ConocoPhillips Canada named Matt Fox as the company’s new president.
 Fox moved into the top job in July from the position of senior vice-president for oilsands and the Arctic. Former president Kevin Myers was moved in May to the company’s U.S. parent in Houston, as senior vice-president of exploration and production for the Americas.
 Fox started with Conoco U.K. in 1983 as a reservoir engineer and has worked in Dubai, Alaska and Houston. He joined ConocoPhillips Canada in June 2001. The Canadian division has nearly 2,100 full-time employees and contractors, about half of whom work in Calgary. EnviroLine

 Paul Cellucci, former U.S. ambassador to Canada, was appointed in September to the board of directors of Edmonton-based Stantec Inc.
 Cellucci brings more than 35 years of public service, including as ambassador and Massachusetts’ governor and lieutenant governor.
 Cellucci, who has a law degree from Boston College Law School, was appointed as U.S. ambassador to Canada in 2001 and served four years. He wrote a memoir, Unquiet Diplomacy, about his time as ambassador. Cellucci holds the title of Special Counsel at the Boston office of the law firm McArter & English LLP. EnviroLine

 Calgary-based Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. was named one of Canada’s top 50 most socially responsible corporations by independent investment research firm Jantzi Research Inc. and MacLean’s Magazine.
 Jantzi Research in Toronto compiles detailed reports on thousands of stocks in Canada and around the world, delving into environmental, social and governance performance. The firm’s research serves as the cornerstone for some of the largest socially responsible investment funds in Canada.
 This summer, Canadian Hydro commissioned its $475-million, 198-megawatt Wolfe Island Wind Project in Ontario, the second-largest of its kind in Canada. EnviroLine

 Former Syncrude executive Eric Newell was appointed head of Alberta’s multimillion-dollar climate change technology fund.
 Newell, who retired as chancellor of the University of Alberta last year, will chair the board of the Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund. The board will be in charge of deciding on distributing funding to Alberta companies working on in-province greenhouse gas-reducing research or facilities.
 “Large final emitters” in Alberta that exceed the province’s intensity-based emission limits can either buy offset credits, or pay $15 per tonne over their cap into the fund. In early May, the fund held a balance of more than $122 million. CH

 David Erickson was named in June as president and chief executive of the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO).
 Erickson has been AESO’s interim leader since January this year. AEOS is managing a planned $14.5-billion expansion of Alberta’s electricity transmission grid over the next decade. EnviroLine

 Patricia McCunn-Miller was appointed in June as interim president and CEO of Climate Change Central in Alberta.
 McCunn-Miller currently serves on the public-private organization’s board of directors. She is past executive vice-president of corporate responsibility and general counsel for Syneco Energy Inc. From 1998 to 2005, she served as vice-chair and member of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.
 McCunn Miller has more than 20 years experience working in the energy sector and addressing the economic, environmental and social impacts of energy development. EnviroLine
 
 The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) appointed former U.S. counsel general Tom Huffaker as vice-president of policy and the environment.
 Huffaker was U.S. counsel general for Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories. He will lead strategic policy development at CAPP in a wide range of areas, including climate change, environment, federal regulatory reform, fiscal matters, safety and environmental stewardship, and aboriginal affairs.
 As counsel general, Huffaker promoted the energy and overall trade relationships between Canada and the U.S. EnviroLine

 Charlie Fischer, former president and CEO of Nexen Inc., has been appointed as the federal government’s representative on a U.S.-Canada working group on clean energy.
 Fischer will head up one of three working groups with American counterparts as part of the Clean Energy Dialogue, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said.
 Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed to set up the working groups after a meeting in Ottawa with U.S. President Barack Obama, promising that the two countries would cooperate on developing new ways to combat climate change. CH

 Petro-Canada donated $2 million over the next five years to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology, and the Alberta Ecotrust Foundation for education programs encouraging water conservation.
 Canadians use an average of 329 litres of water per capita per day – double that of Europeans, according to the 2009 Canadian Water Attitudes Study released in March. CH

