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How can we reach our 2020
Greenest City Targets?

GC 2020

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45 results found

  1. 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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  2. 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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  3. 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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  4. 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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  5. Stop the use of toilet paper made from virgin trees.

    TP made from post-consumer waste paper is already available, and even the likes of Costco are starting to stock it. Enact a bylaw that ensures all TP sold in Vancouver is at least 30% from recycled paper.

    6 votes
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  6. Support Green Art Organizations

    Art is used to inspire all matter of people. To shift our thoughts to a greener future, we need to focus on creating in the present.

    Organizations such as eatART ( www.eatart.org ) has a mandate of spreading Energy Awareness Through ART, building audacious and improbable large-scale kinetic, robotic, and
    mechanized sculptures that investigate our human relationship to energy use.

    These pieces are taken to local events and educational institutions to provoke conversation on how we use energy.

    231 votes
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  7. City-sponsored "Sustainable Living" marketing campaign

    Make it catchy, relevant, interactive, funny and shocking. Think of the new "Old Spice" marketing campaign impact. AWARENESS is key - people don't know unless you tell them. Focus on things like:

    • civic engagement and participation
    • community pride and unity
    • alternative transportation
    • connect our consumption habits to waste and wastewater output
    • showcase local success stories
    • encourage everyone to do their part

    There's tons more we could cover, if you have ideas, share them in the comments!

    5 votes
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  8. Foster a friendly ‘greening of the cities’ competition with other major west coast cities.

    Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco all aspire to be greener cities along with Vancouver. Finding ways for the west coast cities to compete, share and inspire each other will have a positive effect in driving each other to achieve greater results more quickly and in the spirit of mutually beneficial competition. Perhaps an annual competition with progress indicators, for example.

    5 votes
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    The “Greenest City in the World by 2020” is fostering this competition with cities globally, including those on our coast. Expanding it to a global outlook pits us against less industrialized cities, as well as cities in rapidly developing countries, and makes the contest much more interesting and challenging.

  9. Encourage each community to establish a community sustainability plan.

    A community can create and build on its vision and formal plans by adopting specific objectives, guidelines, action items, regulations, and policies. Adopt continuous learning mentality (and policy) so that feedback can be used to assess effectiveness of decisions and actions and changes can be made accordingly. Want to create resilient, adaptable, and engaged communities.

    3 votes
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  10. meatless mondays

    Like the title say, reduce meat consumption on Mondays. This would help reduce out footprint enormously. Furthermore, we would be the first city in Canada to adopt such a policy, the second in North America (after San Fran.) and the third in the world. It would be non-binding, that is great if you do it, OK if you don't. Read more here: http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating-recipes/blogs/san-francisco-joins-meatless-monday-bandwagon
    Thanks!!!

    42 votes
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    Low footprint food choices are not the same as vegan food choices in all cases, the analysis is more complex than this. Generally a low footprint diet is local, seasonal food, and limits consumption of red meat, dairy, and some grains. Low footprint food choices is included in the draft Greenest City Action Plan and will be discussed in ongoing community engagement work.

  11. Organic, Fair Trade and Low carbon agricultural products

    Promotion of Fair Trade, organic and low carbon imports. Why not take social and environmental responsibility for your consumption? People will always want an avocado, mango, a cup of coffee or tea on their tables. There are agricultural products that can not been grown locally, so why not import them but making sure they are low carbon, and that they are not harming our planet and its producers?

    100 votes
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  12. Support collective housing

    Support the development of collective housing- support landlords that rent to collective houses and create supports to allow collective houses to own their buildings.
    Adult, children and pets living collectively pool their time and resources to implement practices that reduce their environmental footprint and support everyone's quality of life.

    2 votes
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  13. Partner w/ social development orgs to ensure a more holistic 'greening' + to build broader support

    While the mandate of this project is specifically to 'green' the city, even the 'Greenest City' will be a failure if the overall welfare of its people isn't considered.

    The strongest Greenest City strategy will be a holistic one, including key elements of social, community and local economic development.

    Our Greenest City approach should include dedicated outreach to individuals and communities that have traditionally had low participation in Vancouver's Green movement -- to build broad support and to recognize shared goals between organizations.

    8 votes
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    Though this is called the Greenest City program, there has been a very strong social justice and economic lens to the work. There is a green economy working group and external advisory committee with membership from diverse community-based organisations and businesses. Staff the City’s Social Policy department are very active in the process.

  14. 47 votes
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    Council members cannot be mandated to eat vegan meals, however they may accept a friendly challenge. Like other Vancouverites, they may also be swayed by communications and education about the ecological footprint impacts of various dietary choices

  15. Encourage eco-offices

    It's fine to be green at home - but what about employers? Connect with the Vancouver Board of Trade and other businesses to ensure that offices are recycling, reducing engergy, encouraging healthy food choices, and green commuting options. Give tax breaks for businesses who allow 50% of their employees to telecommute.

    6 votes
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  16. Include a class/wealth analysis in ecological footprints

    The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, BC office, released an interesting report that breaks down GHG emissions according to wealth. Surprise! The wealthier emit more GHGs. This gets at a critical justice issue about who is most affected by ecological changes, and who is responsible for causing those changes. This is a local issue as well as a global issue.

    Check out the report here:
    http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/reports/docs/CCPA_BC_ghg_emissions_distribution.pdf

    4 votes
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  17. 2 votes
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  18. A shared vision of sustainability

    We need to work more to build ashared vision of what sustainability is and how it embraces culture and economy as well as ecology. What do we mean by 'sustainability'and how do we build resilience?

    3 votes
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  19. Integrate Green with 125th Celebrations

    2011 marks the 125th birthday of Vancouver. The City is planning to spend $ on the celebrations. How can we celebrate in a way which moves us forward on creating a significantly more sustainable city.... so that we might have something to celebrate in another 125 years?!

    3 votes
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  20. Tax meat, milk and eggs & stop subsidizing

    United nations, World Watch Institute and numerous high profile climate experts have all agreed that animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the entirety of the transport sector. Yet our government will not stop subsidizing meat, milk and eggs making them "affordable" beyond the capacity of our ecosystem. We need to start taxing these products and stop subsidizing them for the sake of our future.

    54 votes
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