Victor, Peter Alan
Quote
"Learning to live within the limits of planet Earth in justice and in peace is the fundamental challenge of the twenty first century."
Areas of Academic Interest
- Ecological economics;
- Environmental policy.
Dr. Peter Victor is an economist who has worked on environmental issues for over 40 years as an academic, consultant and public servant. By extending input-output analysis, he was the first economist to apply the physical law of the conservation of matter to the empirical analysis of a national economy. Dr. Victor was one of the founders of the emerging discipline of ecological economics and was the first President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics. His most recent book is Managing without Growth. Slower by Design, not Disaster. (Edward Elgar, 2008)
Dr. Victor is a Professor in Environmental Studies at York University and from 1996 to 2001 was Dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies. This followed several years as Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environmental Sciences and Standards Division in the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. Prior to that Dr. Victor was a principal of VHB Consulting and Victor and Burrell Research and Consulting where he undertook many influential policy-related economic studies in Canada and abroad. He has continued to provide technical advice in such areas as air pollution and health, emissions trading, emerging issues and education for sustainable energy development.
Dr. Victor has served on numerous boards and advisory committees and he has appeared as an expert witness before various Commissions. From 2000 to 2004 he was President of the Royal Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Science, Canada’s oldest science organization, and from 2004-2006 he was Chair of Environment Canada’s Science and Technology Advisory Board. Currently he is a member of the Advisory Committee on the National Accounts for Statistics Canada, the Academic Advisory Panel of TruCost, the Ontario Government’s Advisory Committee on Transboundary Science, and the Board of the David Suzuki Foundation.
Major research projects
- 2009 - SSHRC - Normative Application for Ecological Economics and the Tools for Its
Assessment (co-application with Peter Brown, McGill University) - 2007 - Statistics Canada - Workshop on Assessment of Ecological Footprint Methodology
- 2006 - Santa Barbara Foundation - Canada’s Ecological Footprint
- 2004 - Environment Canada - The Remediation of Hamilton Harbour, A Multi-perspective, Multi-stakeholder Approach
Select prizes and awards
- First Lifetime Member of the International Association of Environmental Testing Laboratories (Ontario), 1996
- Commonwealth Scholar, 1967-1970
- Vice-Chancellor’s Prize, University of Birmingham, 1967
Select publications
Books
2008 Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster. Northampton, MA, Edward Elgar.
Chapters in Books
2008 (with Gideon Rosenbluth) “Managing without Growth” in P. Lawn (ed.) Environment and Employment: A Reconciliation, Routledge (in press)
2008 (with J.E. Hanna and A. Kubursi) "How strong is weak sustainability?" in J. Martinez-Alier and I. Ropke (eds.), Recent Developments in Ecological Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. (in press)
2007 “Nature as Capital: Concerns and Considerations”, Institute for Policy Research, in A Canadian Priorities Agenda, Leonard, J., Ragan, C. and St-Hilaire, F. (eds.), The Institute for research on Public Policy, Montreal
Articles in Refereed Journals
2007P. Victor and G. Rosenbluth, “Managing without Growth”, Ecological Economics 61, 492-504
2004 G. Rosenbluth and P. Victor, “The Canadian Economy with Full Employment, No Growth, No Poverty, and No Government Deficit: A Keynesian Exercise”, International Journal of Workplace and Employment, Vol. 1, No. 1
Scholarly and Professional Publications and Reports
2007 (with Eric Miller) Guest Editors of special edition of the Journal of Bioeconomics on Ecological Economics, Vol. 9 (3)
2006 (with Ed Hanna) Benefits Assessment: Randle Reef Sediment Remediation, Environment Canada, March
2004 (with Ed Hanna and RWDI) Estimation of the Costs and Benefits of Replacing Ontario’s Coal-Fired Generation
2004 (with Eric Miller) Air Emissions from Ontario Power Generation, A Report for Ontario Power Generation Inc.
Papers Presented at Conferences
2008 “Managing without Growth” Science and Society Conference, University of Toronto, 29 February
2007 Comments on a paper by Nancy Olewiler, Institute for Research in Public Policy, 9 March
2007 (with Ed Hanna), “Valuation of Ecological Goods and Services”, Eastern Ontario Model Forest Symposium
2006 “Managing without Growth, National Conference of the Green Party of Canada, Halifax, 4th November
2006 “Managing without Growth”, 2nd Green Energy Conference, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 27 June
2005 “Managing without Growth”, CANSEE Biennial Conference, York University, 28 October
2005 (with T. Koveshnikova) “Exploring Hubbert’s Peak”, Poster Presentation, CANSEE Biennial Conference, York University, 28-30 October
2005 “Managing without Growth”, Progressive Economics Forum Macro Model Panel, Canadian Economics Association Meetings, Hamilton, Ontario 28 May
2005 “Managing without Growth”, Are Cities Sustainable?, George Brown College, 12 April
2004 “Managing without Growth”, invited speaker at A Future that Works- economics, employment and the environment University of Newcastle, Australia, December 10
2004 “Economic Impacts of Invasive Species”, Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Problems Caused by Invasive Species, York University, Nov 8
2004 “Ecological Economics and the Flavour of the Century”, 8th Biennial Conference of the ISEE, Montreal, 12 July
2004 “Ecological Economics – the Flavour of the Century”, 87th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition, London, Ontario, 28 May
2002 Chair of panel on emissions trading, 9th Annual A.D. Latornell Conservation Symposium, November 15