TORONTO - Environmentalist and actor Woody Harrelson, who is devoted to educating young people about sustainability, will receive an honorary doctorate from York University during convocation ceremonies on Saturday, October 17.

Harrelson is best known for his work in the television series “Cheers”, and his Academy Award-nominated performance in The People vs. Larry Flynt, and currently appears in the critically acclaimed film Zombieland.

He is also well known for using his celebrity to promote sustainability and environmental causes: in 2001, for example, Harrelson embarked on a bicycle tour of the Pacific Coast Highway to promote simple organic living. Accompanied by a biofuelled bus, he stopped along the way to lecture at college and university campuses. The tour became the subject of the Genie Award-nominated documentary Go Further. Harrelson co-authored the companion book How to Go Further: A Guide to Simple Organic Living.

Through their Voice Yourself Web community, Harrelson and his wife Laura Louie are giving youth, small business, non-governmental organizations and educational institutions an opportunity to promote their environmental initiatives.

“The challenges that we face when it comes to sustainable use of the planet are enormous,” said professor Dawn Bazely, director of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) at York. “Mr. Harrelson’s understanding of why we each need to reduce our ecological footprint is authentic, and his efforts to inspire others to grasp and act on this concept provide an object lesson for those of us who teach.”