The David Suzuki Institute is a non-profit organization that raises public awareness and advances political action in Canada on the climate and biodiversity crises and their solutions.
The Institute is not a registered charity, which gives it greater latitude for political advocacy than the David Suzuki Foundation, a companion organization working to protect nature’s diversity and the well-being of all life, through evidence-based research, policy analysis and public engagement.
The Institute works with a wide range of partners, including publishers, solutions-oriented businesses, social justice and environmental advocates and Indigenous Peoples.
“Each person, group or organization working towards a different world may seem powerless and insignificant, but all of them can add up to a force that can become irresistible.”
DAVID SUZUKI INSTITUTE BOARD MEMBERS
David Suzuki
David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. In 1975, he helped launch and became host of CBC Radio’s long-running science program Quirks and Quarks. In 1979, he became familiar to audiences worldwide as host of CBC TV’s The Nature of Things, which still airs new episodes. He has written or co-authored more than 50 books, nearly 20 for children.
From 1969 to 2001, he was a faculty member at the University of British Columbia, and is currently professor emeritus. He is widely recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology and has received numerous awards for his work, including a UNESCO prize for science, a United Nations Environment Program medal and the Right Livelihood Award. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada.
He has 29 honorary degrees from universities in Canada, the U.S. and Australia. For his support of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples, Suzuki has been honoured with eight names and formal adoption by two First Nations.
In 2010, the National Film Board of Canada and Legacy Lecture Productions produced Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie, which won a People’s Choice documentary award at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. The film weaves together scenes from the places and events that shaped Suzuki’s life and career with a filming of his “last lecture,” which he describes as “a distillation of my life and thoughts, my legacy, what I want to say before I die.”
Tara Cullis
Tara Cullis is an award-winning writer and former faculty member of Harvard University. She has been a key player in environmental movements in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, Japan and British Columbia. She founded or co-founded nine other organizations before co-founding the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990.
She was a founder of the Turning Point Initiative, now known as the of Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative. This brought First Nations of British Columbia’s central and northern coasts into a historic alliance, protecting the ecology of the region known as the Great Bear Rainforest.
Cullis has been adopted and named by Haida, Gitga’at, Heiltsuk and Nam’gis First Nations.
James Hoggan
James Hoggan is a bestselling author, president of Vancouver’s award-winning public relations firm Hoggan & Associates and former chair of the David Suzuki Foundation.
A tireless advocate for ethics in public discourse, he founded the influential online news site DeSmog, which reports on climate change misinformation. It was named one of Time magazine’s best blogs in 2011.
Hoggan has chaired and served on numerous national and international boards and advisory committees, including Shell Global’s external review committee in The Hague, the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education and Al Gore's Climate Reality Project Canada.
He is the author of three books: I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up, Do the Right Thing: PR Tips for a Skeptical Public and Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.
Peter Robinson
Peter Robinson began his career as a park ranger in British Columbia, where he was decorated for bravery by the governor general of Canada. He subsequently became CEO at BC Housing and CEO of Mountain Equipment Co-op. Most recently, he led the David Suzuki Foundation through a decade of work focused on conservation and climate change. Since 2016, he and his wife have owned Hedgerow Farm on Mayne Island, where they practise sustainable agriculture and restorative land stewardship.
Robinson has a long history of humanitarian work, including monitoring prisons with the International Red Cross in Rwanda. He has served as chair of the board of governors and chancellor of Royal Roads University, and on the board of governors of the Canadian Red Cross Society. Peter holds a doctor of social sciences, a master of arts in conflict analysis and management, a bachelor of arts in geography and diplomas in community economic development and fish and wildlife management.
John Lefebvre
John Lefebvre is a retired lawyer and entrepreneur, and a philanthropist, musician, author and climate change activist. Formerly a director of the David Suzuki Foundation, he left that position to be a director of the David Suzuki Institute.
Margot Young
Margot Young is Professor of Law at the Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. From 2019 – 2023, Margot was Visiting International Professor (part-time) with the Department of Law at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her teaching and scholarship focus on the areas of constitutional law, social justice, and feminist theories of law. She sits on the Board of Justice For Girls and is a Research Associate with both the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-BC Office and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. She is also a Fellow of the Broadbent Institute. She has served as the Director of the Centre for Feminist Legal Studies at the University of British Columbia and as Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation Board of Directors. In 2023, Margot was awarded the YWCA Women of Distinction Award.