The Heart of Business

Wayne Dunn - Co-founder/President and CEO, Clark

Sustainable Resource Developments

csrdevelopments.com

photo by Jaime Kowal

Who says a head for business and a heart for the environment don’t mix? Not Wayne Dunn. The Stanford graduate, who’s received a development award from the World Bank and was the subject of a recent front-page story in the Wall Street Journal, has spearheaded more than 50 sustainability projects in 30 countries on five continents. Not bad for a small-town boy from Saskatchewan who never finished high school.

These days, the head honcho of Clark Sustainable Resource Developments—a company he co-founded with former prime minister Joe Clark—divides his time between his headquarters in the Cowichan Valley and Ghana, where he is preparing to harvest a forest full of exotic hardwood. The venture doesn’t sound eco-friendly—until you learn the forest is submerged in Lake Volta, a massive lake created by a hydro dam.

“We have a huge resource of submerged timber that will have the best environmental credentials of any new tropical timber anywhere in the world,” explains Dunn. “If you can cut it and take it to market, it avoids the need for cutting living trees.”

Dunn says he will work with local communities—including hiring and training workers—to make the project beneficial for the people who call Lake Volta home. “We’re looking at developing plantation programs to make the industry more sustainable”, he says. “Otherwise, it would be like a mine.”

Given his business acumen, education credentials, and international ambitions, you might take Dunn for the kind of person who lives to work. But in reality, it seems he’s hit on the happiest of mediums.

“Life and work should be fun and rewarding,” he maintains. “I never find a ‘job’; I find something interesting and fun and worthwhile—and then find a way to make money at it.”

—Tamara Letkeman