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How can we reach our 2020
Greenest City Targets?

GC 2020

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248 results found

  1. Separate organic matter out of the waste stream and convert it to biogas

    When food scraps and organic matter decompose in landfills, methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is created. If captured properly, methane can be used as a fuel source (known as biogas). Biogas is considered carbon neutral since, unlike natural gas, it does not add any new carbon to the atmosphere. Separating organic matter out of the waste stream and converting it to biogas lowers the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our waste, creates a new fuel source, and makes recycling easier.

    29 votes
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    The City has already started a food scraps collection program for neighbourhoods where yard trimmings are collected. These materials are currently composted. With more organic waste diversion, the City will explore opportunties to implement technolgies that produce biogas like gassifiers and anaerobic digesters.

  2. Reduce peak electricity demand

    Vancouver can be a model of a community that works together to reduce its peak electricity demand and thus the generation capacity needed to sustain it. It can do this through proper monitoring of usage in both residential and commercial buildings and financial incentives to reduce beyond savings on the bill. Make Vancouver a model, and once shown successful, this model can be expanded to other BC cities and beyond.

    10 votes
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  3. Solidify Laneway Housing Through Ownership Incentives

    Developing a process that will facilitate homes with lanes to be able to subdivide back to front would solidify and incentivize the production of laneway houses, effectively doubling the density in parts of the city without breaking the small scale character of neighbourhoods. The current program allows for lane way houses to be produced with an incentive from rental income, but with current development costs and real estate market the process is not readily viable at a city-wide scale and many home owners do not see enough benefit to warrant financing such a project. However, with the incentive of being…

    9 votes
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  4. Green Events Guide for all city and community events

    Many cities have green guides for all events that take place within their boundaries. Some have embedded it into policy and groups running events must abide by the city requirements. Let's follow suit and get to zero waste.

    1 vote
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  5. Control energy efficiency of systems in buildings, rate it as a standard like A, B, C, D, ...

    Control, approve and publish the rate of energy consumption and carbon emission of the mechanical equipments in all of the buildings that encourage the people to utilizing the sustainable energy and environmental pollution free system and equipments.

    6 votes
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  6. Re-Utilizing the heat from potable water ( Dishwasher, Shower, ... )

    We could use the potential heat from our shower, dishwasher and other source of hot water that we utilize everyday and utilize the energy to heat the hot water again ( Re-use it for a thermal recovery )

    13 votes
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  7. Invent roofs with adjustable reflection coefficient

    Expanding on the suggestion by Hashem Akbari's to combat climate change by painting all roofs and paved surfaces in the USA white, our idea is to develop roof materials that can change their reflection coefficient by changing their colour to cover a range from black to white. Regions like Vancouver, with warm summers and cold winters, should have white roofs in the summer and black roofs in the winter, to minimize air conditioning and heating energy needs throughout the year. Roofs with adjustable reflection coefficient could be "dimmed" from inside a house as simply as a light. Smart house technology…

    6 votes
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  8. Regulate Marine Traffic Emissions

    Emissions from marine vessel traffic are not regulated as strictly as emissions from land-based emitters. These emissions have been growing steadily in the Vancouver region. The city should push for stricter guidelines to ensure that measures implemented to reduce air pollution caused by cars and heating, for example, are not offset by emissions from marine traffic.

    5 votes
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  9. Encourage Community Groups

    Facilitate meetings at all community centres in the city that give neighbours an opportunity to meet and discuss topics relevant to their communities. This will support community involvement and decision making.

    8 votes
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    This kind of work is already underway all over the City, much of which is led by community organisations. Find one in your neighbourhood, or one that works on issues that you care about, and join in. This action plan includes building supports (e.g. tools, resources) to support community groups in talking about, and working toward, the greenest city.

  10. Burrard Street bridge bicycle lane

    Add a designated bicycle lane going into downtown on the Burrard Street bridge. This would also encourage walking by allowing pedestrians back on both sides of the bridge.

    3 votes
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    The City is starting a design process for the structural upgrade of the Burrard Bridge, which will include designs to create permanent separated bike lanes on the bridge. This design process will consider configuration options for the bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

  11. Metered bike lockers

    Metered bike lockers that can be rented by the hour.

    9 votes
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  12. More car diverters on busy bike routes

    Add more car diverters to busy bike routes: they work!

    15 votes
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    The City implemented several new trial diverters on various bike routes in the summer of 2010. This is part of a program to reduce non-local traffic volumes on those bikeways and to make the bikeways more comfortable for cyclists for all ages and abilities. The pending active transportation plan will explore opportunities for further traffic calming on our bikeways.

  13. Awnings

    Encourage Awnings - Connected dry cover improve pedestrian traffic in a rainy city. @ More bus shelters that really shelter.

    20 votes
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    Weather protection will be highlighted as an important design consideration for the pedestrian realm. Many parts of the city (e.g. most of the downtown, most commercial areas) already include design guidelines for weather protection and design guidelines (including requirements for awnings). However, there may be more opportunities to encourage existing buildings to add awnings (and similar weather protection) through renovation and building facade improvement programs.

  14. Reduce residential encroachment on agricultural land

    In order for us to have more local food in our supply chain we need to protect the agricultural land we have in the Lower Mainland including the Fraser Valley. Right now residential and commercial land zoning is encroaching too much on our prime agricultural land. Soil is a resource that must be protected!

    71 votes
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  15. 24 votes
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  16. Have all of the city's fleet of vehicles be electric and plug-in hybrid (when possible).

    Have electric vehicles for short distance trips and plug-in hybrids for longer trips. Also, have all new heavy trucks (like garbage trucks) be diesel hybrid.

    39 votes
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  17. Green school/Demonstration Centre

    The two biggest barriers I see for people choosing to ignore green principles and continue in a throw away mentality is 1) Education 2) Ease of change. People need to understand and it has to be cheep and easy to do---guess what, It is!!!!!! Lectures, pamphlets, workshops--these are all good things--but seriously lets stop yapping and just start doing and showing. There is no better way of understanding what and how things can be done then by actually doing it. By sight, by touch and by participating.
    Lets build a demonstration centre on a vacant lot which aims to discover…

    15 votes
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  18. SMS (text) mobile phone alerts for bike route changes

    Few things deter cyclists and would-be cyclists like our too frequent unannounced changes to safe biking routes due to construction and other inconveniences.

    Using the city's database, cyclists could subscribe to a 'push' SMS message services that would alert them to any changes to their preferred route(s). The messages would also provide alternate safe routes.

    3 votes
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  19. Grants for passive houses and buildings

    The term Passive house (Passivhaus in German) refers to the rigorous, voluntary, Passivhaus standard for energy efficiency in a building, reducing its ecological footprint.[1] It results in ultra-low energy buildings that require little energy for space heating or cooling.[2][3] A similar standard, MINERGIE-P, is used in Switzerland.[4] The standard is not confined only to residential properties; several office buildings, schools, kindergartens and a supermarket have also been constructed to the standard.

    20 votes
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  20. Celebrate Sufficiency

    Over-consumption is at the heart of many of our environmental problems. One way to induce a reduction in consumption is to celebrate our sufficiency. Sufficiency, in this case, refers to a sense of completeness or wholeness. If we feel complete, there is less of an inclination to fill our faces with stuff we don't really need.

    7 votes
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