Stephanie Cairns

Stephanie Cairns

Director, Circular Economy, Smart Prosperity Institute (Victoria, BC)

May 12, 2020

Based in Victoria, B.C., Stephanie has worked on environment, economy, and fiscal policy research initiatives for 25 years. She has worked with the Smart Prosperity Institute (previously Sustainable Prosperity) since 2007, first as Director of Carbon Pricing and then as Director of Cities and Communities. For the past 20 years she has also managed Wrangellia Consulting, specializing in climate policy, carbon pricing, and protected areas management, and helping think tanks and policy makers distill expert advice, synthesize emerging best practices, and plan new initiatives.

Stephanie has been a member of Alberta’s Climate Change Advisory Panel (2015) and Parks Canada’s Panel on Ecological Integrity in National Parks (2000). Earlier in her career she founded the Pembina Institute’s Ecological Fiscal Reform program, worked as a researcher on Parliament Hill, and was a strategic advisor in the Prime Minister’s Policy and Research Office.

She has served on the boards of leading Canadian not-for-profits. She currently serves on the boards of the IISD-Experimental Lakes Area and the Galiano Conservancy Association. She previously served as National President of the Board of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, on the President’s Advisory Council of the Royal Society of Canada, and on the boards of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the Pembina Institute, Training Resources for the Environmental Community, and the Boreal Songbird Initiative.

She holds a BA from the University of Toronto and a M.Sc. from the Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, Sweden.


Role: Panel Member
Report: Turning Point (November 2021)