Vancouver’s Terrace House raises hybrid timber bar

Vancouver’s Terrace House raises hybrid timber bar

Terrace House, a unique $100-million condominium building adjacent to Vancouver’s historic At 19 storeys, Terrace House in Vancouver is expected to be the world’s tallest hybrid timber structure when completed. Vancouver-based PortLiving, part of real estate investment firm Port Capital Group, is the developer of the 19-storey, 20-suite Terrace House in Coal Harbour.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Energy efficiency benchmarking for B.C. buildings

The Lower Mainland Local Government Association recently passed a resolution calling on the B.C. government to make energy benchmarking and annual reporting mandatory for buildings larger than 50,000 square feet. In September, the Union of B.C. Municipalities will consider a similar resolution at its annual convention in Vancouver.

Pembina Institute

GBCI Canada to be one-stop green building shop

Canadian building owners and property managers are about to get much wider access to leading-edge green building and performance management tools and services.  The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) and Green Business Certification Inc., (GBCI) based in the U.S., will become partners in Green Business Certification Inc. Canada.

Sustainable Biz Canada

CaGBC launches ‘ambitious’ Zero Carbon Building Standard

The Canada Green Building Council has released the country’s first Zero Carbon Building Standard, and it’s a groundbreaking new program. The CaGBC calls the standard, released at a media event Monday in Vancouver, “the next evolution of green building.” It is designed to be broadly applicable for new and existing buildings across Canada.

Sustainable Biz Canada

UCalgary’s to help with CaGBC Zero Carbon Building Standard

The University of Calgary is one of 16 participants, and one of only three post-secondary institutions across Canada, to take part in a two-year program to help finalize the Canada Green Building Council’s (CaGBC) new Zero Carbon Building Standard. Pilot program participants will also aid in the development of tools, resources and education to drive change in the green building industry.

University of Calgary

How net-zero impact buildings positively impact the world

The International Living Future Institute defines Net Zero Energy (NZE) as “One hundred percent of the project’s energy needs being supplied by on-site renewable energy on a net annual basis.” In one simple, elegant sentence, a radical agenda for eliminating carbon dioxide emissions and use of combustion fuels within the built environment is set in place.

Green Biz – Energy Manager Today

City of Edmonton to help buildings go green

Edmonton is believed to be the first city in Canada to lead a voluntary program aimed at helping large buildings reduce their energy use. It will provide owners with data about their building’s energy performance. It will also help them take advantage of provincial government incentives to upgrade heating, cooling and lighting.

Metro News

	RAIC recognizes beloved Quebec library
	A Montreal library that targeted LEED Silver certification in conception but attained LEED Platinum on completion was honoured with the 2017 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Green Building Award.
	Daily Commercial News, June 6, 2017

 

Metro Toronto Convention Centre earns TOBY Award

The Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) has received The Outstanding Building of the Year (TOBY) Award and Certificate of Building Excellence in the public assembly category by the Building Owner’s and Management Association (BOMA) of Toronto. The honours recognize facilities with the highest levels of quality in several categories, including energy conservation, building performance, security standards and community impact.

Property Biz Canada

How to design a vertical city for kids

More and more people are raising their families in apartments, as is common in much of Europe. But the buildings being built often don’t take kids into account. A new study by the City of Toronto, Growing Up: Planning for Children in New Vertical Communities  looks at the issue and provides  guidelines.

TreeHugger

Kiko Water Systems Cartridges: Green Building Product of the Year

As a nanotechnology that is green and not chemical, Kiko Water Systems Cartridges makes boilers, chillers, cooling towers, heat exchangers and heat pumps all operate more efficiently.  Building owners are saving an average of over 20 per cent of their HVAC energy consumption it reduces maintenance costs and extends equipment lifespan.

Canada Green Building Council

Research challenges current green roof standards

Land buried beneath rising water, torrential rain slamming into cities, shutting down roads, bridges, subways and even buildings, bacteria flowing into properties and open water systems. Headlines across Canada are awash with these images more and more, especially in older cities like Toronto where aging infrastructure, combined sewage systems and increasing rain events are a perfect storm of conditions for flood damage.

Remi Network

	Google unveils green ‘landscraper’ for UK HQ
	Google has finally unveiled plans for its new London headquarters—and it’s a beaut. Designed by the architecture studios of Thomas Heatherwick and Bjarke Ingels, the one-million-square-foot office building is dubbed “landscraper” for its length.
	Inhabitat, June 2, 2017

 

Rhode Island leapfrogs toward microgrids

A lot of states are talking about building a grid of the future and microgrids. But often it seems more like the grid of the far-off future. Not so, however, in Rhode Island. The state is taking advantage of its small size and second-mover position to act fast and avoid problems bogging down other states.

