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How can we reach our 2020
Greenest City Targets?

GC 2020

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248 results found

  1. Reduce electrical permits for solar (saving...) Right now the cost of an electrical permit for a

    Right now the cost of an electrical permit for a solar photovoltaic system is three times the cost of one for a diesel generator of the same capacity. By reducing this cost it would encourage green energy while not significantly affecting city revenues.

    12 votes
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  2. Buying of Local Foods

    Encourage the buying of local foods so products can be bought and sold without harmful chemicals, and are sold and grown with natural products

    36 votes
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  3. Work with school districts to make commuter cycling/bike confidence skills part of Phys-Ed

    Like most cities, there are different sorts of routes for biking - from trails, to physically separate lanes, to painted lanes, or signed shared bike routes. In order to take full advantage of these the City should work with School Districts to help support cycling as a Phys-Ed requirement - working up to kids going on field trips on bikes. There could also be hardscape bike-training space with miniature lanes in neighbourhood parks for families to take their kids to practice riding.

    37 votes
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  4. Subsidies for Veggie Dining

    How about offering economic incentives for new vegetarian or vegan restaurants? Such as giving tax breaks, or subsidizing start up costs to encourage investment.

    86 votes
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  5. Create a 'Green Capitalist' campaign that lets Vancouverites proudly participate.

    A simple modification of the 'Green Capital' logo lets individuals claim ownership. Offer free 'Green Capitalist' cycling vests to commuters during bike-to-work week. Have a secret shopper team give reusable coffee mugs or 'Green Capitalist' shopping bags to people who buy local, organic or free-trade. Give high-quality water bottles to every family that signs up for a water meter. Why should Green Capital just be for trade missions? Let every citizen wear their civic green pride!

    6 votes
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  6. Require all properties to capture rainwater/manage rainwater runoff on-site

    In a city like ours, we should not be letting valuable rainwater sheet off the sidewalks and streets all winter, while we use drinking water to flush our toilets!

    While this ventures into the territory of the provincial building code, the City of Vancouver can show leadership in requiring all buildings to capture and manage rainwater run-off on-site (e.g. through rainwater cisterns, stormwater planters, rain gardens, bioswales, etc.). There are many policy precedents for this in Germany, and excellent examples of beautiful rainwater management in Portland.

    Reducing stormwater runoff will reduce incidents of sewage overflow (combined sewer overflow events) into…

    19 votes
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  7. Earth Day Corporate Challenge

    Why not challenge companies in Vancouver to plant boulevards, or round-a-bouts, or empty lots for Earth Day.

    3 votes
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  8. Support Urban Farming Entrepeneurship

    Urban farming from an entrepreneurial approach holds one of the most exciting possibilities for urban food production. Urban farming is a great way for Vancouver to achieve “worldwide entrepreneurial recognition” and create sustainable urban jobs.

    Other successful urban farming systems (i.e., Havana, Cuba; Detroit, Michigan) have developed out of necessity and urgency. Such conditions do not yet exist in Vancouver. Yet urban farming, which is now a multi-million dollar “industry” in North America, holds the potential to create economic opportunities for those wanting to engage in urban food production; provide the most local food possible to Vancouver residents (and visitors);…

    215 votes
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  9. Create an "energy playground" for kids

    The City of Vancouver could create an energy playground where playground equipment such as swings, see-saws and merry-go-rounds could be modified to generate energy. The more the kids play, the more energy they create. The energy produced could be used to light the playground at night, making it a fully Carbon Neutral playground. All of this equipment exists and is being used in poor villages in Asia and Africa to generating lighting for schools.

    27 votes
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  10. Solar Water Heaters on roofs

    Change the building code to allow solar water heaters on residential roofs,

    23 votes
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  11. Poonergy

    Have city staff invent a machine to capture/burn the heat from your poo and transfer to hot water tank, or sell it into the city grid I mentioned earlier, exploiting a very domestic source of energy.

