Gill Deacon

Award-winning broadcaster and author Gill Deacon is one of Canada's best-known advocates for sustainable living.

Her most recent book, There's Lead in Your Lipstick: Toxins in Everyday Bodycare and How to Avoid Them, quickly became a national bestseller, ranked number one by the Independent Booksellers Association. It has been called "essential reading" by David Suzuki and a "genius of a book" by Dr. Rick Smith of Environmental Defense. Combining scientific rigour and friendly accessibility, the book is a timely guide to healthier living in a toxic age.

Gill is best known to TV audiences for her work as host of The Gill Deacon Show on CBC television, and before that as co-host of Daily Planet with Jay Ingram on the Discovery Channel. In the U.S., Gill hosted Discoveries This Week on the Discovery Science Channel. Her popular Green for Life column was a monthly feature in Chatelaine magazine, inspired by her bestselling book by the same name.

• 1. There's Lead In Your Employees

  Your company's biggest asset goes down the elevator each night. Manage your assets by showing them you care about their health.
  
  Before she heads out the door to come to work each morning, the average woman working at your office has soaked and spritzed herself in 126 different chemicals, many of them toxic. For men that number is only slightly lower. Phthalates, parabens, lead, triclosan, mercury, coal tar - these and other hazardous petrochemicals lurk in the common body care products that are part of everyone's morning routine, from shampoo to toothpaste, deodorant to lipstick. Growing research links those ingredients to many debilitating health concerns.
  
  No matter how motivated your employees are, if they're plagued by health problems their productivity will be drastically diminished. Healthy employees make for a robust workplace.
  
  Gill Deacon can turn your team on to the virtues and pleasures of non-toxic living. With the passion of a cancer survivor and the down-to-earth reality of a busy working mother, she explains the chemical body burden and its insidious health effects. Your staff will leave Gill's sessions with a renewed vigour for healthy living, full of information on how and why to make safer, greener choices around the home and the office. Gill is also available to host online chats with employees following speaking engagements.

• 2. The Conscious Consumer Has Arrived: Is Your Business Ready?

  A teenager in Africa with a smart phone has more information today than the President of the United States had about 15 years ago. Information is power, and there's lots of it out there: technology has brought savvy to modern shoppers.
  
  For the 21st century consumer, sustainability is not about carbon emissions or recyclable packaging; it translates to health. Breast cancer, fertility and healthy children, that’s what "Eco Moms," more than half of mothers in recent studies, care about when they shop. No longer passive observers of advertising, these consumers actively seek information and make purchases according to what they learn.
  
  With over ten years as a thought leader in the area of sustainable lifestyle choices, Gill Deacon understands the metrics of the Conscious Consumer. Her talk will inspire companies to understand and successfully court this powerful demographic.

• I have had the pleasure of hearing Gillian Deacon speak on several public occasions, including the Green Living Show Main Stage, Canadian Geographic's Annual Dinner, the Chambers at City Hall presenting the Toronto Green Awards, at the Green Carpet Series and other events, and she is always congenial, charming,and humorous, giving powerful and provocative messages in a light hearted, effective way.
  Investeco Capital Corp.
• Gill took the time to understand our organization, our values and what we specifically wanted to accomplish through the event. That evening, she ensured each of our VIPs was settled and prepared. While on stage, her facilitation skills were evident; she coordinated and steered the conversation in a way that produced a thoughtful but entertaining program that meshed very well with our 10th anniversary event.
  The Sustainability Network
• Gill Deacon was the featured speaker at the Mercer Women's Business Network event held in April of 2007. The event was attended by approximately 100 women in senior executive positions in human resources for Canada's leading corporations. The event was an overwhelming success, largely contributed to by the excellent presentation delivered by Gill Deacon. The feedback on Gill's presentation was full of praise. She was enlightening, entertaining and thought provoking. She delivered a speech that made you laugh, made you cry and made you want to get up and do something different. We would not hesitate to recommend Gill as a gifted speaker who will satisfy any audience with her wit and wisdom.
  Mercer

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  December 2010

  There's Lead in Your Lipstick

  By the time she heads out the front door, the modern woman has spritzed, sudsed, and slathered herself in more than 127 different chemicals, many of them more toxic than beautifying. So how can you look and feel great while safeguarding your health? Get smart and go green from head to toe with the help of eco-expert Gillian Deacon. In The Green Body Guide, you'll learn how to read the ingredients to identify and understand the preservatives that are bad for your body and damaging to the earth, including formaldehyde in deodorant, nail polish, soap, shampoo, and shaving cream; coal tar in hair dyes; lead in lipstick; and many more. This is an indispensable handbook of personal-care choices that are sustainable, both for your health and for the earth.

  
  
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  February 2008

  Green For Life

  With every new day's headlines the world is shifting into a new reality. Freakish weather patterns, widespread smog alerts, and unsafe water advisories are problems that we all need to tackle. But we still have to drive cars, pack school lunches, do laundry, unclog toilets, and throw dinner parties. So how do we do the things we do without making a mess of our world? Green for Life is a practical guide to living the life you want, but with the reduced impact the planet needs. Well known for her involvement in environmental issues, Gillian Deacon takes you through the stuff of everyday life and explains how to do it with minimal environmental impact. Green for Life is a must-have guide for people who know they have to do something, but don't know where to start.

  
  
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  November -0001