Positioned for Impact: Lisa Ashton, Agriculture Policy Lead at the RBC Climate Action Institute 

She’s a little bit ag and a little bit research—find out how straddling both worlds has uniquely positioned her to take research from the page to the farm, making real-life progress in the world of sustainable agriculture.

To me, meaningful action looks like systems change, not just looking at one theme or piece of problem.

Lisa Ashton

RBC Climate Action Institute

Born and raised on a grain and oilseed farm in Kent County, Ontario, Lisa Ashton didn’t exactly stay in the family business. But, she didn’t exactly leave it either. 

Wanting to discover what lay beyond the farm gate, she left home to study international development and globalization at university. Little did she know her academic path would lead her back to where she started—the farm. 

Below is a conversation we had with Lisa about her unique career journey and how it led to her current role at the RBC Climate Action Institute. It has been edited for clarity and length. 

Generate Canada: Tell me about how you got started in your field of work. 

Lisa Ashton: I’m originally from Kent County, Ontario where I grew up on my family’s grain and oilseed farm. Since then, I have lived in Ottawa, Nepal, Dublin, Germany–all for different research opportunities–and eventually I landed in Guelph where I did my PhD research.

After working in various sustainable ag roles over the past few years, I am now the Agriculture Policy Lead at the RBC Climate Action Institute. In this role I’ve had the opportunity to build on my PhD research, which was about exploring the governance of natural climate solutions in agriculture–really bringing all those pieces together. 

My role at RBC straddles the research and the practitioner world. It’s a role where I’m providing that agricultural lens to climate and putting research into action. One of the ways I’m doing this is by contributing to leading edge reports that comes out of the RBC Climate Action Institute. 

Collaborating with CANZA (Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-food) is a great example of putting that understanding and learning into action, so I’m excited to be working with the CANZA team. 

GC: Can you tell me about your involvement with our CANZA Solution Space?

LA: I sit on the steering committee for CANZA’s Climate Smart Farming Initiative, which brings together players from across the agri-food sector in Canada to build solutions that better position farmers to adopt more climate-smart technologies and practices. 

This past summer, I visited Kristjan Hebert’s farm along with other CANZA members in Saskatchewan, and it was impactful to see the scale of his operation and what Kristjan and his team are accomplishing. Having on-the-ground connections and projects through CANZA is critical to moving the needle on climate action in agriculture and it’s wonderful to see it firsthand. 

GC: When you started on your educational journey, did you have a clear idea about where you wanted your career to go?

LA: Like a lot of farm kids, I was ready to go out and see the world and find out what was beyond the farm gate. During my undergrad at the University of Ottawa where I was studying international development and globalization, I started to realize how unique it was to be from a farm in Canada and have that experience growing up. With Canada’s farmer population shrinking, the number of people with that experience is only going to get smaller. 

I found myself drawn to taking classes about food security and sustainable agriculture through the lens of international development. By the time I was finishing my undergrad I realized that I really was interested in agriculture production. I also realized that I cared about environmental resilience and wanted to learn about how these two things could go hand in hand to build more sustainable food systems. 

In this winding way, I started to bring myself to agriculture via education. 

GC; After completing your PhD, what made you decide to move on from the world of academia?

LA: While I certainly admire those that purse an academic career, I realized early on in my PhD that it wasn’t for me. I started to engage in consulting projects to gain more practical and industry experience. I never imagined that this would lead me to working for a major bank, but here I am!

Initially, my career objectives were to work somewhere where I could make an impact in sustainable agriculture and where there are opportunities to grow professionally. When the opportunity came up to be the Agriculture Policy Lead at the RBC Climate Action Institute, it felt like a great fit. It allows me to engage in my research interests while also allowing me to engage with diverse stakeholders on projects that move climate action forward on-the-ground. Since joining RBC, I’ve also had the opportunity to work with and learn from different parts of the bank that are all working towards the communal goal of positioning agriculture to thrive in a low-carbon economy, through different mechanisms including philanthropy and sustainable finance.

I think roles like mine are becoming more common, whether at a food company or fertilizer company, I see an increase in opportunities to engage in climate and agriculture in a meaningful way.

GC: You mentioned the importance of on-the-ground work for you. What has this looked like for you throughout your career so far?

LA: It’s looked different depending on the objectives of the project.  

Before joining RBC, I worked with the Grain Farmers of Ontario as the Sustainability and Environment Lead, where I had the opportunity to advance sustainable agriculture programming. For example, I worked with farmers, agronomic experts, and industry associations to improve standards for responsible fertilizer use certifications. I also had the chance to work directly with grain and oilseed end-users to help them better understand what sustainability looks like on an Ontario farm and create opportunities for these companies to support continuous improvement at the farm-level. These kinds of partnerships put farmers in a better position to access sustainable farming resources and tools, and allowed companies to learn what was happening at the farm-level and how it related to their corporate ESG goals.  

