Dr. Amelia Clarke (She/They)

Dr. Amelia Clarke has been working on environment and sustainability issues since 1989, including as President of Sierra Club Canada (2003-2006), the first Director of the University of Waterloo's Master of Environment and Business degree (2009-2018) and the Associate Dean Research for the Faculty of Environment (2018-2022). She is now a Full Professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo. Her main research focuses are related to implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals #11, #13 and #17. She leads a $13.5M national team project called the Municipal Net-Zero Action Research Partnership (N-ZAP) (2022-2032), and up until recently co-lead a second project on youth & innovation (2016-2026). She also has a long history of working on climate and sustainability action on university campuses.

Dr. Clarke approaches her research on sustainability management - including for sustainable businesses, sustainable campuses and sustainable communities - from a strategic management lens. Many of her theoretical contributions have been related to strategy implementation & evaluation, designing cross-sector partnerships, and stakeholder/youth engagement. Her most cited work is on collaborative strategic management and some of her most recent work is on implementing climate action plans. Dr. Clarke’s work has been published in over 100 journal articles, book chapters and practitioner reports. For more details see her Google Scholar profile - https://scholar.google.ca/citations?hl=en&user=N0qNHOMAAAAJ

Dr. Clarke holds a PhD in Management (Strategy) from McGill University. She is currently also a founding member of Nature Canada's Women for Nature, a member of the GreenBiz Intelligence Panel, a member of WRI's global Advisory Council for the Ross Centre Prize for Cities, named on the #Thinklist30 and #ThinklistImpact as a social media influencer on responsible business, and part of the LGBTQ+ community. She was recently awarded the 2025-2026 Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision from the University of Waterloo and a Top 50 Global Women in Sustainability Award from SustainabilityX Magazine (2025).

Amelia Clarke has a long history of impact. In 1996, she founded the Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC), and is proud of having launched SYC’s sustainable campus program which helped create significant change on more than 80 Canadian campuses. She is also proud of her efforts to help influence the creation of 10 new protected areas in New Brunswick, Canada. She was on the Canadian government delegation for the United Nations - World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002) and spoke to ~2000 delegates at the United Nations' Habitat III conference (2016). Now her work is now furthering climate action.

Connect on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amelia-clarke-3414401/

• Sustainability management

• Climate mitigation - including carbon accounting, climate budgeting, climate-related financial disclosure, climate action plan implementation

• Cross-sector partnerships

• Strategy implementation

• Stakeholder and rightsholder engagement

• Doctor of Philosophy – Management (Strategy), Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University – Montreal, QC, Canada

• Master of Environmental Studies – Environmental Management, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University – Halifax, NS, Canada

• Bachelor of Science – Biology and Engineering, Mount Allison University – Sackville, NB, Canada

• ENBUS 302 - Strategies for Environment and Business
  • Taught in 2026
• ENBUS 602 - Introduction to Sustainability for Business
  • Taught in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
• ENBUS 640 - Strategies for Sustainable Enterprises
  • Taught in 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026
• SUSM 640 - Strategy for Sustainable Enterprises
  • Taught in 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Dentoni, D., Hamann, R., Linnenluecke, M., Bakker, F., Clarke, A. & Etchanchu, H. (2026). Cross-Sector Partnerships for Social-Ecological Resilience and Transformation. Business & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/00076503261445160

• Driver, T., ElAlfy, A., Clarke, A. & Wilson, J. (2026). Unpacking Climate Disclosure: A Multi-Level Integrated Framework for Understanding the Corporate Sustainability Disclosure Landscape. Green Finance, 8(2): 372−413. https://www.aimspress.com/article/doi/10.3934/GF.2026014

• Soliz, A., MacDonald, A., Talbot, D., Ordonez-Ponce, E., Zhou, Y., Linton, S., Clarke, A., & ElAlfy, A. (2026). Toward Comprehensive Climate Action: Assessing Mitigation Approaches across Canadian Municipalities. Environment Policy & Governance. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70110

• Akomolafe, B., Ayambire, R. & Clarke, A. (2026). Assessing the Global South-North Dichotomy in the Deep Decarbonization Strategy at the Local Level. Urban Science, 10(4), 202. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci10040202

• Kaur Kohli, I., Tozer, L., Samuel, N., Clarke, A., Riemer, M., Cash, C. & Dobai, J. (2026). How is Justice Addressed in Collaborative Local Climate Action? Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-06-2025-0448

• Goudsblom, M. & Clarke, A. (2025). Enablers, Barriers and Systems for Organizational Change for Adopting and Implementing Local Governments' Climate Mitigation Strategies: A Systematic Literature Review. Climate. 13(11), 228. https://doi.org/10.3390/cli13110228

• Dougherty, I., Lawford, H., Castillo Cifuentes, V., Clarke A., Lara-Morales, O., & Spasevski, A. (2025). From Strategy to Impact: How Young People Create Social and Environmental Impact through Youth Service Programs. Youth, 5(3), 89. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth5030089

• Bamidele Jimoh, I., Clarke, A., ElAlfy, A. & Weber, O. (2025). An Investigation of Campuses' Sustainability Practices in Nigerian Higher Education Institutions. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-06-2024-0427 or access it: https://dspacemainprd01.lib.uwaterloo.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/4ff1a6df-4dba-4426-9ccf-48168412b47d/content

• Feor, L., Clarke, A. & Wilson, J. (2025). The Impact of Population Size on Climate Performance Measurement Practices. Corporate Social Responsibility & Environmental Management, 32(5), 7006–7027. https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.70074

• Cornelius-Hernandez, T. & Clarke, A. (2025). The Current State of Integrating Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion into Knowledge Mobilization: A Systematic Literature Review. Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 44(7), 865-885. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-04-2023-0134 or access it: https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/items/a30d627e-e6f3-43fd-bc96-fe05c369f84c

• McPherson, C. & Clarke, A. (2024). Leadership and Climate Change Mitigation: A Systematic Literature Review. Climate, 12(12), 207; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli12120207

• Stadler, L., Seitanidi, M.M., Knight, H., Leith, J., Clarke, A., Le Ber, M., Krasonikolakis, I., Bogie, J., Brunese, P. S., Lioliou, E., MacDonald, A., Pinkse, J. & Sehga, S. (2024). Cross-Sector Partnerships to Address Societal Grand Challenges: Systematizing Differences in Scholarly Analysis. Journal of Management Studies, 61(7), 3327-3357. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13053

• Leal Filho, W., Dibbern, T., Pimenta Dinis, M. A., Coggo Cristofoletti, E., Mbah, M., Mishra, A., Clarke, A., Samuel, N., Castillo Apraiz, J., Rimi Abubakar, I., & Aina, Y. A. (2024). The Added Value of Partnerships in Implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Journal of Cleaner Production, 438, 140794. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.140794