GC 2020
178 results found
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Tie air pollution permits to targeted pollution reduction plans
For those industries permitted to pollute (chicken and fish reduction plants, diesel exhaust from the port) tie specific targeted reductions as a condition of permit and monitor to assure results.
5 votesPollution permits are granted by Metro Vancouver, and the standards which must be adhered to have become more stringent and will continue to be reassessed.
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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 votesThis idea is included in the Draft Greenest City Action Plan.
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eco zoning
Vancouver like London attracts people from around the world Where London has produced zoning that helps preserve its historic "buzz" we need to produce zoning that preserves our "rain forest" appeal . An eco zone is a modified existing zone (eg. RS1eco, RM1eco ,etc) that is given preferential treatment because of exceptional green practices, these could entail, urban farms, passive solar or passive certified homes. Eco zoning is incentive based, -additional sq footage, or minimum lot size reduction, green house gardens for commercial or personal), green innovation relaxation (eg, allowing wind turbines or large scale water collection (+500gallon) under ground…
5 votesGreen Enterprize Zone team is establishing area and some initial projects including two business incubators
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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 votesMarine traffic is under Federal jurisdiction. The City of Vancouver is supporting Metro Vancouver/Port Metro Vancouver to encourage shore-power.
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Develop sustainable education tax incentives
Provide a venue where Vancouver residents could go online and watch educational videos about sustainable and green ideas. In order to promote and encourage residents to watch the videos provide a tax incentive on say property tax. This will make more people watch these videos with the hope that a light will turn on in their heads as to making lifestyle changes that make sense as demonstrated by the videos.
4 votesThe City only has property taxation authority which isn’t an easy link to encouraging this kind of behaviour, although some form of incentive can be explored in the review of City policies and regulations.
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Increase indoor temperature range, to connect people to outside and reduce energy. Sweaters! Shorts!
Change commercial (including offices) buildings operating temperature range, to decrease air conditioning in the summer, and decrease heating energy in the winter. My estimates show that a changing the range from 2°C to 8°C could decrease overall building energy by 10%.
4 votesWhile the City cannot mandate the temperature that people set their thermostats to, this issue is addressed through occupant engagement as well as education and capacity building for building operators.
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Make the full transition to gasification
Help to entice local diposal business to conglomerate and move towards gasification. Create greater incentive for local waste managment business to move towards this sustainable technology. Incurring the short term cost of enticing companies such as Nexterra to expand gasification technology and encouraging local businesses to merge and take on this great challenge will pay for itself in terms of stability by reducing large vehicle use between competeing companies, landfill and infrastructure maintenance and the grand promotion and attraction of being the first city in the world with an entirely sustainable waste disposal system.
4 votesCity of Vancouver is considering gasification technologies as part of a full matrix of solutions
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Rezone areas adjacent to commercial streets rather than displacing existing businesses.
Our network of commercial streets are generally the cultural heart of various Vancouver neighbourhoods. Currently, Vancouver is rezoning many commercial areas to accommodate higher density structures. This is a good ideas; however, this progress is slowly eradicating long-time businesses in commercial buildings. This is also eroding Vancouver's commercial property tax revenue.
I believe that (in more cases) the city of Vancouver should be rezoning the single family residences that surround these arteries instead. In many cases the houses are generic 'Vancouver Specials' and lowrise, 1950s style homes that were built to accommodate a vehicle-centric lifestyle. Many people are price out…
4 votesConcern for the continued viability of existing business is an important issue in Neighbourhood Centre and Corridor planning initiatives. However, rezoning residential properties to allow for commercial uses should be considered on a case-by-case basis (it could work in some areas, but not in others) and should proceed with caution.
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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.pdf4 votesMay be included in research and data gathering to help develop targeted engagement strategies and ecological footprint reduction actions.
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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 votesCool idea, encourage your local media outlets that this is newsworthy! Greenest City awards are included in the draft plan.
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4 votes
This idea is addressed in Community, Central Area, and City-Wide planning initiatives, with the understanding that fostering neighbourhood businesses requires collaboration of many different groups, public agencies, and neighbourhood residents
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Playing Movies Like Avatar, in Major Public Places, showing the reality & impact of big corporations
Making the largest impact in the shortest time, can make the difference. Continue funding Movies like Avatar which expose corporate America's environmental habits, and showing them on large public movie screens and starting change from the top. Companies with thousands of employees and systems, should be forced to change there habits, to reduce there carbon footprint. Public awareness may force the change that might otherwise take years.
4 votesGreat idea, and you are encouraged to suggest it to Fresh Air Cinemas and all of the community organisations that sponsor outdoor movies in the summer, including many of the Business Improvement Associations: http://www.freshaircinema.ca/; http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/cityplans/bia/index.htm
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Encourage Influential People such as James Cameron (Avatar), to disclose impact of big corporations
on the environment, and encourage change. James Cameron is the Director of the movie Avatar which had a message of how big corporations, Mining are affecting the environment and raping the earth.
4 votesThe Greenest City Action Team is our home-grown influential team, and others are always welcome: http://vancouver.ca/greenestcity/background.htm#team
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Composting public toilets for Wreck Beach (refer to West Coast Trail)
Wreck Beach is one of the most popular destinations in our city - it is served by FAR too few porta-potties, and they are often too few as well as rather nasty. Take the idea even bigger and make it a city wide/beach wide initiative to replace aging or non-existant toilet facilities in parks/beaches from Stanley Park to Lighthouse Park....
3 votesWreck beach is not part of the City’s jursidction but, the feasibility of composting toilets in an urban setting is being investigated.
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Work with shipping & cruise line industry to reduce idling and diesel emmissions whilst in Port
Vancouver is the second busiest port in North America and sees a lot of shipping traffic. The City needs to work with the shipping & cruise industries to cut emissions whilst tankers/freightlines/cruise ships are docked in Port. Can we mandate a power hook-up to shore?
3 votesPort Metro Vancouver is under Federal jurisdiction. The City of Vancouver works with Metro Vancouver, Environment Canada, Port Metro Vancouver to advocate for shore-power. This idea is included in the Draft Action Plan.
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Energy efficiency training
Grassroots training in home energy efficiency assessments so community members can learn and support each other in improving home energy efficiency. A few workshops around the city, and you could train a number of neighbourhood efficiency "experts" to do assessments and workshops in their area.
3 votesEducation and training around energy efficiency are an integral part of the draft Greenest City Action Plan. Occupants determine to a large degree the level of energy performance in a building.
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Develop a preprocurement strategy for the City's procurement managers to engage with local industry
Several jurisdictions have developed formal pre- and post-procurement engagement strategies in order to create a dialogue between public procurers and local firms. A pre-procurement consultation process at which procurers broadly outline expected future growth areas gives local firms a focus for research as well as a time horizon for development. The procurer in turn benefits from the most up-to-date information on emerging technologies and best practices. This type of engagement and information exchange can also help with early identification and resolution of issues around permitting or licensing, and can actively engage technology developers and suppliers in meeting the City’s climate…
3 votesThe Draft Greenest City Action Plan suggests recommendations on how this can be done
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Local Green Grads Employment Site
One of our challenges is finding good people with green backgrounds to employ. Once people get certified (i.e. to a B-Corp standard) they could post open jobs and internships to a green jobs site run by the city. UBC SFU BCIT and other universities could encourage their graduates to create profiles on this one-stop-shop for green grads.
3 votesC3 committee is considering building a website / database along these lines. This would likely be Provincial or at least wider than just the City.
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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 votesThis idea is under discussion.
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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 votesThis big picture framing questions are very important in the work of the greenest city.
