Our People

With close to a decade of experience in communications, Aidan has worked with businesses big and small, helping them find their voice, recalibrate their mission and engage with the public, enabling them to grow in a meaningful direction. She has written for numerous companies and publications and has advocated sustainability and environmental responsibility through both journalistic work and marketing initiatives. Above all, she hopes to be part of the solution in her role at Efficiency Canada, making a difference in Canada’s economy and environment.

Outside of work, you can find Aidan reading, writing, making fermented condiments with her husband and being the busy mom to a toddler.

Natasha Daniel has devoted the past 15 years to contributing to Ontario’s arts and culture sector, excelling in marketing and public relations. She has been honoured by the United Nations for her impactful work supporting equity-seeking communities in Medellin, Colombia and South India, as well as Toronto’s Malvern and Jane-Finch neighbourhoods. Her non-fiction writing and photo essays have been featured in VICE, ELLE magazine, and Canadian Living. Currently, she is driving efforts to promote decarbonization in workforce development at Efficiency Canada.

Aidan Djabarov is a Communications Specialist at Efficiency Canada. Her undergraduate studies were in Political Science, History, and American Studies and she completed a post-graduate certification in Public Relations/Corporate Communications at Seneca College.

Since beginning her professional career, Aidan has worked in entertainment, non-profit, and education – with these diverse experiences allowing her to develop an expansive array of skills across communications, social media, and marketing. She’s excited to apply her skillset to advocating for energy efficiency and making a real impact on Canadian communities and the world at large.

Outside of work, Aidan enjoys frequent trips to the local library to stock up on new books and studying multiple languages in her pursuit to become a polyglot.

Emilie (she/her) is the Engagement Manager at Efficiency Canada.

Emilie holds a Masters of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership, as well as a B.A. in International Law and International Relations. She has spent the past five years advocating for sustainable land use planning, active transportation, and renewable energy. Above all else, Emilie hopes to help build community in the nonprofit sector.

Outside of work, Emilie spends a lot of time figuring out how to be less cold during her backcountry skiing and ice climbing adventures.

Brendan helped launch Efficiency Canada, where he now guides research and policy advocacy efforts. He brings a proven record in energy policy entrepreneurship and thought leadership.

Brendan has a PhD in Public Policy from Carleton University where his research used political economy and systems of innovation frameworks to understand the role of traditional natural resource sectors in Canada’s low-carbon transition. He was awarded a prestigious Banting Post-Doctoral Fellowship in 2016-2018 and holds a Master of Environmental Studies from York University and a BSc in Economics from Dalhousie University.

He is a policy fellow with the Broadbent Institute and has published public policy reports with the Smart Prosperity Institute, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Pembina Institute, and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. He has taught courses and lectured in energy efficiency policy, and socio-political dimensions of environmental management, political activism, and green industrial policy. In October 2022, Brendan Haley was given the position of Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton’s School of Public Policy and Administration, giving him more opportunity to involve himself in academics.  

Brendan got his start in energy efficiency policy advocacy while working at Nova Scotia’s Ecology Action Centre, where he became the principal catalyst behind the creation of Canada’s first energy efficiency utility, Efficiency Nova Scotia.

Carol has a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering and Society and a Masters of Applied Science. After years of working in the water innovation sector as a professional engineer, she pivoted to the world of policy research. Her work on water efficiency influenced both local water plans and provincial legislation and as a result she was appointed to the board of an Ontario technology accelerator. Carol then bridged the water and energy sectors, authoring the first report of its kind in Canada to quantify the water-energy nexus. Carol’s efficiency work was inspired by energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins, and the belief that “efficiency is the best new source” of water or energy.

After taking a sabbatical to spend time with her son, working with a local HVAC company inspired a passion for heat pumps and energy efficiency in the residential sector. In 2023, Carol joined Efficiency Canada to apply her knowledge of the HVAC sector, efficiency and policy research to investigate home performance business models in the Canadian context. She now spends her days researching residential energy efficiency retrofits, home performance and house-as-a-system concepts as well as the contractors and consultants that offer these services.

She values family, camping, forest walks with friends, paddleboarding and any time spent on the lake and a good laugh.

Sarah is the Policy Research Associate, Clean Heat at Efficiency Canada. Prior to joining Efficiency Canada, she worked in commercial energy management, working to decarbonize federal buildings in British Columbia and the Yukon.

Sarah has a BSc. in Agricultural and Environmental Economics from McGill University, with a particular interest in the economics of climate change.

Sarah is LEED AP Operations and Maintenance accredited and is currently completing courses towards BCIT’s Sustainable Energy Management Advanced Certificate.

Outside of work, Sarah enjoys baking gluten-free sourdough, going for long walks in nature and checking out different zero-waste stores.

With over five years of volunteering and working in the nonprofit sector, Stefanie currently serves as the Engagement Coordinator at Efficiency Canada. She has spent the last two years in the energy efficiency sector, including her time as an Engagement Intern at Efficiency Canada.

Passionate about social, economic, and environmental justice, Stefanie brings a wealth of experience from advocacy and grassroots organizing. Outside of work, she volunteers with various non-profits, championing causes that align with her commitment to creating a fairer, more sustainable world.

