John Robinson is the Executive Director of the UBC Sustainability Initiative, responsible for leading the integration of academic and operational sustainability on the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus. He is also a professor with UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability, and the Department of Geography.

Dr. Robinson’s own research focuses on the intersection of climate change mitigation, adaptation and sustainability; the use of visualization, modeling, and citizen engagement to explore sustainable futures; sustainable buildings and urban design; creating partnerships for sustainability with the private, public, non-governmental and research sectors; and, generally, the intersection of sustainability, social and technological change, behaviour change, and community engagement processes. The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability is a major project.

Dr. Robinson is on the Board of the Fraser Basin Council; a member of the BC Hydro External Advisory Committee on Electricity Conservation and Efficiency, and the Steering Group of HELIO International; and on the Editorial Boards of the journals Ecology and Society, Building Research and Information, and the Journal of Industrial Ecology. He was a Fellow of the Trudeau Foundation from 2008 to 2010, a member of the Program Committee of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions from 2008-11, and was a Lead Author in the last three reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. In October 2010, Dr. Robinson was awarded BC Hydro’s Larry Bell Award for contributions to energy efficiency and conservation in British Columbia, and in 2011 he received an Educational Leadership award from the Canada Green Building Council.