Samir Basaria

Samir Basaria is the Manager / Senior Technical Advisor (Sustainable Development) at Global Affairs Canada (GAC). In this capacity, he leads the greening of Canada’s portfolio of 179 missions abroad, representing over 2000 buildings in 110 countries. He has been seminal in integrating the principles of green building into the way in which GAC selects, designs, and operates its assets. He spearheaded the development of a sustainability strategy and implementation plan to produce baselines and targets for greening, in line with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) Greening Government Strategy. He has over two decades of technical experience in the field of sustainability leading projects for greening building certifications, climate change risk assessments, energy and carbon, water and waste metrics, and net zero buildings. He has led several award-winning pilot projects, including the BOMA BEST certification of our Embassy in Beijing, and the Zero Carbon Building certification of our Permanent Mission in Geneva. His work has been instrumental in forging and sustaining external partnerships with key industry players, to maintain GAC’s relevance and leadership. Before joining Global Affairs Canada in September 2017, Samir was at Public Services and Procurement Canada as Head, Environment and Sustainable Development. He was national real property lead for the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, and promoted consistent, department-wide efforts towards sustainable development objectives. Samir holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies as well as a bachelor’s degree in Geography (Honours) from Carleton University.