GC 2020
657 results found
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Support education funding so teachers have the resources to teach being green across the curriculum.
24 votesMembers of Vancouver City Council are supporting education funding.
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24 votes
The draft Greenest City Action Plan includes an action to create a local food procurement strategy for City facilities.
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Smart appliances to reduce energy use
Offices that leave lights and computers on all night, and appliances that have transformers and use phantom power, waste electricity. The city should use and promote smart appliances that monitor their use and switch to a low-power state when not in use.
23 votes -
Make Longboarding a Legitimate Transportation Alternative
A lot of Vancouverites already commute safely by longboard, skateboards modified for stability at speed. The City should embrace and legitimize this choice of transportation and allow longboarders to be treated like cyclists on the road.
23 votes -
Prohibit the use of outdoor space heaters on both residential and restaurant/cafe patios
I try to avoid businesses which use outdoor space heaters. Outdoor space heaters waste energy by producing heat which is quickly lost in the outdoors, and burn fossil fuels and directly contribute greenhouse gases.
23 votes -
Reduce noise pollution: Map the diurnal noise levels accross the city
Cities such as London have created full GIS maps of their noise profile published online:
http://www.londonnoisemap.com/
Prolonged exposure to elevated noise has been found to have significant health repercussions.
http://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/noise/about-noise
By Mapping we can identify and develop comprehensive strategies to reduce areas of constant elevated noise especially near motorways.23 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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BYOC (Bring Your Own Container/Cup)
Consumers have a responsibility to their own carbon footprint and not just the businesses. Bring your own container to the restaurant when you order food to go just like we bring reusuable mugs for drinks! Businesses can offer a discount as an encouragement.
23 votes -
Attractive Sidewalks *
Beautify pedestrian ways to attract more walking, with:
- rainbow / sparkly sidewalks in high traffic areas
- sidewalk canopies: tree overhangs, resident-owned PV
- incentives for merchants to beautify their sidewalk area
- neighbourhood identity expressed by residents' design for sidewalks
- textured pavement to define pedestrian areas, or neighbourhoods
- "pedestrianscape" that allows the pedestrian to explore a delightful journey as the travel past varied points of interest along their walk
- sidewalk cafes, laneways pubs / cafes / restaurants
- separate lanes for pedestrian, wheeled traffic: rollerblading & skateboarding, bikes, cars
- buffers between separate lanes of…23 votesThe quality and attractiveness of the pedestrian experience is a primary consideration in public realm planning and design. However, there is an opportunity to be more creative in the design of specific elements, such as sidewalk materials, and incentives/requirements for pedestrian-oriented building design and facade improvements.
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Dumpster free alleys
Neighbourhood business improvement associations are behind this idea. So is Zero Waste Vancouver. The era of Dinosaur Dumpsters is coming to a close. By taking back our public right-of-ways from the garbage industry, we will motivate the industry to evolve into a recycling industry. Let's get together, Vancouver, and show the world how it can be done right. Small is beautiful.
23 votes -
Encourage renovation of existing housing stock rather than demo and rebuild.
require new construction to be NET zero and help reduce single family house demolition. The greenest building is one that is already standing.
22 votesFinancing tools (currently under development) may encourage building owners to improve the performance of their buildings rather than rebuild.
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Improve Wild Salmon habitat by creating mini road end parks along the North Arm of the Fraser River
[Submitted via email by Terry Slack]
One way to improve the quality of migrating Juvenile salmon habitat in the Fraser River is to improve the quality of water going into the Fraser River and restore small pockets of important" tidal juvenile salmon ribbon marsh habitat"! Drainages from roads etc. located near road ends travel in open drainage ditches and is discharged directly into the North Arm of the Fraser River untreated . Creating Salmon Friendly Mini Parks at all the road ends in South Vancouver, Marpole etc. not only adds much needed greenspace, but these parks can be designed in…
22 votes -
Ban all and any fireworks!!
[Idea submitted via email by Michael Csupak]
I encourage you to educate yourselves about pyrotechnics.
The “Festival of Lights” I believe it is called is a large scale pollution, initially the atmosphere, we all breathe the air, then the particles will settle in our waters we drink and the fish lives in and in the soil we grow our food in and so on. The chemicals used in the fireworks are poisonous and some cases are RADIOACTIVE. A very good scientific study was produced by the University of Vienna, sighting much of the specifics.
Concentrations of similar explosives used by…
22 votesMetro Vancouver is considering the implications of a partial ban and alternatives to fireworks (e.g. light-shows)
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Create program for low-income individuals to weatherize existing buildings
Create incentives as well as training program for low income / marginalized individuals to weatherize existing buildings.
Weatherizing (caulking and weather stripping gaps in walls, windows, doors, roof, and floors) is a simple and affordable energy conservation solution that makes a HUGE difference, often with a payback of less than year. There are many existing buildings in Vancouver that are poorly performing due to a lack of weather-proofing.
Think of all the green jobs we could create if people were trained in how to do this, and there were incentives make it easier to implement.
22 votesPilot project underway with EMBERS.
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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 -
Assess all green business/economy ideas by eco-equity indicators
At the Pecha Kucha night sponsored by the City of Vancouver to launch this website, Kevin Millsip described the importance of striving for an eco-equitable future: one in which our cities are not only green but just in its ways of providing for people of all incomes, races, and education levels. Let's build a dimension of equity into the green economy we want — healthy, sustainable and inclusive.
21 votesEco equity is addressed through focus on generating job creation opportunities for full spectrum of workers, from high skilled to those with barriers to employment. This is an idea that is included in the Draft Greenest City Action Plan
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Walkable schools.....don't close existing schools
pretty much self explanatory.
21 votesThis action is outside municipal jurisdiction, since schools are organized and governed under the Provincial Ministry of Education, with local school boards and associations. The action has merit from a Green Transportation perspective, but must be weighed against other issues faced by school boards around enrollment, understanding current and future neighbourhood demand, etc. Using schools for additional community programs after hours may be a way to get better value from existing resources. This item also relates to neighbourhood planning initiatives to provide more housing choice for families that will help support existing schools that are currently experiencing declining enrollments. Response
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Don't re-invent the wheel
Get advice and ideas from cities that are already the greenest (European cities) and from local experts (Suzuki Foundation).
21 votes -
21 votes
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Provide incentives to purchase electric vehicles (cars or bikes).
Many subsidies exist in the USA and Ontario. Vancouver will be one of the first markets to have the Nissan Leaf launch in, but we do not have any subsidies for EVs. Promote EVs now!
21 votes
