John Robinson

Professor
1 Devonshire Place, Room 258S
416-918-7977

Campus

Cross-Appointments

Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy
School of the Environment
Appointed to the Graduate Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design

Fields of Study

Areas of Interest

Sustainable Buildings, Sustainable Cities, Sustainability Transitions, Evaluation of Sustainability Outcomes and Effects, Futures Studies and Scenario Analysis, Participatory Community Engagement, Transdisciplinary Knowledge Co-production, Environmental Philosophy

Biography

John Robinson is a Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Copenhagen Business School. At U of T, he is Presidential Advisor on the Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability. Dr. Robinson’s research focuses on the intersection of climate change mitigation, adaptation and sustainability; citizen engagement to explore sustainable futures; sustainable buildings and urban design; the role of the university in contributing to sustainability; creating partnerships for sustainability with non-academic partners; the history and philosophy of sustainability; and, generally, the intersection of sustainability, social and technological change, behaviours and practices, and community engagement processes.

I am looking for grad students in the following areas:

  • Sustainable building design and operation – with a focus on the behavioural interface: building/inhabitant hybrids
  • The role of the university in helping the City of Toronto achieve its climate change goals
  • ontological agency and sustainability I am also interested in issues related to:
  • socio-technical systems change (transitions and transformations), and
  • community engagement processes at the urban scale, using transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge approaches, including evaluation of societal impacts of sustainability action projects.

Publications

Robinson, J. “Sustainability as transmutation: an alchemical interpretation of a transformation to sustainability”, Sustainability Science, (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00987-y

Slater, K. and Robinson, J. (2020), “Social Learning and Transdisciplinary Co-Production: A Social Practice Approach”, Sustainability, 12(18), 7511; doi:10.3390/su12187511. link

Jost, F., Dale, A., Newell, R., Robinson, J. (2020), “Evaluating development path changes using a novel climate action assessment framework in three municipalities in British Columbia, Canada”, Environmental Science and Policy, 114, 410–421.

Williams, S. and Robinson, J., (2020) “Measuring sustainability: An evaluation framework for sustainability transition experiments”, Environmental Science and Policy, 103, 58-66. link

Brugmann, R., Côté, N., Postma, N., Shaw, E., Pal, D., and Robinson, J. (2019) “Expanding Student Engagement in Sustainability: Using SDG- and CEL-Focused Inventories to Transform Curriculum at the University of Toronto”, Sustainability, 11(2), 530.

Coleman, S., Touchie, M, Robinson, J., and Peters, T. (2018), “Rethinking Performance Gaps: a regenerative sustainability approach to built environment performance assessment”, Sustainability, 10(12), 4829.

Education

PhD, U of T MES, York University BA, U of T

Administrative Service

Presidential Advisor on the Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability (2017 - )
Chair, U of T President’s Advisory Committee on the Environment
Climate Change and Sustainability (2017 - )
Member, Munk School Tenure Committee (2021)
Member, Steering Committee for SDG Initiatives, Office of the Vice-President, international (2021 - )
Member, Organizing Committee, Climate Positive Research Initiative, U of T, (2020 - )
Member, Steering Committee, Critical Zones Initiative in the Environmental Humanities, U of T (2020 - )
Member, Research Team, Mass Timber Institute ISI proposal (2020 - )
Member, Research Team, Innovative Mobility Lab, U of T Transportation Research Institute (2020 - )
Member, Steering Committee, University Climate Change Coalition (UC3) (2020 - )
Faculty Associate, University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute (UTTRI) (2020 - )
Chair, Munk’s Graduate Department Academic Appeals Committee, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (2020 - )
Member, Advancement Committee, School of the Environment (2019 - )
U of T Representative, U7+ Alliance (2019 - )
Co-Director (with Wendy Wong), Activism and Community Engagement (ACE) lab, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (2018 - )
Member of Senate, Trinity College, University of Toronto (2018 - )
Fellow, Trinity College, University of Trinity College in the University of Toronto (2018 - )
Principal Investigator, Sustainable Built Environment Performance Assessment (SBEPA) research group (2017 - )
Member, Environmental Governance Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs (2016 - )