Kathy Abusow is President and CEO of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), a non-profit leader dedicated to advancing sustainability through forest-focused collaborations. Under Kathy’s leadership, SFI has evolved into a solutions-oriented sustainability organization that works to address global issues such as climate action, conservation of biodiversity, and sustainable community development. A key driver of SFI’s success is Kathy’s ability to engage networks to do more good in the forest and conservation sector—a commitment that is represented in SFI’s vision, a world that values and benefits from sustainably managed forests.
Since Kathy became President and CEO of SFI in 2007, SFI-certified Canadian forests have nearly tripled from 40 million hectares to 115 million hectares and have increased by nearly 160 per cent across the US and Canada combined, making SFI’s scale an important tool of nature-positive change. For example, the new SFI 2022 Standards include specific additions to address global sustainability challenges, including a new climate-smart forestry objective and a new fire resilience and awareness objective.
Kathy also believes that developing a diverse and resilient workforce for the forest and conservation sector is critical. Project Learning Tree Canada, an Initiative of SFI, has placed over 7,000 young adults in PLT Canada Green Jobs since 2018, including 15 per cent Indigenous placements, and gender balance throughout.