Overall, I see the most impact in spaces where there are blended partnerships including farmers, corporates, governments and others, developing solutions that meet their respective objectives, while also being applicable on the farm and based in science. 

GC: What barriers have you come up against in your work?

LA: I think one big barrier in this sector is that there’s a lot of ambiguity around the best practices for greenhouse gas (GHG) measurement, reporting, verification, and supporting action. 

Getting comfortable with ambiguity and being able to navigate that is super important when working in climate action in general but also in sectors like agriculture, where we are trying to quantify GHGs within a natural ecosystem and there is no one path that is the right path for every region, production system, or farmer.  

Personally, something I’ve had to work on is trying to blend my skills in a way that is applicable in a new environment. Having a heavy academic background may not seem applicable in an industry context, but I would say the skills I learned during my post-secondary degrees in terms of critical thinking, problem solving, and of course quantitative and qualitative analysis have been incredibly helpful. 

Applying this skill set in an industry setting where our work needs to have a practical application and research needs to speak to a broader audience has required me to adapt, but in the end I would say my academic training turns out to be a strength. I still say I’m a researcher, it’s a different type of research!  

GC: Working on issues surrounding climate these days can be overwhelming to say the least. What keeps you going and gives you hope?

LA: I think there is just so much potential in agriculture to drive improvements in sustainability, whether it be from a climate, agronomic, financial, biodiversity, water or soil health perspective or all of the above. Farmers in the sector have made a lot of advancements historically, so being able to build upon that momentum gives me hope. 

Another thing that keeps me motivated is working on solutions with people who are experts in other sectors. I have counterparts at the RBC Climate Action Institute who are experts in buildings, energy systems, and transportation. This diversity makes the institute a unique place to learn about innovations happening in other sectors and identify where there are cross-sector synergies. 

GC: What do you wish was better understood about sustainability in agriculture?

LA: I think it’s important to understand that there is not going to be just one solution and each production system, from conventional to organic, has its benefits and trade-offs. For example, just looking at regenerative practices or alternative proteins–these are not silver bullet solutions on their own. There’s a long list of solutions that need to be explored within the farm, region, and ecosystem they are applied to and we need understand how they fit within a food system to produce positive outcomes. 

I also think as consumers–and we’re all consumers!–we have the responsibility to educate ourselves on our choices and understand the ripple effects of our purchasing power. As we become a more urbanized society, we become further disconnected from the farm and the people and technology that bring food to our tables. It’s important to know that many farmers are making progress on sustainability, and while some farms may have big acres or a lot of cattle, for example, that doesn’t mean their practices aren’t sustainable. There is lots of great work happening on farms of all sizes across Canada. 

GC: If you were to provide a piece of advice to someone pursuing a similar career path to yours, what would you say?

LA: Say yes to opportunities. Obviously, they need to be relevant to what you’re doing, but I think it’s so important to be involved and engaged because you don’t know where an opportunity might lead you. It could open a door or introduce you to a person that can put you on a new path. Being open-minded and having a willingness to engage has been helpful in leading me to the path I’m on today. 

Saying yes can also expose you to new ideas that can challenge the way you thought before or maybe reinforce a great idea you already had. It was seeking out new challenges and saying yes to new projects and partnerships that kept me motivated. 

GC: What does meaningful impact look like to you?

LA: To me, meaningful action looks like systems change, not just looking at one theme or piece of problem. 

At RBC, we’re working on the Climate Action 2025 report, our flagship report that presents an annual pulse on climate action across Canada’s key industries. In the report,  we are tracking climate action across policy, capital, emissions, and action–progress in each of these areas has knock-on effects. For example, if we see greater capital investment, we can expect that to transpire into greater action on the farm overtime. Research like this helps us have a more comprehensive view of the system and where we have had successes and even shortcomings within sectors to help inform and inspire change. 

In the end, the goal is for Canadian agriculture to continue to play a leading role in feeding a growing global population but with fewer emissions, and this requires us to look across different levers to find solutions. 

GC: What are you reading/listening to right now?

LA: I enjoy listening to Kristjan Hebert’s podcast The Truth About Ag–it’s so nice to hear the voices of farmers in the mainstream. And The Ag Podcast has been great for similar reasons. 

I subscribe to Shane Thomas’ Upstream Ag newsletter. He provides great insights on what’s happening in agribusiness and agritech. 

Software Is Feeding the World is another great newsletter that features tech leaders who are applying their innovations and experience to agriculture. This one is timely, especially with the massive interest in Generative AI and advancing its role in agriculture. 

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If you’re interested to learn more about the work of RBC Climate Action Institute visit their website: rbc.com/climate-action-institute/ and to learn more about CANZA and the benefits of becoming a partner, visit canza.ca

To me, meaningful action looks like systems change, not just looking at one theme or piece of problem.

Lisa Ashton

RBC Climate Action Institute

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