About the Beacon

Co-Lead Beacon for Sustainable Living, Executive Director of One Earth, Senior Research Fellow at Utrecht University

Vanessa sits on the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee for the United Nations 10YFP Sustainable Lifestyles Programme, and is a board member of the Canadian National Zero Waste Council. She holds degrees from Queen’s University, Oxford and the University of British Columbia and was a Fulbright scholar at Harvard. Vanessa writes, speaks and teaches on sustainable living, social change, envisioning futures and systems thinking.

Executive Creative Producer

Erica has over a decade of experience working in feature film, television, commercials and “edutainment.” She creates change-making media with a special focus on social and environmental content. As a passionate storyteller, media maker, vision holder and systems thinker, she champions powerful collaboration with others, resulting in high-impact creative work out in the world. She brings a balance between intuition, experienced know-how and playfulness to her work. Every day she feels gratitude for what she does, celebrating the creative process matched with courageous strategy.

Consultant

Lisa brings more than two decades of experience in the environmental and sustainability fields. Drawing on her extensive background in research, writing and editing, she provides communications support to a variety of nonprofit and international organizations, including UN Environment, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), REN21, Generation 180 and Food & Water Watch. Previously, Lisa served as Senior Editor and Director of Publications at New Dream (formerly Center for a New American Dream) and worked for nearly 20 years at the Worldwatch Institute as a researcher and as Senior Editor, editing Worldwatch’s monthly magazine and annual State of the World reports, among other publications.

Consultant

Raagini is a consultant, educator, and facilitator in equity and social justice. Her work and passions lie predominantly around building creative and equitable educational platforms to social justice for young people in various different spaces – through an anti-racist and anti-capitalist framework. Informed by her unique positionality as an Indian immigrant, woman of color, artist, activist, and educator, and her extensive engagement with diverse groups of youth, she is fueled by a deep commitment to movement building and educational transformation that inspires young people to be active social change makers in the world. Raagini holds a BA in Peace, Conflict & Justice and an MEd in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto. By night, she is a singer-songwriter and lover of art.

Managing Director, Strategic Initiatives at One Earth

Dagmar focuses primarily on One Earth’s work in British Columbia, collaborating with partners to highlight the links between who we are, what we buy, where we live, what we make, what we trade and how we live together. Dagmar has been actively involved in sustainability action, policy and research for more than two decades, including international experience on environmental conservation.