently works on food waste prevention in the Directorate General of Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANTE).

Kai Robertson serves as lead advisor for the Food Loss and Waste Protocol, representing the World Resources Institute (WRI). The FLW Protocol is a global collaboration of seven organizations that has developed the internationally recognized Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard. Robertson has over 25 years of experience working with the food, beverage, and agriculture sector. She previously served as global director for the global nonprofit business network, BSR, in its advisory practice developing effective corporate sustainability strategies, led the development of corporate partnerships at World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International, and worked at the Food Marketing Institute.

Laura Moreno is a PhD student in the University of California at Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group, studying wasted food with a focus on household-level food waste and city-level measurement. Moreno also consults for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) on
research design, data analysis, and project management for their city-level food waste assessment initiatives in New York City, Denver, and Nashville. Prior to graduate school, she was an environmental scientist at the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Pacific Southwest Region, where she worked primarily on wasted food and other organic wastes.

A chef specializing in managing food waste, with more than 12 years experience at companies such as Marriott St. Kitts & Nevis, Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Comedores Industriales Eurest, and Unilever Food Solutions, Northern Latin America, Gabriela Gómez Gutiérrez is an environmental affairs advisor and member of the executive board of the Mexican Restaurant Association. Her work reflects the Association’s high commitment to strengthening the integral development of the sector and its members in Mexico.

Belinda Li is an environmental engineer at Tetra Tech specializing in sustainable food and organics management. She is a lead researcher for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation’s North American food waste research project and is also the project manager for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s food waste characterization studies in Nashville, Denver, and New York. Her consulting portfolio includes community engagement on sustainability and strategic planning for government, institutions, and businesses across North America. She co-founded and is the lead facilitator of the Food Systems Lab, a social innovation laboratory tackling food waste in Toronto, using a systemic and community-oriented approach.

Claire Boland is an Associate with who has focused on climate, and sustainability issues. She has been involved in lifecycle assessment and greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory projects analyzing climate and waste impacts for both public and private clients. Ms. Boland supports the U.S. EPA’s Waste Reduction Model (WARM), which is used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to calculate the GHG and energy benefits of waste management pathways. Ms. Boland has supported WARM for three years, contributing to updates related to anaerobic digestion and all annual data updates. She has also provided stakeholder support to WARM users throughout that time. Ms. Boland holds a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University and a M.S. in Sustainable Systems from the University of Michigan.

Brenda Smyth is a branch chief for CalRecycle of the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery for the State of California. Smyth oversees the Statewide Technical and Analytical Resources Branch that works on projects related to food waste prevention and rescue, organics, climate change, extended producer responsibility, emerging technologies, waste tires, and special wastes. She is a chemical engineer from the Colorado School of Mines with 32 years of experience in government and private sectors and 15 years of business experience as public relations manager, operations and engineering manager, process engineer, and environmental consultant.

Pete Pearson leads work at WWF on food waste prevention and food recovery, helping businesses understand the intersection of agriculture and wildlife conservation. Pete has led local and national sustainability programs within the retail grocery industry; has over 10 years of technology experience with companies including Hewlett-Packard, Accenture and Albertsons; has worked with public schools and hospitals as an independent sustainability consultant, co-founded a sustainable agriculture non-profit, and co-produced a documentary film on local and regenerative agriculture (www.ToLiveLocal.com). Pete currently lives in Washington DC and enjoys fly fishing, boating, and exploring the outdoors with his family.

Peter works with WRAP’s strategic business partners in the UK and internationally to help deliver our shared vision on resource efficiency and waste prevention – by informing, advising and helping shape their sustainability priorities. He brings a strong combination of an extensive knowledge on environmental issues from 13 years at WRAP, with over 12 years’ marketing and product development experience of working in the UK grocery and retail sector. Peter has worked on all four phases of WRAP’s pioneering voluntary agreement, the Courtauld Commitment, working extensively with leading retailers and brands to implement initiatives that deliver efficiencies and environmental improvements in the areas of food waste prevention, packaging, recycling and operational waste reduction. He has also worked closely on consumer engagement with WRAP’s LoveFoodHateWaste campaign. Peter has spoken extensively in the UK, Europe and internationally for WRAP. Peter has a degree in Geography from the University of
Manchester, diplomas in Marketing and is a Chartered Waste Manager with the Chartered Institute of Waste Management (CIWM).

Martin Gooch is co-founder and CEO of Value Chain Management International (VCMI), a global consulting company which helps businesses, primarily in the agricultural and food industry, enhance their long-term profitability and environmental sustainability. He has considerable international experience developing commercially successful value chain initiatives that have received domestic and international acclaim. VCMI established the Cut Waste, GROW PROFIT™ initiative following over two decades of research on food waste sources, value chains and business profitability. Gooch holds a PhD and master’s degree in agri-food management and a bachelor’s degree in international business. In 2013, he received Bayer Inc.’s “Outstanding Canadian” award for his contribution to “Food Chain Partnerships,” and was appointed as an adjunct professor at the College of Business and Economics, University of Guelph (Ontario).

Christina Rice is a Fellow in the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School, where she provides legal and policy guidance to community advocacy groups, state agencies and nonprofit groups who are working to improve the food system. She also co-leads the Clinic’s Food Waste Reduction Initiative, which advocates for policy change to decrease unnecessary food waste. She also leads the Clinic’s Sustainable Food Production Initiative, working to assist small-scale and sustainable food producers and food entrepreneurs with breaking into local and regional markets. Rice is licensed to practice law in North Carolina.

Ralph C. Martin grew up on a beef and hog farm in Wallenstein, Ontario. He holds bachelor’s and master’s of science degrees in biology from Carleton University and a PhD in plant science from McGill University. His love of teaching came about unexpectedly while teaching at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, in 1990, and realized how students teach him, too. In 2001, he founded the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada, based at Dalhousie University’s Agricultural Campus, to coordinate university research and education pertaining to organic systems across Canada. From 2011 to 2016, he was the Loblaw Chair in Sustainable Food Production, at the University of Guelph, where he is still a professor.

Executive director of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of North America since January 2016, Mr. Chávez studied at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in Mexico. He holds a certificate in regional planning and environmental protection from the University of Oslo and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Edinburgh, UK. He graduated from the program in Advanced Studies on Environment and Sustainable Development (LEAD-México) at El Colegio de México, and pursued doctoral studies on environmental urban history at the Universidad Iberoamericana. Mr. Chávez has worked on environmental issues for more than 25 years in the public, private, social and academic sectors, and in collaboration with organizations such as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNDP), the World Bank (WB), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Mr. Alanís-Ortega received his law degree from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, where since 1994 he has taught the environmental law course as a full professor at the law school. Mr. Alanis holds a master’s degree in international law from the Washington College of Law, American University, Washington, DC. Since August 1993, he has been president of the Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental (Mexican Environmental Law Center–CEMDA), a public interest environmental law firm based in Mexico City.

In December 2012, Alanís-Ortega was named to the CEC’s Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) for the third time, having previously served from 2001 to 2004 and 2008 to 2011.

Michael VanderPol is a senior program coordinator for the Waste Reduction and Management Division of Environment and Climate Change Canada. In this role, he provides guidance and subject matter expertise on a variety of waste-related issues, including food and organic waste, and represents both his department and Canada on steering committees and working groups on food waste. VanderPol is the Canadian government expert assigned to related work under NAFTA’s Commission for Environmental Cooperation.