In her free time, Stefanie enjoys walks with her chihuahua, petting her cats, collecting vinyl records, and finding neat treasures at the local thrift stores.

Lorne has more than 20 years of experience in forging collaborative solutions to sustainability challenges in Canada. He has established a reputation as someone who brings enthusiasm, humour and a solid dose of pragmatism while getting things done.

Early in his career, Lorne played a leadership role in establishing the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in Canada including facilitating stakeholder negotiations for several regional standards processes, serving as a board member and chair, and acting as the Executive Director while overseeing the redesign of the organization’s business strategy and revenue model.

During his ten-year term with World Wildlife Fund Canada (1998 and 2007), Lorne established and led partnerships with several forest products companies. In his final years with WWF, he led the organization’s federal government relations efforts as their Ottawa Bureau Director focusing on climate change and oceans conservation.

Lorne has served in a variety of governance roles and was a founding director of the Clean Economy Fund (a focused collaborative of philanthropic foundations), the co-chair of the Cornerstone Standards Council and a member of the Governing Council of Efficiency Canada. He has headed up a number of organizations over the years including FSC Canada, Cornerstone Standards Council and the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Secretariat.

In addition to his work with the Ivey Foundation, Lorne is an advisor to the conservation granting program of the Schad Foundation. He lives in Ottawa with his wife, Nathalie Chalifour, and two children. He is an avid painter, angler, hunter and paddler. He has aspirations of spending less time on conference calls and more time outdoors.

James Meadowcroft holds a Canada Research Chair in Governance for Sustainable Development. He is a Professor in both the Department of Political Science and the School of Public Policy and Administration. His research is focused on the ways governments are adjusting their practices and policies to cope with the emergence of problems of the environment and sustainable development. Meadowcroft has written widely on environmental politics and policy, democratic participation and deliberative democracy, national sustainable development strategies, and socio- technical transitions. Recent work focuses on energy and the transition to a low carbon society, and includes publications on carbon capture and storage (CCS), smart grids, the development of Ontario’s electricity system, the politics of socio-technical transitions, and negative carbon emissions. He co-edited the first international comparative study of the politics and policy of CCS (Caching the Carbon, Edward Elgar, 2009). Meadowcroft’s research has been funded by the UK ERSC, SSHRC, NSERC and Carbon Management Canada. He has supervised PhD students working on a variety of environment and energy-related topics including North American air pollution, the politics of biofuels, decarbonization pathways and energy futures.

Meadowcroft is currently co-lead, with Hayley Stevenson (University of Sheffield), on an international research project on Ecosystem services: valuing nature for sustainable development and a green economy, which is being funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, the Wellcome Trust and the VolkswagenStiftung. Another initiative is the ‘Taskforce on conceptual foundations of earth system governance’, an international research network (linked to the Earth System Governance project and Future Earth) which is interrogating key ideas that are being formulated to orient global governance of environmental issues (for example: ‘the Anthropocene’,  ‘sustainability science’ or ‘green democracy’). In collaboration with Peter Feindt (Wageningen) and Andreas Duit (Stockholm) he recently edited a special issue of Environmental Politics focused on the Environmental State. Meadowcroft has served as co-editor of the International Political Science Review (1999-2007) and Associate Editor of the Journal of Political Ideologies (2006-). He holds an honorary doctorate from the University Tampere in Finland.

Yasmin is Co-Founder of Kambo Energy Group and the visionary behind Empower Me, Canada’s only energy and climate focused program designed for, and delivered by, members of underserved communities. Under Yasmin’s leadership, Kambo has become a leader and advocate for the inclusion of lower income families in climate policies, specifically advocating for supports for families experiencing energy poverty. Kambo’s Community Power division is dedicated exclusively to reducing energy poverty and improving housing conditions in Indigenous communities.

Yasmin is a leading expert in equity-based energy and climate programming, working with governments and utilities across Canada to design and deliver inclusive solutions.

Yasmin has assembled an employee roster representative of the communities they serve – 83% identify as visible minority, immigrant and/or multilingual, and 59% of employees are female.

Sandra Crocker was appointed to the newly created position of Associate Vice-President in May 2011. Reporting to the Vice-President (Research & International) she is part of the senior management group responsible for planning, developing and implementing a comprehensive research support strategy for Carleton.

Ms. Crocker has an accomplished career in research administration, most recently holding positions at McGill University as Assistant Vice-Principal (Strategic Planning and Partnerships) in the Office of the Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations). Prior to this she had a long career at Queen’s University culminating as Associate Vice-Principal (Research).

Sandra has served on the Board of Directors of the BioCap Canada Foundation, Insect Biotec Canada Inc., the Kingston Technology Council and the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Communications and Information Technology. She served as the President of the Kingston Technology Exchange Centre, a not-for-profit research incubator, and as Chair of the Eastern Lake Ontario Regional Innovation Network. More recently she has joined the Board of Directors of The Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI) as well as the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Institute, The Board of Directors of CARIC, the AIAC Technology and Innovation Committee and served on the Research Advisory Committee of CANARIE and as Chair of the National Research Council’s Construction Research Centre Advisory Board. She also volunteers as a Board member of the Ottawa Olde Forge Community Resource Centre.