RETAIL COUNCIL OF CANADA
RETAIL SUSTAINABILITY CONFERENCE
October 29 - 30, 2025
Toronto Congress Centre South
Sustainable Solutions for Canadian Retailers & Manufacturers
RCC’s Retail Sustainability Conference brings together over 600 retailers, manufacturers, suppliers, technology providers, and policy visionaries to explore actionable paths to zero plastic waste, net zero emissions, decarbonization, and more.

Decarbonization & Climate Strategy

AI, Data & the New Era of ESG

Circularity & Sustainable Consumption

Responsible Supply Chains & Safer Materials
2025 Speakers
The Retail Sustainability Conference Agenda is made up of influential leaders, visionaries, and passionate professionals that will discuss the most critical topics in the sustainability landscape.

Adrian Vannahme
Chief Operating Officer
Reclay StewardEdge

Adrian Vannahme
Chief Operating Officer

Adrian is an accomplished policy expert with twelve years of international experience in environmental policy. From his time in government, he is particularly familiar with the economic and structural impacts of environment policy, as well as with policy development and implementation.
He has held various positions, such as, Chief of Staff for Ministers; adviser to the Premier of Manitoba; policy officer with the Foreign Office of Germany; and as Director of Stakeholder Relations for the Government of Manitoba’s Climate Office. He has lived in numerous countries across Europe and North America, and has access to a wide network, information and communications in a number of languages.
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Jon McQuaid
Vice President of Marketing & Communications
Call2Recycle Canada

Jon McQuaid
Vice President of Marketing & Communications
Jon McQuaid is the VP of Marketing & Communications at Call2Recycle, operating Recycle Your Batteries, Canada!, the country’s leading battery collection and recycling program that has diverted over 50 million kilograms of batteries from Canadian landfills. Jon leads the organization’s brand, marketing and communications strategies. He champions innovation and public education initiatives that prioritize battery recycling awareness and safety across expansive battery categories, including household, electric mobility, and EVs. Jon drives stakeholder engagement and comprehensive solutions across the entire end-of-life battery value chain, collaborating with manufacturers, retailers, municipalities, and consumers to promote safe and responsible battery recycling practices. Jon holds an MBA from Queen’s University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Toronto.
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Dr. Zahra Bhojani
Sustainability and Enterprise Plastics Lead
Loblaw Companies Limited

Dr. Zahra Bhojani
Sustainability and Enterprise Plastics Lead
Dr. Zahra Bhojani is a dynamic leader in sustainability, spearheading impactful initiatives that drive innovation and advance environmental responsibility across the industry. She serves as the Sustainability and Enterprise Plastics Lead at Loblaw Companies Limited, Canada’s food and pharmacy leader. In her role, she drives strategies to transition to better plastic packaging, reduce overall plastic use, and eliminate harmful plastics—clearing a path toward a more sustainable future.
A trailblazer in her field, Dr. Zahra plays a crucial role in championing an industry-first collaboration with another major retailer and several consumer goods brands. This groundbreaking initiative designs a reuse system pilot for select products in Canada and marks a significant stride toward circular economy practices. She also advocates and supports the broad adoption of the Consumer Goods Forum’s Golden Design Rules for Plastic Packaging, supporting supplier partners to enhance sustainability.
Renowned for her courageous, empathetic, and pragmatic leadership style, Dr. Zahra understands the intricate links between business, environmental stewardship, and societal well-being. Her tireless dedication to solving complex challenges drives transformative, system-wide change, inspiring positive impact across the entire industry.
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Sarahjayne Benedict
Operations Facilities Management Specialist
IKEA Canada

