GC 2020
657 results found
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All Jobs Green
Greening ALL jobs through all organizations being required to meet minimum responsible practice standards set out by a government sponsored social enterprise which supports and builds day to day organizational capacity in lighter footprint futures and positive legacy.
22 votes -
School Compost and Recycling Programs
Install more Recycling and Compost areas inside Schools to decrease litter and keep school gardens healthy
18 votes -
Reduce/Stop Idling
Strengthen the anti-idling bylaws to stop idling of all vehicles beyond 20 seconds. Advertise widely that the idling fumes are a poison to our lungs. Get the police and all service vehicles included, the police to sport anti-idling decals on their vehicles. People just don't think about idling, sitting waiting for people to get in or out of their cars, when on their cell phones etc. Pay for the advertising by fines.
14 votesThe City of Vancouver Bylaw #9344 prohibits idling beyond 3 minutes. The 3 minute limit balances enforceability, operational practicalities and engine wear considerations.
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Permit zoning for walkable, livable, amenity rich single family and human-scale neighbourhoods
Six 2000 square feet single family houses can fit on two existing 33 x 120 foot lots. The alleys are narrow streets and the streets become narrow streets to maintain green space. The density supports local amenities that you can walk or cycle to. The increased amenities provide more local jobs. It means you can get what you need locally without a car. Connect these neighbourhoods with effective public transit which is started by permitting these neighbourhoods around sky train stations and bus loops. Laneway housing is part of this solution. Design the neighbourhood as if you had not cars.…
13 votes -
Green Hastings Park
This public asset is being used by a Casino, a dying horse racing industry, a year round comercial rental industry, a noisy amusement park, and two coorporate ball clubs.
Daylight the salmon stream, return the community soccer fields. etc...
145 votes -
Re-industrialize Vancouver
Bringing manufacturing and farming back to the city may be the only way to create an environmentally and socially sustainable world. Like most western cities, Vancouver has become almost completely de-industrialized. The goods (and increasingly also the services) that form our daily existence are produced far away under conditions we don't tolerate here. As a result much of our ecological and social footprint is exported and hidden from view, resulting in increasing environmental devastation and social inequality. Bringing these activities back home—into the city core—will give us the opportunity to address the social and ecological consequences of our production and…
15 votes -
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 votesThe South East False Creek Neighbourhood Energy Utility is one of 4 systems in the world where heat is recovered from sewage and distributed to the South East False Creek Neighbourhood. for a district energy system.
www.vancouver.ca/sustainability/building_neu.htm -
Create a Senior Citizen's Sustainability Advisory Panel to mobile seniors knowledge on sustainabilty
Not sure that more degrees/planners is gonna make much difference...need solutions now...I say learn from the Cuban urban food production experience - they turned to the knowledge of all the seniors in Havana who knew how to grow food as most grew up in rural areas prior to revolution and then migrated to cities. WIthin 6 months, local seniors were teaching ourses at universities while the food geneticists and experts were in teh classroom learning how to do things without oil/fertilizer. There are many seniors in Vancouver who know how to grow food, fix machinery and make the most of…
16 votesThe draft action plans have been informed by over 100 different organizations in the community, and this is a great idea to build on that engagement work by outreaching to a specific demographic in our community.
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12 votes
Not free, but we are creating financing tools and incentives to increase affordability of these upgrades
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Ban grass lawns
Green lawns look nice but they consume a vast amount of water, we could reduce the amount of water used if we a) had maximum sized lawns allowable in private residence. b) Banned the planting of grass for lawn areas, there are a number of plants that you could use to create a green walkable space that consume little water to sustain, why then do we waist so much water on grass lawns, alternate style of ground cover could be looked at.
7 votesThe City does not limit the amount of lawn, but does limit the amount of impermeable surface allowed. We encourage alternatives to lawns through the water wise landscape guidelines. Strengthening education programs in supprt of alternatives to lawns is part of the plan.
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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 votesGreat idea that comes down to personal choices, and discussion with those that set work schedules (labour unions, other employers).
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Plasma Arc Waste Disposal
Plasma Arc Waste Disposal (or Gasification) is a method of waste disposal used for its capability of recycling nearly every material that is put into it.
Using clean electrical arcs, the GVRD could decompose any waste into its component elements. Carbon Dioxide would decompose into Carbon and Oxygen; plastics would decompose into Hydrogen, Carbon, and other base elements contained within; and organic wastes like food would decompose into Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen, among numerous other elements.
Metals and alloys can be separated into each component metal, allowing quicker and easier reuse and refabrication.
"Plasma gasification is also used for specialized…
20 votes -
Make the free stuff Xchange on 4th and McDonald official.
It's a great corner run by 'Santa Claus', a white earded man who patrols the street for useful 'junk' and leaves it on the corner for anyone to take and 'reuse'. I've found some amazing things there and he keeps the stuff outta the landfill.
Reusing is better than recycling anyday!!
10 votes -
Improve traffic lights
Improving how traffic lights work to create green waves on as many streets as possible not just the 1 ways. This will reduce traffic, accidents and CO2 emmisions and increase transit performance with fewer vehicles grid lock idling.
Anyone who's sat at a red light for minutes on end in the middle of the night when there's no cross traffic can cheer on science for proving what we already knew: lights that adapt to the flow of traffic, instead of dictating the flow of traffic, can improve the flow of traffic. A team of researchers discovered that if you let…
14 votes -
Solar Water Heaters on roofs
Change the building code to allow solar water heaters on residential roofs,
23 votesVancouver’s Solar Homes Pilot is offering $4300 towards the cost of solar hot water systems in Vancouver – this is roughly 50 per cent of the cost of a system. The funding is available to 30 homes on a first come, first served basis. In order to qualify for the rebate, your system must be installed by December 31, 2010.
Details here: http://vancouver.ca/sustainability/SolarHomes.htm
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Metered bike lockers
Metered bike lockers that can be rented by the hour.
9 votesThe draft Greenest City Action Plan will include directions for more secure bicycle parking at transit hubs and other key locations. Metered bike lockers are one possible implementation approach.
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Enable home and building owners to retrofit existing buildings for energy efficiency
Instead of building it all from scratch, let's fix what we already have... Low hanging fruit here. Maybe we need to tie retrofits to property tax bills to create the right incentives.
18 votesFinancing tools (currently under development) may encourage building owners to improve the performance of their buildings rather than rebuild
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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 votesNew options to facilitate the development of laneway homes are being considered for phase two of the laneway homes program.
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Improve Neighbourhood Roundabouts to provide for safe pedestrian crossing
Neighbourhood roundabouts are being developed across the city. These roundabouts serve to maintain a comfortable traffic flow for cars and cyclists on residential streets. Unfortunately, due to their design, these roundabouts fail to provide security for pedestrians since there are no visual cues to suggest that pedestrians even have a right to cross the street. In a local classroom survey, grade 4’s exclaimed that they feel unsafe crossing at these roundabouts and I regularly see uncertainty in the eyes and actions of pedestrians crossing at roundabouts.
There are a number of ways to improve this situation. Here are two examples:
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6 votesAll new traffic circles are designed to keep cars and bicycles out of the pedestrian crossing areas.
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Green transportation hubs throughout the
EVs are coming and we're not ready. Putting infrastructure in place with high-speed charging that also hosts bike sharing, car sharing and green commuters will have a central place to plug in and recharge.
7 votes
