Ralph Torrie
President
Torrie Smith Associates

Summary of Experience:

Torrie Smith president Ralph Torrie is one of Canada's leading energy analysts and proponents of sustainable development. His twenty-five years of entrepreneurial and consulting experience covers a wide range of initiatives in research, organizational and business development, and facilitation of national and international environmental projects. The methods and analytical tools he has developed for local government action on climate change and air quality strategies are used throughout the world.

After intensive involvement in the 1970's in the Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning, Mr. Torrie managed a team of analysts in a path-breaking study of Canada's energy future, a study that redefined the energy policy agenda to include a more balanced approach to supply and demand solutions to the interrelated problems of energy security and environmental sustainability. He has been involved in numerous projects since then that have involved the assessment of electricity DSM potential and the analysis of electric power planning issues. In Canada, he has consulted on electric power planning issues in B.C., Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland.

In the 1980's he served for two years as the deputy director of the Energy Research Group of the United Nations University and the International Development Research Centre. In recent years, Mr. Torrie has been focusing increasingly on entrepreneurial and local government approaches to sustainable development, while continuing his research and articulation of possible, positive futures. With the David Suzuki Foundation, he has developed scenarios for cutting Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50% by the year 2030. He has just completed the heading up of an international design team to develop a strategic software tool for state and local governments in the U.S. that will support the development of harmonized strategies for reducing both greenhouse gas emissions and criteria air pollutants.