Sarahjayne Benedict
Operations Facilities Management Specialist
Sarahjayne Benedict is an Operations Facilities Management Specialist at IKEA Canada, where she leads initiatives in sustainability, energy conservation, and water management. Passionate about decarbonizing the retail sector, Sarahjayne integrates sustainable facility strategies into everyday operations, aligning with global People & Planet goals at IKEA.
She holds ISO 50001 certification – a testament to her expertise in systematic energy improvement. Further strengthening her credentials, Sarahjayne earned the Sustainability Facility Professional (SFP) designation from the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), a qualification that empowers professionals to embed sustainable practices into building operations.
At IKEA Canada, a company recognized as one of Canada’s Greenest Employers for 17 consecutive years, Sarahjayne plays a key role in advancing decarbonization efforts, including optimizing renewable energy use and water conservation. Her work supports the company’s broader ambition: halving greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain by 2030 and reaching net-zero by 2050.
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Tim Fuchs
Head of Public Affairs
IKEA Canada

Tim Fuchs
Head of Public Affairs
Timothy B. Fuchs is a seasoned Public Affairs professional working with IKEA Canada for the last 7 years. As Head of Public Affairs, Tim’s role focuses on building meaningful relationships across public, private, and community sectors, with a focus on bringing clear solutions to the table. Prior to having an active family and home life, Tim was a (very!) amateur stand-up comedian, performing on stage and leading his “Humour in the Workplace” corporate workshops. Currently, Tim is passionate about mentoring emerging leaders, helping to empower the next generate of public affairs and government relations professionals.
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Joshua Goodman
Head of Corporate Sustainability
Sobeys

Joshua Goodman
Head of Corporate Sustainability
Joshua Goodman is the Head of Corporate Sustainability at Sobeys. A leading national grocer, Sobeys sees sustainability as a critical element of its ambition to be the best retailer in Canada. In his role, Joshua is responsible for developing, implementing and overseeing sustainable business strategies and initiatives across the company’s approximately 1,600 stores in all 10 provinces. With nearly 20 years of experience, Joshua has held sustainability roles with several leading Canadian companies across multiple sectors, including retail, financial services, consumer product goods and real estate. Prior to that, he worked in the US and Europe focusing on national security policy. Joshua holds an LL.M. specializing in international economic regulatory systems from the University of Kent.
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Wil Bell
Building Solutions & Decarbonization Lead
Modern Niagara

Wil Bell
Building Solutions & Decarbonization Lead
Wil Bell is a Building Solutions & Decarbonization Lead for Modern Niagara’s Energy Solutions team. As a Professional Engineer and Certified Energy Manager, with a focus on creating a more inclusive & sustainable future, Wil uses his experience designing & developing district energy plants, heat pump replacement initiatives, and large energy efficiency improvement and GHG reduction projects, to help commercial, industrial and public sector organizations reduce their carbon footprint and total energy expenditure.
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Alicia Creagh
Fulfilment Sourcing Manager
IKEA Canada

Alicia Creagh
Fulfilment Sourcing Manager
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Dave Jerman
Account Executive
PowerON Energy Solutions

Dave Jerman
Account Executive
Dave Jerman is an Account Executive at PowerON Energy Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation, specializing in commercial fleet electrification and EV charging infrastructure. With expertise from the transportation and heavy-duty trucking industries, Dave brings valuable perspective to the EV sector.
Having worked on emission control systems for HD engines since 2010, he now guides clients through electrification implementation. Dave’s industry knowledge has led to recognition as an expert in several trucking publications and invitations as a guest speaker on numerous podcasts. His dedication, expertise, and collaborative approach help commercial customers implement optimized decarbonization solutions
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Ashley Jones
Business Development Officer
SOFIAC

Ashley Jones
Business Development Officer
Ashley brings over five years of experience in the energy sector, assisting both public and private organizations in achieving their sustainability objectives. She spent more than a decade with a top Energy Service Company (ESCO) and has taken on a leadership role in Business Development at SOFIAC. As a LEED-accredited Green Associate, Ashley is eager to help organizations navigate the challenges of the Canadian climate crisis.
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Lauren Adey
Vice President, Marketing & Retail
Cool Climate Club

