GC 2020
248 results found
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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 votesGreat idea. The draft Greenest City Action Plan will include directions to work with the school board and provincial government to support compulsory commuter cycling education in school curriculums.
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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 votesConsideration of ways to incentivise and encourage lower footprint dining are included in the plan.
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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 votesInteresting ideas to encourage a connection to the Green Capital brand with specific activities
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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 votesThis is captured in rezoning requirements. The City has also developed a Waterwise Landscape Guide http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/guidelines/W005.pdf
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Earth Day Corporate Challenge
Why not challenge companies in Vancouver to plant boulevards, or round-a-bouts, or empty lots for Earth Day.
3 votesThis is an interesting idea for engaging businesses in the community
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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 votesSupport for this via the creation of urban farming opportunities (e.g. SOLE food). Also July 2010 Council approved expanding farmers markets.
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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 votesIdea shared with Parks Board
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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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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 voteThe 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
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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 voteThis is not just about green but in general about youth and job creation in Vancouver.
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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 votesThe City has a mechanism for dealing with existing oil tanks when found on properties
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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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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 votesThis idea is included within the draft Greenest City Action Plan. It has been started, with City-owned property being converted to community gardens and green streets. See: http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/streets/greenstreets/index.htm
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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 votesCity has energy-related requirements for all procurement. Will consider city suppliers as one possible avenue to promote more green practices.
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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 votesThis idea is similar to a Public Bike System, which is currently under review.
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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 votesThe UBC-City of Vancouver Greenest City Scholars program will continue next summer.
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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 votesGood ideas. We are looking for all kinds of opportunities for renewable energy generation, waste heat recovery and energy conservation. Current good examples of waste heat recovery are in newer swimming pools and skating rinks. See a good example though the following link: http://vancouver.ca/parks/info/2010Olympics/pdf/Hillcrest.pdf
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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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Super Insulate All Buildings
Super Insulate All Buildings rather than spend on finding ways to heat inefficient existing building
10 votesInsulation is addressed in the building code for new and existing buildings as well as by the Passive design toolkits
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install many many more public washrooms
Install Many Many More Public Washrooms ... no this idea is not off topic! There are so few public washrooms in Vancouver that it’s a barrier to walking, biking and taking transit even for people with mature, healthy bladders, let alone when one considers the needs of Seniors and parents with young children. With the the paltry offering of public washrooms, who can reasonably view this City as transit and alt. car friendly? The ready access to washrooms is one reason people plan car trips to Shopping Malls and Big Box retailers rather than walk, bike or take transit to…
49 votesGood idea! In the past few years, the City has installed 8 of 16 self-cleaning toilets as part of its street furniture contract with CBS-Decaux, and is looking for additional locations. (As an aside, locating them can be challenging due to limited public sidewalk space, a lack of utility connections, and concerns from adjacent businesses.) New public restrooms have also been installed as part of recent park upgrades. There is also a huge opportunity and need at transit interchanges, but this is outside the City’s jurisdiction — Vancouver has repeatedly requested (and will continue to ask) that TransLink install restrooms in its rapid transit stations.
