New Co-op Student - Hafiz Akinlusi

The past few months have really been down in the trenches at VEC with a lot of important work, but it's important to come up for breath when something exciting happens. And VEC had something exciting happen this year when we were awarded the SFU Academy to Community Award and were able to bring on Business and Economics student Hafiz Akinlusi to join our team this fall as a Green Building Investment Researcher. Hafiz joins VEC 'on loan' from the SFU Beedie School of Business and we're grateful for our continuing partnership with that team that's enabled us to grow our capacity yet again!

As Hafiz said about himself: I’m very passionate about climate change and sustainability, and I believe that ambitious policies create new, lucrative market opportunities, which is why I am very excited to be joining this team and doing work that aligns with my values. The VEC sits at the intersection of policy and business, and I hope to use this experience to learn from the wonderfully skilled members on the team so I can further support the development of sustainable systems in the future. 

Hafiz has already been hard at work over the past month, helping support me in my work as Sector Manager for the Built Environment, and taking on whole new work, as well.

In his role as Green Building Investment Researcher, Hafiz will be focused on:

• Developing an initial proposal for a technology and investment attraction strategy and program focused on manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers of high-performance building technologies to help Vancouver fill key technology gaps related to our climate policies;
• Supporting research, engagement, and advocacy related to Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing in BC;
• Supporting advocacy and engagement activities related to the circular economy of the built environment, including a hackathon being developed in partnership with the Danish Trade Council at the World Circular Economy Forum;
• Supporting the VEC in business engagement activities related to the Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP), as well as other communications and outreach work.

Based on both his academic experience, where Hafiz is working inside and outside of class on entrepreneurship and values-based-business, he's already been an absolute asset to the team.

Please congratulate me in welcome Hafiz, and if you need if you need our help in the green buildings world, please always reach out to us!