Lauren Adey
Vice President, Marketing & Retail
Lauren Adey is a seasoned communications and marketing expert, with nearly 15 years experience in the retail industry, most notably at Nordstrom, Joe Fresh and Tanya Taylor. As the Vice President, Marketing and Retail at Cool Climate Club (CCC), Lauren leads programs that connect the world of retail with measurable climate action. CCC partners with forward-thinking brands and their customers to plant and preserve Canadian forests. They pair this process with proprietary technology and turnkey marketing that helps retailers monitor and share their impact.
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Kristina Friedman
Head of Sustainability for North America
Unilever

Kristina Friedman
Head of Sustainability for North America
Kristina Friedman serves as the Head of Sustainability for North America at Unilever. Where she works across the business in the US and Canada to help enable progress on the company’s sustainability priorities: Climate, Nature, Plastics, and Livelihoods.
She has 20 years of experience working in the corporate, financial, and government sectors providing guidance and solutions on impact-related topics, including a decade of environmental expertise. Most recently, she led the global environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy at PayPal, collaborating across the organization to establish and implement its ESG program. Prior to PayPal, Ms. Friedman worked at Calvert Research and Management as a lead ESG research analyst, and before that she held various roles at the US Environmental Protection Agency, US House of Representatives, and Citigroup.
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Matt Brunette
Program Manager, Energy Performance
Toronto Region Conservation Authority

Matt Brunette
Program Manager, Energy Performance
Matt is the program manager of Partners in Project Green’s energy performance programs. He brings over 9 years of experience in energy efficiency, climate change impact assessments, and energy education. He’s leads PPG’s Energy Leaders Consortium and site assessment programs in Brampton
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Sam Hamam
Head of Supply Chain
McDonald's Canada

Sam Hamam
Head of Supply Chain
Sam is the Head of Supply Chain at McDonald’s Canada, overseeing Strategic Sourcing, Distribution, New Food, and Quality Standards. With a history in franchise operations and business development, Sam excels in growing revenue, motivating teams, and implementing growth plans in retail and restaurant sectors across Canada and the US. Previously, Sam led Walmart Canada’s Licensee business, managing strategy and operations for 1200 licensees and third-party businesses. He has a degree in Economics and Business from Carleton University and extensive experience in developing strategies for large brands while prioritizing partnership and feedback.
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Harrison Brook
Manager, Sustainability
Retail Council of Canada

Kim Furlong
President & CEO
Retail Council of Canada

Eric Donato
Enterprise Account Executive
Source Intelligence

Eric Donato
Enterprise Account Executive
Eric Donato is a sustainability and compliance specialist with over seven years of experience supporting Fortune 1000 companies across sectors including Consumer Brands, Electronics, Aerospace, and Retail. In his current role at Source Intelligence, Eric partners with leading retailers to develop practical, risk-conscious compliance programs that meet evolving global regulations while protecting brand and revenue.
Eric helps businesses turn complex regulatory requirements into strategic advantages. His work focuses on making sustainability and compliance programs actionable and impactful—helping retailers not just keep up, but stay ahead.
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Jim Andrew
Executive Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer
PepsiCo

Jim Andrew
Executive Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer
Jim Andrew is Executive Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer for PepsiCo. PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers more than one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo generated nearly $92 billion in net revenue in 2024, driven by a complementary beverage and convenient foods portfolio that includes Lay’s, Doritos, Cheetos, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, Quaker, and SodaStream. PepsiCo’s product portfolio includes a wide range of enjoyable foods and beverages, including many iconic brands that generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales.
Mr. Andrew joined PepsiCo in 2016 and currently leads pep+, PepsiCo’s holistic transformation agenda with sustainability at the center, including the strategic framework, governance, and integrated plans and goals for all of PepsiCo. He also ensures that sustainability is woven into the operating plans of all Business Units. Prior to this role, he held a variety of operating and functional leadership roles in the company including global head of Strategy and leader of our Beyond the Bottle businesses.
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Allen Langdon
CEO
Circular Materials

