The Journey to Selling Safer, More Sustainable Products: Meeting Consumer Demand

David Norem combines strong technical expertise as an engineer, scientist, and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) specialist with a passion for sustainability. In addition to his corporate experience as a Sustainability Manager for both retailer and manufacturing companies, he has completed several LCAs and performed energy, greenhouse gas, and water use inventories and auditing for scores of companies. Dave is currently engaged in helping companies gain insights into their consumer product portfolio and providing manufacturers the tools they need to better design products.
Dave holds a Masters degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of California – Berkeley, and dual Bachelor degrees in Chemistry and Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Marijke (pronounced Mar-eye-ka) is an experienced merchandising and ESG professional, sustainable living enthusiast and avid world traveller. Building a career in retail, she successfully led portfolios of up to $1.1B in annual sales during her tenures at Indigo, LS Travel Retail and the LCBO. A lifelong passion for sustainability brought Marijke to Canadian Tire where, as part of the ESG Strategy & Integration team, she has applied her background in category management and her knack for inspiring change to help guide the strategic work in reducing the environmental impact of CTC’s products by finding ways to better design, make, reuse and recycle them. Outside of work, Marijke is a keen practitioner of yoga and ardent champion for low waste, joyfully follows a plant-based lifestyle, and takes every opportunity to travel the world—she’s just visited her 102nd country! 

Heather Mak is the Principal Advisor of Heather Mak Consulting and the co-founder of Diversity in Sustainability, a member network focused on re-imagining a more inclusive sector of sustainability. Heather has over 15 years of experience in the private and non-profit sectors on food, retail and consumer goods sustainability issues in North America and Europe. Heather is a known connector, convenor and facilitator, and also specializes in strategy and integration, stakeholder engagement, risk management, and reporting and communications on complex sustainability issues. She was the co-author of Signed, Sealed…Delivered? Behind Certifications and Beyond Labels, a white paper focused on how certification and labeling tools are used by businesses to define, deliver and demonstrate more sustainable practices, and the future needed to create sustainable impact. She has been featured in the Globe and Mail, Corporate Knights, The Toronto Star, GreenBiz, Ethical Corporation, and Business Insider.

Heather holds a B.Com with Distinction in Marketing from McGill University, and an MBA with Honours in Sustainability from Schulich School of Business, York University.