January 15, 2026: IRES Student Seminar with Neha Sharma-Mascarenhas and Jessica Mukiri (First seminar in Term 2)

Talk summary:

The impacts associated with electronic products extend well beyond end-of-life waste handling: ecological, health, labour, and environmental-justice harms unfold across the full lifecycle, from mining and manufacturing to disposal. There is emerging consensus across policy and academic literature that waste-prevention interventions yield the greatest reductions in lifecycle impacts, yet current policy frameworks in North America continue to prioritise recycling, despite its limited influence on reducing upstream harms and its function as a last resort rather than the focal point. In this research, I empirically examine electronics repair and reuse by analysing behavioural forces through a survey of 1,500+ respondents, identifying key determinants of consumer repair decisions. Complementing this behavioural analysis, I assess British Columbia’s electronics discards management system, widely regarded for its robust and progressive policies, through a waste-prevention lens, revealing major institutional barriers that limit waste prevention by design. Overall, this work contributes to the broader policy discourse on electronics discards management by offering a system-level understanding of their governance and the structural factors that constrain waste-prevention pathways.

Bio:

Neha Sharma-Mascarenhas is a PhD candidate at UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, supervised by Professor Milind Kandlikar. Her academic training in economics and fifteen-plus years of experience in data analytics, sustainability consulting, and policy analysis shape her interdisciplinary perspective and evidence-informed approach to environmental problem-solving. Neha has worked with several leading organisations across industry, government, and the non-profit sector, such as the World Resources Institute, TransLink, and the City of Vancouver. Her work combines data-driven approaches with applied engagement across policy and practice. At UBC, she contributes to teaching, curriculum development, and mentorship initiatives alongside her research.

Talk summary:

In Canada, shifting to low-carbon diets offers a promising strategy for reducing consumption emissions, particularly from high-emission foods like meat and dairy. However, surveys reveal that Canadian consumers are reluctant to reduce meat consumption, necessitating alternate ways to encourage consumption of foods with lower carbon footprints. Alternative proteins hold promise as they have been developed to mimic meat and dairy products. These proteins are derived from plants, cultivated from cells, or created via precision fermentation. There remains a research gap in Canada on the climate mitigation potential of replacing animal-sourced foods with alternative proteins. We hypothesized that substituting animal-sourced foods with alternative proteins would lead to notable reductions in emissions, with plant-based proteins expected to have the highest impact due to their lower resource needs. We combined dietary intake data from the 2015 National Nutrition Survey with Canadian food life cycle data consisting of conventional animal-sourced foods and their plant-based substitutes. Our study shows that switching animal-based meat and dairy to plant-based proteins would reduce carbon footprints by up to 47%. This research contributes to a better understanding of how dietary choices impact carbon emissions and demonstrates the potential of alternative protein in fostering sustainability within the Canadian food system.

Bio:

Jessica Mukiri is a PhD candidate at UBC’s Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability (IRES). Her research investigates how food systems can transition in ways that are both climate-friendly and socially just, with a focus on reducing livestock-related emissions through alternative proteins and improving land-use assessment methods. She holds a Master of Environmental Science from Kenyatta University and previously worked at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT/CGIAR), where she examined the socio-economic and environmental impacts of mixed crop–livestock systems.