Robert Smith

Rob is an experienced consultant with an international reputation as an environment-economy expert. He has a broad knowledge of the science, policy and economics related to natural capital, climate change, natural resources, ecosystems, wastes, environmental technologies and environmental expenditures. In addition, he has deep knowledge of official statistics, including the national accounts. He is especially known for his work developing and promoting the concept of natural capital and its use as a basis for measuring sustainable development.

Bob worked for more than 20 years at Statistics Canada, Canada’s national statistical agency. During this time, he was responsible for moving the agency’s environment statistics program into many new areas: climate change; natural resource wealth; household environmental practices; industrial and agricultural water use; ecological goods and services; municipal water treatment and others. He strongly promoted linkages between the environment and economic statistics programs.

After 7 years as Director of Statistics Canada’s environmental statistics program, Rob spent 18 months on executive exchange helping TELUS Communications Inc. rethink its data centre strategy to meet the company’s financial and sustainability goals. He left Statistics Canada in 2013 to establish Midsummer Analytics.