Gill Deacon

Award-winning broadcaster and bestselling author Gill Deacon is one of Canada’s best-known environmental advocates.

Gill is author of the national bestseller, Green For Life (Penguin, 2008), a guide to making sustainable living ‘the new normal’. Gill’s new book, There’s Lead In Your Lipstick, is a guide to chemical-free body care, being green from head to toe.

On television, Gill hosted CBC TV’s flagship daytime talk show, The Gill Deacon Show, and before that was host of @discovery.ca for five years on Discovery Channel Canada, and Discoveries This Week for Discovery Science Channel in the U.S.

Gill sits on the board of the Evergreen Foundation. She lives in Toronto with her husband and their three sons.

1. Green for Life

Gill Deacon has spent the last fifteen years honing her awareness about how to be a good planetary citizen. Having also spent much of that time developing a career as a writer and television broadcaster, and adding three little boys to the world's population, Gill has become an expert at living a busy working life in a way that is sustainable.

Gill delivers a passionate call to awareness around environmental issues. Using the humour, anecdote and startling research that have made her voice as a Canadian broadcaster so distinct, Gill conveys a sense of urgency and possibility for change.

The economic crisis provides a profound opportunity for us to shift gears toward more sustainable habits. Greening your life, both within a business and as individuals, is a brilliant way to not only save natural resources, but also the resources in your pocketbook.

Gill is an active environmentalist with years of journalistic research and experience under her belt, so in this time of increasing greenwash and bandwagoneering on environmental issues, she cuts through the clutter. Her keynote leaves you inspired to take the earth into consideration in your everyday living and business practices, and informed about easy and meaningful ways to do it.

No matter what industry or sector you are part of, being more green is a smart—and necessary—practice. Gill's speech is easily tailored to suit any business or organization that is moving toward more sustainable practices.

1. A Survivor’s Story

In April 2009, the unthinkable happened: Gill Deacon, a renowned environmental advocate who walked and talked a healthy, green lifestyle, was diagnosed with breast cancer. As one friend said when she heard the news, “My God, if Gill Deacon can get cancer, then anyone can.”

To add to the irony, Gill was halfway through researching a writing her latest book, There’s Lead in Your Lipstick, a guide to learning about what toxic chemicals are lurking in our everyday bodycare products and which ones to avoid for their links to breast cancer.

After an arduous battle to regain her health, Gill has a fresh perspective on balanced living, and a renewed vigour to educate consumers about how little regulation there is in the chemical and cosmetics industries. Her talk is poignant and passionate, and guaranteed to leave you informed and inspired to make safer choices for your health.