    1 vote
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    The Neighbourhood Energy Utility (NEU) in Southeast False Creek provides space heating and domestic hot water to new buildings in the area. The system uses sewage heat recovery to supply most of the annual energy demand (70%). This approach is being considered in other areas. Read more here: http://vancouver.ca/sustainability/building_neu.htm

    Metro Vancouver is also exploring opportunities to generate energy from liquid waste. See also: http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/ILWRMP.pdf

  12. Youth Pensions/Green Unjobs

    An expensive city, living in vancity is particularly prohibitive for young people trying to get off to a good start. But we want them, and we need them. Finding ways and places to help them stay will also make a more compact, dense and green city.

    So offer them an early pension loan for up to 12 years, provided that they’ve graduated from high school. Tax-free and the equivalent of current monthly cpp payouts, accessing the option means assigning post-age 65 cpp earnings for equivalent period of time. If they really want to, they can work too, but no pressure.…

    1 vote
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  13. Backyard Oil Tankers

    Prior to late 1950's, thousands of Vancouver homes were heated with furnace oil, which was stored underground in 300 to 1000 gallon tanks.

    Tanks today are in various corroded states, and present risk of oil leaching into soil and groundwater. Expense of removal and threat of neighbourly litigation create disincentive for dealing with the problem.

    A time-limited window of opportunity should be provided by city for homeownerrs to access 0-interest loans and matching funds to mitigate all kinds of nasty contamination threats.

    Added bonus of creating a few 'green' jobs, and ensuring those backyard gardens won't be growing petrotatoes and…

    7 votes
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  14. Celebrate 50 inspiring green people in Vancouver in the news!

    The Guardian just posted an inspiring article describing, briefly, 50 people in the UK who are creating positive environmental change via their own unique initiatives.

    There are some fantastic inspiring stories!

    I think it would be great to have an article written about 50 people in Vancouver that are doing similar projects. For example, one woman was given a concrete lot, and she transformed it into a garden using giant bags of soil. Another man noticed wildflower diversity in parks decreasing and started his own seed bank, and now his seeds are being used to increase diversity of wildflowers in…

    4 votes
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  15. make food not lawns

    Stop planting grass and instead plant food that people can eat. The big living roof on the convention centre has grass right now but it, and other roofs and lawns could have edible plants living on them.

    74 votes
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  16. Link all contractors and service providers to the Green City project.

    To use the power of the City needs with its contractors and service providers will spread the green idea not only inside the City but all around. Request that all of them start giving information about how green are they about their services and products offered to the City and little by little ask for a minimum standard to offer any service or product.

    7 votes
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  17. Create cheap bike rentals (Or include the rental in the fare) around the sky train stations

    Many of us are worried to take bikes to the work due to the problem of shortage of space in the buses and sky train. If we could find them at the stations and return them after work, will make it easier for everybody, and more people will be encouraged to use them.

    7 votes
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  18. Hire a group of young motivated leaders

    Help me help you help us.

    Create green jobs.

    Make it a little easier for the change makers to flourish.

    Subsidized trainings.

    2 votes
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  19. Green computing in all government offices

    Cloud computing servers that run on renewable wind energy also minimize the need for computer upgrades, high-power servers that stay on all night, and costly software licences. Google has invested hundreds of millions in green power and offers government grade office services at a fraction of current costs. They also recycle computer parts to create their data centres. By using these services, we become greener.

    http://gigaom.com/cleantech/google-buys-wind-power-first-deal-for-google-energy/

    http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/government/index.html

    http://www.google.com/corporate/green/datacenters/server-retirement.html

    12 votes
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  20. Slow Down Vancouver: Working Less Equals Lower Footprint - Think about it

    Slow it all down folks. Shorter work days, less stress, less racing about in cars, more time to walk to work, more time to think about your impact, more time to cook food, if you have time to cook you'll have time to eat whole foods - look for local products. Rushing about in our current culture is a recipe for unsustainability. Slow down Vancouver and Live Again. The facts are here...
    "Shortening working time by 1% reduces the environmental impact by 0.8%, according to research carried out by Jörgen Larsson at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden - this…

    40 votes
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