Laure Waridel:

Co-Founder of Equiterre, Eco-Sociologist, Author & Columnist

Wednesday, February 27
5:00 - 6:30pm
Concordia University, room H-763
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West

Hardly a day goes by without some new study being published that demonstrates the enormity of the environmental, social and economic challenges – not to say crises – facing humans, both individually and collectively. What role can university communities play in enhancing the transition towards real sustainability? Laure Waridel argues that building an ecological and social economy is an urgent necessity that will require thinking and action from every discipline. In this lecture she reminds us that the economy is a social construction that can be changed by the people. She presents many inspiring initiatives that have already been implemented. This lecture is an invitation to think outside the traditional boxes of “wealth,” “performance” and “progress” in order to contribute to a more ecological and equitable future.

Laure Waridel

Laure Waridel is an eco-sociologist, a thinker and a doer. She is one of the pioneers of fair trade and sustainable  consumption in Québec. She co-founded Équiterre, an organization dedicated to promoting ecologically and socially viable choices. Author and columnist, she has published several essays, including Acheter c’est voter ( To buy is to vote) in 2005

(Audience Award for business publications HEC/La Presse and Communication and Society Award) and L’envers de l’assiette (The Other side of the plate) (1998, 2003). Laure Waridel has often been referred to as a leader by the media, such as Maclean’s one of “25 young Canadians who are already changing our world”. She received the Order of Canada, was named to the Cercle des Phénix de l’environnement du Québec and Chevalier de l’Ordre de la pléiade by the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie for her commitment to environmental and social justice causes. At this time, she is doing a PhD on the emergence of an ecolocial and social economy from the bottom up at the Graduate Institute of International and Development studies in Geneva, Switzerland. Laure Waridel is a Trudeau and SSHRC Scholar.

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