GTA building boom spawns ‘black market’ for waste soil

GTA building boom spawns ‘black market’ for waste soil

The housing development boom in the GTA has spawned an accompanying, much more dangerous business: illegal dumping of unwanted, and sometimes toxic, soil. The dirt dumps are popping up on farmers’ fields and vacant lots across the region, according to the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority — one of the organizations trying to curb the burgeoning trade in illegal soil.

CBC

Yorkdale food court eliminated 117 bags of garbage a day

The food court at Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto used to generate 120 bags of garbage a day. Now it produces just three — despite the fact that it serves fast foods to 24,000 customers a day.  “It actually just goes to show the type of waste that is here in the food collection or after you finish your meal — how much of that is actual garbage,” said Claire Santamaria, the mall’s general manager.

CBC

Bank of Canada HQ gets energy-saving revamp

The last add-on to Bank of Canada’s downtown Ottawa complex may have been ahead of its time. In the 1970s, Canadian architect Arthur Erickson bookended a limestone building dating back to the 1930s with mirrored glass towers bridged by an atrium. They featured many of the trappings of the contemporary office: biophilic design, open concepts and outdoor views.

REMI Network

Royal Roads to open its environmental science campus

In just a few weeks, students and faculty will be filling the new $24.8-million Centre for Environmental Science and International Partnership at Royal Roads University. The building’s official opening is Sept. 7. This is the latest project at Royal Roads, where the old garage and stables in the Mews, once used by the Dunsmuir family, has been converted for its new role.

Victoria Times Colonist

Carleton University receives funds for green building project

Research from Carleton University might help make new buildings more energy efficient with the help of some fresh federal funding. The Ottawa-based post-secondary institution will receive $350,000 from the government of Canada to fund a new study of occupant behaviour in buildings that in order to better predict how energy is consumed and find ways to reduce it.

Ottawa Business Journal

Feds to fund Waterloo region green energy project

The federal government has announced it will help fund a series of green energy projects in Waterloo region, amid recent provincial cuts to other green energy projects in the area. The Region of Waterloo is spending $20.5 million on a co-generation project that will see new technology installed at the wastewater treatment plants in Waterloo, Kitchener and Galt.

CBC

Power storage project planned near retired Alberta coal mine

Turning Point Generation, developer of the Canyon Creek Pumped Hydro Energy StorageProject, says the recent ruling by the Alberta Utilities Commission means it can now seek financial support for what it says would be the first large-scale energy storage project in the province at the site of one of the worst coal mining environmental disasters in Canada.

Globe and Mail

A quarter of energy could be generated onsite: study

Most businesses will take control of their own energy use by generating a quarter of their electricity onsite by 2025, with 81% of U.S. businesses predicting this change will take place in just seven years. In a study of over 1,000 businesses, Centrica Business Solutions has been working to identify the key drivers and barriers to adopting new energy approaches including battery storage, on-site generation, and demand response.

PR Newswire

Thanks to new tech, it’s easier to live better electrically

The idea of using electricity seemed silly; burning coal or natural gas to make heat to boil water to spin a turbine to generate electricity to push down a wire to… make heat? This was true when electricity came primarily from coal, but on the supply side, the grid has been decarbonizing and will continue to do so.

TreeHugger

Asbestos, the magic mineral, is back!

The EPA is making it easier to get asbestos products approved, but it’s unlikely anyone will bite. Asbestos really is a miracle material. In buildings, siding made from it lasted forever; Vinyl-asbestos floor tiles never wore out; Transite pipe was non-combustible; Asbestos fireproofing worked really well in steel buildings and all the ships at sea during the World Wars.

TreeHugger

10 minutes with Amanda von Almen, Salesforce

Bob Langert: What’s the “what” of Salesforce’s green building program? Amanda von Almen: Our vision is to make sure that we site, design, construct, operate and maintain sustainable, high-performance workspaces that cultivate innovation, productivity, health and wellbeing for our “Ohana.”

GreenBiz

	World Green Building Week – Sept. 24-30, 2018
	This year, we want everyone, everywhere to take action and commit to making a change in the homes they build, lease or live in. We can all do something to make our home a greener, healthier and more energy efficient home. Let’s start now.
	World Green Building Council

 

Why ecology is a critical part of city infrastructure

Cities around the world are advancing new kinds of policy and new methods for adapting to climate change and building resilience capabilities. From large cities such as New York to medium-sized cities such as Montreal and Quebec and rapidly developing cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai, stakeholders are thinking about the role of nature as a potential solution and integrating data to better develop smart ways forward.

GreenBiz

Turning the Big Apple green from the top down

Not long after California passed its landmark legislation requiring most new residential properties to incorporate photovoltaics, New York City followed suit with a far-reaching proposal of its own. Legislation introduced last month would mandate renewable energy installations or green roofs for most new projects. If the measures become law, they will influence development strategies in the nation’s largest real estate market.

CP Executive

Philippines is building a climate change-resilient city

The Philippines has been called one of the most disaster-prone places on Earth.  In a race against climate change, the Philippines is developing a $14 billion metropolis larger than Manhattan called New Clark City designed to be resilient — and sustainable.