MicroGrid Knowledge

RAIC affirms its responsibility to combat climate change

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) proclaimed in June its commitment to enforcing measures of sustainability within the Canadian architecture community. The statement was released in support of a letter published by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement initiated to curb climate change.

Archinect – Curbed

Sector condemns Trump climate deal withdrawal

Built environment professionals have united to condemn Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change, a worldwide agreement, signed in November 2015, under which 195 nations have agreed measures that are designed to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2C above pre-industrial levels.

Building.co.uk

U.S. governors, mayors defend Paris accord after Trump’s rejection

Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto signed an executive order Friday committing his city to the goals of the Paris accord, a day after President Donald Trump announced his intention to pull the United States from the 195-country climate-change agreement. The mayor’s action was a swift rebuttal to the President who, in defending his widely criticized decision Thursday, said he was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not of Paris.

Globe and Mail – Think Progress

Residential Green Buildings

Homes built to challenge the elements

Albertans are no strangers to extreme weather and one Calgary-based architecture firm says some homeowners are abandoning cookie-cutter construction in favour of design that safeguards against the elements.  Nyhoff Architecture recently designed a riverside home in Calgary that is flood proof and a house in Lethbridge that shelters against the city’s notorious high winds.

Globe and Mail

Government Programs and Incentives

Corporations donors cheer as Brad Wall bashes carbon tax

Corporate donors spent thousands of dollars in cash to wine, dine and hear a speech from Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall at an exclusive party fundraising dinner last week in Regina. On June 1, oil and gas industry titans from such companies as Crescent Point Energy, Imperial Oil and Enbridge Wall bashed the idea of carbon pricing and promised to protect “the most exposed industry in the country.”

National Observer

What Trump got wrong about Paris

In announcing his decision to withdraw from the Paris accord, President Trump cast it as a matter of putting America first. But the move is a colossal mistake that will push the U.S. to the sidelines as China and others take the lead on climate policy and renewable energy.

Yale 360

Abandoning Paris, Trump’s return to angry populism

Donald Trump’s rejection of the Paris climate change treaty is the most emphatic answer to date on the question the rest of the world has been asking since January: What does “America first” mean? “I am elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” the president declared in the White House rose garden.

The Guardian

Corporate, world leaders vow to uphold Paris Agreement

For all the blunt talk from President Trump on Thursday that “we’re getting out” of the Paris Agreement, experts note that the United States cannot legally begin to withdraw from the accord on mitigating climate change until November 2019 — and then it would take a year.

GreenBiz

Corporate Sustainability

3 types of materiality for sustainability executives

Successful sustainability strategies connect their sustainability efforts with strategic issues. Companies that do this are 50% more likely to report business value from sustainability compared with those that do not, whereas 16% of companies paying little or no attention to material issues report that they profit from sustainability. Materiality is key, but it may be unclear how this concept translates to sustainability.

Huffington Post

Bikes and The City

Urban highways could be giant bike paths in the sky

Urbanists and TreeHuggers alike complain about urban highways, how they divide and ruin cities. There may be a better option: Turn them into giant bike paths in the sky. That’s what Toronto does one morning a year for the Ride for the Heart, a charity ride supporting the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

TreeHugger

Transit, bikes and transportation

A National Zero-Emissions vehicle strategy for Canada

Marc Garneau, Canada’s Minister of Transport, today announced that Canada is moving forward to develop a national strategy to increase the number of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVS) on Canadian roads by 2018. Transportation accounts for about 24 percent of Canada’s emissions, mostly from cars and trucks.

Globe-net.com

Waste Management

Supermarkets should strive to stop waste

With food waste becoming an ever-more prominent topic in the news, supermarkets will need to take steps to combat food waste or risk losing customers, says Liz Goodwin, senior fellow and director of food loss and waste with the World Resources Institute. Between 30% and 40% of food produced around the world goes to waste because it is spoiled or tossed, Goodwin says (via Reuters).

Environmental Leader

China to release plan for tackling e-waste by end of year

Unlike your everyday consumer rubbish, electronics waste is especially challenging to deal with because it contains a range of hazardous substances. The world produced 41.8 million tonnes of waste electronics (e-waste) in 2014, according to the United Nations University’s 2014 Global E-Waste Monitor. Of that, six million tonnes, or 14.3 per cent, was produced in China.

Eco-business

Other

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