Our Story

Who We Are

The Environmental Studies Association of Canada (ESAC) is the nation’s leading scholarly community of environmental researchers and educators.

Founded in 1993, ESAC is a non-profit, federally incorporated, bilingual organization that aims to encourage research, publication, teaching, community-building, and innovation in the field of environmental studies.

Our members are located across Canada and beyond, and hold roles within education, government, private, and non-profit sectors. ESAC members research, teach, work, and advocate within a multidisciplinary field that investigates, educates, guides, supports, and acts upon human-environment relationships.

The History of ESAC

During the 1993 ‘Learned Societies Conference’ (what today is the annual ‘Congress of the Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences’), there were 37 sessions on the environment distributed across several different disciplines and held by several different ‘Learned Societies’. Following the conference, a group of sociology, philosophy, and environmental studies graduate students at York University identified the need for a research and education association dedicated to environmental studies.

ESAC first began meeting June 1993. Within a year, the organization had been incorporated and had held its first meetings at the ‘Learned Societies Conference’ held in Calgary in 1994. All of this was possible because of the volunteer, interim Board of Directors, as well as the in-kind and financial support of York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies and Graduate Environmental Studies Students’ Association. Within the next year, Alternatives was chosen as the official journal of ESAC and it published the first ESAC theme issue. The University of Waterloo then became the home of ESAC.

ESAC’s By-laws

If you would like to learn more about how ESAC operates, you can refer to our by-laws and our Governance and Operations Policy.

If you have any inquiries, please email us at info@esac.ca