The Transition Accelerator - New Player with New Approach to Help Solve Toughest Business and Social Challenges

CALGARY, Aug. 26, 2019 /CNW/ - Today marks the launch of The Transition Accelerator, the appointment of its first President and Chief Executive Officer, and the release of its blueprint for accelerating systems level change ? The Transition Accelerator: Building Pathways to a Sustainable Future.

About the Transition Accelerator

The Transition Accelerator is a new, national organization that collaborates with targeted groups across the county to solve major business or social challenges where significant GHG reductions can be built into the solutions.

From personal mobility to urban design, from freight transport to food ? Canada has an unparalleled opportunity in this generation to direct technological, business and social innovations to more financially, socially and environmentally sustainable futures.

The appointment of Dr. Dan Wicklum to CEO provides the Accelerator with a strong and stable foundation as it works to help direct transformative change in Canada.  Dr. Wicklum has 25 years of experience managing research, driving innovation, and fostering collaboration in and among industry, government, academia and civil society. He was CEO of Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, was Executive Director of the Canadian Forest Innovation Council, and has been a senior manager at Environment and Climate Change Canada and Natural Resources Canada. His initial career was football, as a linebacker for the Calgary Stampeders and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

"I've spent most of my career working in research or technology development with an aim to improve societies' sustainability.  But I've learned that developing good technology is entirely insufficient for change.  We need to focus on finding solutions to challenges, not technology development. Transitions are as much about people and behaviour as they are about technology and economics. The Transition Accelerator understands these dynamics extremely well and I believe has a well thought out philosophy and methodology that will allow it to be very successful."
? Dan Wicklum, Chief Executive Officer, The Transition Accelerator

"Above all else, The Transition Accelerator brings a positive perspective to discussions that, for far too long, have been negative. By identifying a shared vision for the future, and creating pathways grounded in rigorous analyses that can take us there, we can make disruption work for us."
? Bruce Lourie (President, The Ivey Foundation), Chair, The Transition Accelerator.

"The Transition Accelerator: Building Pathways to a Sustainable Future", available at transitionaccelerator.ca, presents a new methodology for sectoral transitions at the systems level, by defining transition pathways and harnessing and directing disruptions.

The Accelerator will seek out and help drive system change in sectors with:

• Significant potential to improve sector economics and realize social gains
• A critical mass of anchor collaborators strongly motivated to drive transformative change
• Large GHG emission reduction potential - 100MT range
• Clear disruption already happening in dynamic sectors and,
• An opportunity to prompt cascading change across sectors

Early practical work shows the Accelerator methodology directing disruption in the long-haul freight sector where a transition pathway has been charted to a more competitive transport sector, while significantly reducing GHG emissions.  See AZETEC at www.CESARnet.ca 

Dr. Dan Wicklum         
President and CEO
The Transition Accelerator

Quick facts

• The Accelerator's research is overseen by three Leads: Dr. David Layzell from the University of Calgary, Dr. James Meadowcroft from Carleton University and Dr. Normand Mousseau from Université de Montréal
• The Canadian Energy Systems Analysis Research (CESAR) initiative at the University of Calgary has been an early catalyst for the Accelerator's work, contributing to the development of its transition pathways methodology

SOURCE The Transition Accelerator