Allen Langdon
CEO
As CEO, Allen is responsible for leading Circular Materials through the development of Ontario’s new blue box recycling system while expanding the organization’s operations into other provinces, starting with New Brunswick. His mission is to support producers with a robust not-for-profit service offering that advances the circular economy, delivers national harmonization of extended producer responsibility (EPR) services and harnesses competitive procurement to provide the best value for producers.
Prior to joining Circular Materials, Allen served as the President and CEO of Return-It, British Columbia’s very successful used beverage container management program in Canada. In this role, Allen oversaw the modernization of Return-It’s collection network, which consists of more than 170 collection sites, including Return-It depots, Express Plus and Express & GO stations. Return-It has routinely exceeded a 75% recovery rate for used beverage containers in British Columbia, and its network has supported the collection of new materials, including waste electrical and electronic equipment.
Allen also served as the Managing Director for Recycle BC, the first 100% EPR program for paper and packaging in North America where industry assumed full financial and managerial responsibility for the residential recycling system.
Allen currently serves as an Advisory Board Member for the Washington State Recycling Development Centre.
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Curt Cozart
Chief Operating Officer
Association of Plastics Recyclers

Curt Cozart
Chief Operating Officer
Curt Cozart is Chief Operating Officer for the Association of Plastics Recyclers, and president of Common Sense Solutions, Inc. a consulting company specializing in plastics recycling plant design and optimization. At APR he oversees the Design Guide for Plastics Recyclability, PCR Certification, Design Training and Design Recognition programs. While at Common Sense Solutions he played key roles in the design and improvement of most of the North American plastic recycling infrastructure. He has worked in the plastics recycling industry since 1991 where, as a project manager for Mobil Chemical Company he built the first North American film recycling plant dedicated to LLDPE stretch film. He holds a BS in applied engineering mechanics from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served domestically and overseas in the US Army as an engineer officer.
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Ashley Fill
Director, Global Sustainability Communications
Procter and Gamble

Ashley Fill
Director, Global Sustainability Communications
At Procter and Gamble, Ashley Fill leads sustainability for global home care brands including Cascade, Swiffer, Fairy, Dawn and Febreze. She is executing the brands’ circularity strategy and driving consumer habit change to reduce water and energy use at home. She is a 2022 Trellis Group 30 Under 30 honoree, 2x keynote speaker at Sustainable Brands, and earned her master’s in sustainability leadership at Cambridge University.
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Cliff Hacking
President and CEO
Electronic Products Recycling Association (EPRA)

Cliff Hacking
President and CEO
Cliff Hacking is the founding president and CEO of the Electronic Products Recycling Association (EPRA), the most comprehensive end-of-life electronic stewardship program in North America. EPRA, under Cliff’s leadership, has recycled over 1.3 Million tonnes of e-waste since the organization’s inception. Through EPRA’s Recycle My Electronics programs, EPRA has helped Canadians divert e-waste from landfills and illegal export with over 3,150 collection sites across Canada.
In prior roles, Cliff increased revenue and profitability at such industry-leading companies as Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, and Canadian Tire. He holds an MBA from Western University and has an ICD designation from the Rotman School of Business.
Cliff is an expert in driving lower costs and increased economies of scale on a national level. Under his tenure, EPRA has introduced new programs in Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, while expanding efforts in British Columbia and evolving within new legislative requirements in Ontario. Cliff also brought efficiency and consistency to EPRA’s 8,200 stewards.
Cliff is the host of A Welcome Diversion, EPRA’s podcast that covers sustainability and recycling. Cliff has elevated public awareness of EPRA as a leader in the environmental and technology sectors reaching today’s on-demand audience. The podcast series is available on Apple, Spotify and wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Sheri Flies
Senior Vice President, Global Sustainability and Compliance
Costco Wholesale

