For the past four years, Geoff and his colleagues at Evergreen have been developing plans for the Brick Works as a venue to provide a large-scale source for native plants, organic food markets and youth leadership programs. According to Geoff, this is especially important right now, as the pressure on cities has grown tremendously over the past few decades, and the ecological restoration movement in and around Toronto has gained significant momentum. What’s more, while becoming intimate with the land and now-defunct brickmaking facilities, Geoff had the vision to transform it into an environmental education center that integrates nature, culture, and community, and is based on a sustainable business model.
Geoff envisions a movement to redesign urban planning and development. He has brought together not only a coalition of environmental organizations to develop a vibrant city model that embraces nature, but also players from business, nonprofit, and government sectors. As such, for the first time in this context, brown fields and parks will be given a new lease on life.
Geoff has worked primarily as an entrepreneur. Even in high school, influenced by a long family history in the construction industry, Geoff started his own carpentry business. He has consistently led the development of innovative ideas to help solve traditional social and environmental problems too. During his undergraduate studies in Politics and Philosophy, he started a series of small businesses. Geoff started Evergreen over 16 years ago, and his work has not gone unnoticed. Evergreen was awarded the Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation (1996), the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects Environment Award (1998), and the Canadian Center for Philanthropy’s “New Spirit of Community” Partnership Award (1998). Evergreen was also voted one of four recipients of the bank’s Shared Interest Fund by Citizens Bank of Canada members.
Outside of Evergreen, Geoff is the founding chair of the Sustainability Network, a group that focuses on building the capacity and management of the environmental community across Canada, and is a founding partner in the development of Featherstone, an initiative to launch a nonprofit investment management firm modeled on the success of Vanguard in the U.S.
