Sarah Burch

Dr. Sarah Burch is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Canada and holds a Canada Research Chair in Sustainability Governance and Innovation.

She is the Executive Director of the Waterloo Climate Institute, a Lead Author of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (including the recently launched Special Report on Climate Change and Cities), and helped to lead expert input into the development of Canada’s first National Adaptation Strategy. Her research uncovers transformative responses to climate change at the community scale, the political and justice dimensions of sustainability transitions, and the unique contributions that small businesses can make to this solving these complex challenges. Dr. Burch has served as expert advisor and consultant to the federal government (on climate change adaptation and climate fundamentals education), and dozens of municipalities (on climate change and sustainability action plans).

Dr. Burch holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford. She was named to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars in 2017, one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40TM in 2018, and one of Canada’s Clean 50 in 2021.

Her most recent book is entitled ‘Understanding Climate Change: Science, Policy and Practice,’ and she has taught the first Massive Open Online Course on climate change, which reached thousands over students in over 130 countries.

• Burch, S., J. DiBella, M. Farrelly, K. McCormick, D. Lang, B. Ness, C. Orr, A. Wiek. 2026. Building capacity for sustainability transformation through transdisciplinary experimentation: Empirical evidence from a novel methodology deployed in 7 countries. Environmental Science and Policy. 179: 104364.

• DiBella, J. and Burch, S., 2025. Sequencing sustainability and climate solutions: a systems view of implementation. Sustainability Science, pp.1-18.

• Orr, C. and S. Burch. 2025. Transformative capacities for navigating system change: a framework for sustainability research and practice. Sustainability Science 20(3): 975-992.

• Stubbs, W., S. Burch, P. Ramesh, K. Fabianke, and M. Farrelly. 2024. Sustainable business models in “lighthouse” small to medium enterprises. In Press Journal of Management and Organization 30(3): 466-489.

• Romero-Lankao, P., N. Rosner, C. Brandtner, C. Rea, A. Mejia-Montero, F. Pilo, F. Dockshin, V. Castan-Broto, S. Burch and S. Schnur. 2023. A framework to center justice in energy transitions innovation. Nature Energy 8(11):1192-1198.

• Luederitz, C., L. Westman*, A. Kundurpi, A. Mercado, S. Burch. 2023. Conceptualizing the potential of entrepreneurship to shape urban sustainability transformations. Urban Transformations 5:3.

• Denton, F., K. Halsnæs, K. Akimoto, S. Burch, C. Diaz Morejon, F. Farias, J. Jupesta, A. Shareef, P. Schweizer-Ries, F. Teng, E. Zusman, 2022: Accelerating the transition in the context of sustainable development. In IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [P.R. Shukla, J. Skea, R. Slade, A. Al Khourdajie, R. van Diemen, D. McCollum, M. Pathak, S. Some, P. Vyas, R. Fradera, M. Belkacemi, A. Hasija, G. Lisboa, S. Luz, J. Malley, (eds.)].

• DiBella, J., S. Burch, N. Forrest, J. Rao-Williams, S. Morton Ninomiya, K. Chisholm and V. Hermelingmeir. 2022. Exploring the potential of SMEs to build individual, organizational, and community resilience through sustainable business practices. Business Strategy and the Environment 32(1): 721-735. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3171

• Burch, S., J. Di Bella*, A. Wiek, S. Schaltegger, W. Stubbs, M. Farrelly, B. Ness, K. McCormick. 2022. Building urban resilience through sustainability-oriented small- and medium-sized enterprises. Urban Transformations 4:1-7.

• Dale, A., J. Robinson, L. King, R. Newell, S. Burch, F. Jost, A. Shaw, and A. Moore. 2020. Meeting the climate change challenge: local government climate change action in British Columbia, Canada. Climate Policy 1-15.