Sheri Flies
Senior Vice President, Global Sustainability and Compliance
Sheri began her career with Costco 31 years ago as Corporate Counsel, where she was responsible for Costco’s legal issues related to merchandising, its vendor code of conduct, intellectual property, pharmacy, export, e-commerce and privacy policies. In 2007, Sheri transitioned from legal into the buying side of the business in order to learn how to integrate sustainability practices into everyday buying decisions and her teams supported the development of numerous Costco private label Kirkland Signature products. From there she joined the Global Sourcing Department in 2013, where she was involved with various sustainability projects, both domestically and internationally. Her focus was on value-chain analysis to source to help ensure quality and supply, while also exploring multi-stakeholder market-based solutions to address poverty, malnutrition, illegal trafficking and environmental concerns. In 2016, she began and now leads the Global Sustainability and Compliance department and her responsibilities are focused on Costco’s sustainability practices worldwide, that include human rights, trade and customs compliance, responsible sourcing, packaging, product safety, animal welfare, environmental compliance and climate related policies.
Sheri is a frequent guest lecturer at various universities discussing topics related to business, ethics and sustainability and has shared the results of her work with the World Wildlife’s Fuller Symposium, The World Justice Forum at The Hague, The World Bank, The World Food Programme, USDA/FAS, and US Department of State. She is a 2016 recipient of the Women of Influence for the Puget Sound Business Journal and a 2011 recipient of the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award. Sheri is currently a Board Member of the College Success Foundation, a member of the Advisory Board for the Center for Business Ethics at the Albers School of Business of Seattle University and a former Trustee of Pinchot University/The Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Sheri also manages Costco’s participation in a private/public collaboration to provide an affordable and high quality early learning center for children and families. Prior to joining Costco, Sheri was a partner in a Seattle law firm. She and her husband John live in Seattle and together are the grateful parents of three beautiful adult children and their families.
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Brands Attended
Brands Attended
Sustainability Committee
The Retail Sustainability Conference agenda and speaker lineup is shaped and curated by influential leaders in the Canadian retail sustainability sector.

Jay Illingworth
Harmonization Director
EPRA

Jay Illingworth
Harmonization Director
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Swati Patel
Sr. Manager, Sustainability Strategy and Business Development
Schneider Electric

Swati Patel
Sr. Manager, Sustainability Strategy and Business Development
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Zahra Bhojani
Sustainability and Enterprise Plastics Lead
Loblaws

Zahra Bhojani
Sustainability and Enterprise Plastics Lead
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Jeff Bezzo
Executive Director - Plastic Sustainability PMO
SC Johnson

Jeff Bezzo
Executive Director - Plastic Sustainability PMO
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Heléne Loberg
Country Sustainability Manager
IKEA

Heléne Loberg
Country Sustainability Manager
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Alexis Lavoie
Environment, Governance and Accountability Advisor
Metro

Alexis Lavoie
Environment, Governance and Accountability Advisor
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Joshua Goodman
Head of Corporate Sustainability
Sobeys

Joshua Goodman
Head of Corporate Sustainability
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Kent Wootton
Manager, Product Circular Innovations
Canadian Tire

Kent Wootton
Manager, Product Circular Innovations
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Chloe Barnabe
Director, Sustainability Transformation
EY

Chloe Barnabe
Director, Sustainability Transformation
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Gulnara Gabidullina
Director, Global Product Stewardship
P&G

Gulnara Gabidullina
Director, Global Product Stewardship
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What Our Attendees Say
Retail Sustainability Conference
October 29-30, 2025. Toronto Congress Centre South. 650 Dixon Rd, Etobicoke, ON M9W 1J1.

As The Voice of Retail™ in Canada since 1963, Retail Council of Canada (RCC) represents over 45,000 independent, regional, national mass and specialty retail businesses and online merchants in general merchandise, drug and grocery.