Jim Whitestone

Jim Whitestone is the Chief Environmental and Financial Economist at Woodridge Solutions that provides solutions to help organizations improve their analytics, create customer experience strategies, and gain economic and financial insights to address important sustainability challenges.

He previously led global climate and environmental action at Convergence.Tech, a fintech that advanced blockchain and related digital solutions to help mobilize sustainable finance and to scale climate actions for mitigation and adaptation, promote a circular economy, and advance sustainable agriculture and resource management.

He is the former Assistant Deputy Minister of the Climate Change and Environmental Policy Division at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change. He led teams that were responsible for the development and implementation of a range of environmental and climate change-related policies and programs.  These included Ontario’s cap and trade program with California and Quebec and an Ontario Green Bank to finance the deployment of low carbon technologies.  He also worked in the Ontario Cabinet Office as well as the Ontario Ministries of Transportation and Finance. In addition, he participated in a professional exchange sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS) developing carbon offsets to help finance reforestation in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve in Mexico.

In addition to being a lecturer on climate change as part of the Professional LLM in Energy and Infrastructure Law program at Osgoode Hall Law School, he teaches courses on environmental policy in the School of the Environment, energy policy in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering as well as sustainability and climate policy at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

He currently serves on the Boards of the Toronto Association of Business Economists(TABE), the Ontario Environmental Industry Association (ONEIA), the Canadian Paedriatic Society (CPS) and My Oral Village(MOV).

Mr. Whitestone completed his Master’s Degree at Michigan State University and a Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Guelph in Agricultural and Resource Economics. He has a Certificate of Business from the University of Toronto and a Sustainable Investment Professional Certificate from Concordia University.