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The Pembina Institute has a reputation as a hard-nosed environmental think tank, and makes no bones about the fact that it supports a transition to renewable energy. But it also recognizes that conventional energy sources have a role in Canada's economy, at least for the time being.

Pembina's strong research has won respect from the business community, and it even conducts consulting work for companies that want guidance to make their operations more sustainable.

Ed Whittingham, the institute's new executive director, is no stereotypical tree-hugger, although he lives in Banff, where he can indulge his interests in skiing, canoeing, hunting and hiking. He holds an MBA and ran the consulting side of Pembina's operations for the past several years.

Those are key skills that help him manage one of Canada's biggest environmental organizations, with $5-million a year in revenue, 60 employees, seven offices in Canada and a branch in Washington, D.C.

How does Pembina manage to maintain the respect of both businesses and environmentalists?

Pembina is a hybrid organization. We've got the research and technical capacity of a think tank. We've got the environmental values and the capacity for advocacy of an environmental NGO [non-governmental organization] But we also have the entrepreneurial mindset and business know-how of a for-profit consulting firm. We don't see that as schizophrenic. We see the approaches as very complementary to one another.

Why do you do consulting?

It makes us unique. By doing consulting, we actually get in there with companies and governments and municipalities and work with them on the ground. That gives us a good understanding of solutions to the problems that we deal with, but it also allows us to retain really bright people, some with very technical backgrounds.

What do you do for your consulting clients?

We help companies that are relatively new to sustainability come up with strategies and management practices. On capital projects we talk about life-cycle assessments. Clients say to us, for example, 'I'm building this upgrader, what are the impacts I need to take into account to make sure it isn't going to get me into trouble and be a sustainability eyesore a few years down the road?'

How do you manage potential conflicts?

The clients who are really concerned [about conflicting positions]don't hire us. I like to think the ones that really have their shareholder interests at heart understand the value of bringing a critic in-house. [We]give them the frank no-bullshit assessment, unlike a for-profit management consultancy that's going to tell them what they want to hear.

Don't some people think you're beholden to your consulting clients?

There are some who think that we're a bunch of corporate sellouts, for sure. Frankly, that's on the radical left. Then there's the radical right that thinks we're a bunch of wing-nut tree-huggers. As long as I'm getting sniped at equally by those two peripheries, then I know I'm in the right spot. The right spot is the pragmatic solutions-focused middle.

How did your MBA shift you toward consulting?

Prior to doing MBA studies I was working in bears-and-bunnies conservation - for parks and protected areas. I was coming at it from an advocacy perspective. I joke that before I did my MBA, I had more experience suing for-profit companies than I had working for them.

[But]I thought I had gotten as far as I could go by just being the bad cop, and I needed to broaden my horizons. I wanted to work with companies on solutions. [York University's]Schulich business and sustainability program, within the international MBA program, gave me the right mix.

Is there a lot of room for improvement in the way NGOs are run these days?

At NGOs you get people who are practitioners or content experts, and through attrition or whatever they end up running the organization. At some, that's absolutely the right fit, but there is enough complexity out there that [we need]to try to get people who actually have some training in management to run big complex organizations.

I want to [build]a healthy organization, one that gives people an opportunity to stay in the NGO sector for the duration of their careers, if they want, without taking a vow of poverty.

What's the No. 1 issue on the advocacy side?

It's the oil sands, but you can't [separate]the oil sands from the whole climate issue. [Climate change]is the greatest threat to our livelihoods, and to business, and to the future my kids are going to inherit. The oil sands is part and parcel of that because it raises the question of what kind of energy future we want for ourselves. We advocate a low-carbon, low-impact energy future, and with the pace and scale of oil sands development right now, it's hard to see that fitting into a 2050 picture.

Should there be a transition away from the oil sands?

Absolutely. We've never said: 'Shut the oil sands down tomorrow.' What we say is, let's develop it responsibly. And don't develop it to the point where air, water and land is permanently impaired. Develop it within environmental limits, and don't develop it to the point where you preclude Canada from doing its fair share to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Is carbon capture and storage a key to making it work?

I think that is one tool that we can use [but]its applicability directly in the oil sands is very much a question mark right now. The technology doesn't seem to be close at hand and as a result the economics aren't close at hand. If you want to put CCS on an in-situ facility, you're looking at $175 to $200 a tonne. No company is going to bear that cost. But using it on coal-fired electricity or on an upgrader makes a heck of a lot more sense.

The good thing with the oil sands is we've got this nearly unprecedented wealth creation opportunity. I think it behooves us to think of how we can capture some of that wealth to try to fund a low-carbon, low-impact economy.

What is the most crucial environmental issue in Canada right now?

It is renewable energy. We're seeing the Obama administration vastly outspending us on renewable energy and clean energy. We need lots of wind - wind can be good power, especially in order to aid a coal phase-out. But there are some aesthetic impacts. Is the public ready for those impacts, and how do we have a mature conversation around it? That's a big, big issue, and of course that's also part and parcel of a national energy strategy.

What's your position on nuclear power?

We're not bullish at all on nuclear. The lesson we can draw [from Japan's recent experience]is that with nuclear there is never 100-per-cent certainty. We have histories of accidents. I, for one, am still concerned about nuclear facilities being targets of awful terrorist attacks - I don't think that's beyond the realm of possibility in Canada. And there are alternatives, [including]a ramp up of renewables and a ramp up of energy efficiency.

Why is there so much resistance against wind farms?

Some of the landowner resistance [in Ontario]has come from a generation that is just not accustomed to seeing wind turbines on the landscape, nor frankly, living close to energy infrastructure. Whereas here in Alberta, we've been living close to energy infrastructure for 50 to 60 years now. We're a little more accustomed to it.

How important is energy conservation?

It's that second cousin that always gets passed over because it is not sexy. [We need to]make our homes and our buildings more efficient. We can do a heck of a lot in a really cost-effective way just by pursuing some simple policies. Frankly, economists and engineers have been telling us this for years [but]there is often not a ribbon-cutting ceremony associated with it

ED WHITTINGHAM

Title

Executive director, Pembina Institute

Personal

Born in Newmarket, Ont.; 38 years old

Education

BA in East Asian studies, McGill University

International MBA, Schulich School of Business, York University

Career highlights

- Executive director, UTSB Research, Banff, from 1999 to 2003

- Visiting researcher at the UN's International Environmental Technology Centre in Shiga, Japan

- Co-founded York Sustainable Enterprise Consultants in Toronto in 2003

- Joined Pembina's corporate consulting group in 2005, and became group director in 2008. Named executive director of Pembina on Jan. 1, 2011.

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