 Calgary writer and environmentalist Andrew Nikiforuk is the first Canadian to win the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award from the U.S.-based Society of Environmental Journalists.
 Nikiforuk was named winner for his book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, published by Greystone Books and the David Suzuki Foundation. The US$10,000 award is named for the author of Silent Spring, the seminal environmental book that alerted North Americans to the dangers of pesticides. EnviroLine

 TransCanada Corporation has committed $1 million over the next five years as national sponsor of the Canadian Important Bird Area Caretakers Network.
 The nationwide initiative by Ottawa-based conservation charity Nature Canada will establish a volunteer network of caretakers who will watch over and protect important bird areas in their communities. There are 597 such areas across Canada. The work will include surveying bird populations, building nest boxes, erecting signs, removing invasive species, planting native grasses and promoting awareness of value of wildlife.
 “These natural spaces are vitally important for our breeding, migrating, staging and wintering birds, and the conservation of these sites in a cornerstone of effective bird conservation,” said Mara Kerry, Nature Canada’s director of conservation. ENS

 Bob Blair, a prominent Calgary oil executive who pushed to build the Alaska Highway and Mackenzie natural gas pipelines, has died at age 79.
 Blair was a daring entrepreneur and staunch corporate nationalist with strong ties to the Pierre Trudeau-era federal Liberal Party. He studied chemical engineering at Queen’s University, and he landed a job as president of an Alberta subsidiary of U.S.-based Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
 In 1970, Blair became president of Alberta Gas Truck Line. Co. Ltd., which he transformed into a western Canadian powerhouse and renamed Nova Corp. of Alberta. In 1978, Blair out-maneuvered Petro-Canada and Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum to buy Husky Oil Ltd.
 Blair left the top job at Nova in 1991 at the age of 61. He died on April 18, 2009 in Vancouver after developing complications from the flu. G&M

 Gwyn Morgan received the 2008 Engineering Leadership Award for outstanding achievements in engineering.
 Morgan is an internationally recognized business leader who built the Alberta Energy Company Ltd. into EnCana Corporation, North America’s largest natural gas producer. The annual award is announced by the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary.
 Morgan is an inductee in the Alberta Business Hall of Fame and fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. EnviroLine

 Nexen Inc. has appointed former Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers president Pierre Alvarez as vice-president, corporate relations.
 Alvarez will be responsible for Nexen’s governmental and external relations and communications activities. He has more than 25 years of senior energy and natural resource sector experience in the private and public sectors, and is a board member of the Nature Conservancy of Canada in Alberta. EnviroLine

 McMillan LLP is moving into western Canada by acquiring Thackray Burgess, a 35-lawyer energy ‘boutique’ law firm in Calgary.
 The deal creates a 215-lawyer business firm and gives McMillan, based in Toronto and Montreal, an entré into the oil and gas business, in which Thackray Burgess has built a significant array of clients.
 However, name partner Patrick Burgess will take his business to Gowlings, after deciding that McMillan’s terms didn’t work for him. NP

 Calgary Transit plans to buy up to six fuel-efficient hybrid buses and expects them to be on the road sometime this year.
 The buses cost about $600,000 each, or about 50 per cent more than the $400,000 cost of traditional diesels. Calgary Transit will be analyzing how many years the buses will have to be on the road for the fuel savings to offset the additional purchase price.
 Banff, which replaced its fleet of four with hybrid buses last May, has seen a 43-per-cent increase in ridership since then. The new buses save the town 17 per cent on fuel costs.
 Edmonton tested six hybrids, with a study finding that for an 18-year lifespan of the vehicles, they cost about 25 cents more per kilometre than new diesel buses. The hybrids were “marginally” better in terms of emissions, and significantly better in fuel usage.
 Vancouver Translink took delivery in the spring of 141 hybrid buses. B.C. Transit, which services communities outside the greater Vancouver area, earlier this year unveiled a $1.2-million double-decker hybrid – the first of its kind in North America. CH