Environmental Leader

France to set penalties on non-recycled plastic

France plans to introduce a penalty system next year that would increase the costs of consumer goods with packaging made of non-recycled plastic, part of a pledge to use only recycled plastic nationwide by 2025, an environment ministry official said. Brune Poirson, secretary of state for ecological transition, said the move was one of several to be implemented in coming years, including a deposit-refund scheme for plastic bottles.

Jamaica Observer

	Passive House Canada conference 2018
	Passive House Canada is collaborating with UN Economic Commission for Europe Committee on Forests, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and Canadian Wood Council, to hold concurrent conferences in Vancouver, November 7 to 8, 2018.
	Passive House Canada Conference

 

Products, Technology and Design

Global solar street lighting market US $18B by 2024

Zion Market Research has published a new report that found the global solar street lighting market was valued at approximately US  $4.25 billion in 2017 and is expected to generate revenue of around US $18.31 billion by the end of 2024, growing at a CAGR of around 23.2% between 2018 and 2024.

Globe Newswire

Data center cooling market to reach $8-billion by 2023

The global data center cooling market size is expected to reach values over $8 billion by 2023, growing at a CAGR of approximately 6% from 2017 to 2023, according to ResearchAndMarkets.com. The global data center cooling market is being driven by increased construction of facilities across developing countries such as Latin America, MEA and Southeast Asia (except Singapore), India, and South Korea.

Energy Manager Today

Market Trends and Research

B.C. declares state of emergency due to wildfires

The B.C. government has now declared a provincial state of emergency due to the wildfires burning around the province. This state of emergency will be in place for 14 days but may be extended or rescinded as necessary. It applies to the whole province and ensures provincial, federal and local resources can be delivered in a co-ordinated response to protect the residents of British Columbia

Global News

Calgary hits all-time record temperature of 36.4 C

Calgary is experiencing the hottest temperatures this city has ever seen. At 5 p.m., Environment Canada reported Calgary had reached a temperature of 36.4 C, breaking the old all-time hottest temperature record of 36.1 C, set in July 15, 1919 and then again on July 25, 1933.

Calgary Herald – CBC

Western Canada drought a nightmare for farmers

When farmer Lynn Grant looks over his land just 30 kilometres from the U.S. border in Val Marie, Sask., he sees a panorama of dried-up grass, and “not much of it.” Finding fall and winter feed for his 1,000 cows will be a challenge, and many of his cattle-producing neighbours face the same problem.

Globe and Mail – Regina Leader-Post

Commercial real estate

Is vertical farming the future for agriculture or a distraction

Vertical farming: eco-friend or foe? Well, the first thing to say — to invoke Jez from “Peep Show” — is that it is not pyramid selling. No, whatever the name might imply to the suspicious and unacquainted, “vertical farming” isn’t, to its proponents at least, an obtuse money-grabbing scam.

GreenBiz

Renewable Energy

Is wind power blowing holes in Hydro-Québec’s profits?

Quebec’s main party leaders have gone to battle over a wind-power project that Liberal Premier Philippe Couillard argues is crucial to good relations with First Nations but that François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec calls “useless” and “ruinous.” 

Globe and Mail – CBC

PSP, Pattern Energy acquire Québec wind facility

Pattern Energy Group Inc. and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board announced the acquisition of the 147 megawatt (MW) Mont Sainte-Marguerite Wind power facility from Pattern Energy Group LP. Mont Sainte-Marguerite Wind is located approximately 50 kilometers south of Québec City, in the Chaudière-Appalaches region.

Canada Newswire

Emera pulls out from troubled Cape Sharp Tidal project

Nova Scotia energy company Emera Inc. is ending its involvement with the tidal turbine in the Minas Passage weeks after partner OpenHydro Group Ltd. filed for liquidation. In a statement from Emera released Monday afternoon, the company said it was left with “no practical choice” but to withdraw from Cape Sharp Tidal Venture.

CBC – Halifax ChronicleHerald – Globe and Mail

Residential Green Buildings

Michelle Taggart looking to build a greener Ottawa

Most people want to make a difference in the world but aren’t always sure where to start. For Michelle Taggart, her eye-opening moment came while she was a first-year university student and environmental activist protesting outside the 3rd Summit of the Americas in 2001. She watched from the rowdy crowd while the security gates opened long enough to permit entry for the cars carrying the leaders and influencers.

Ottawa Business Journal

Government Programs and Incentives

Most Canadians oppose taking Ottawa to court: Nanos

The federal government has a solid base of support, though with clear pockets of opposition, as it moves to impose a carbon pricing plan in provinces that refuse to adopt their own system, a new poll indicates. Canadians appear to have misgivings about a move by governments in Saskatchewan and Ontario to launch a legal challenge to the federal carbon-tax plan.

Globe and Mail

Carbon-tax debate is filled with dishonesty

Last week, scientists made a startling announcement: The Antarctic lost three trillion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2017. The rate at which it’s melting caught many off guard, and it appears to be accelerating. These same scientists fear that current projections for how much sea levels will rise over the coming decades owing to global warming may be too low. And the economic consequences of that miscalculation would be far-reaching and serious.

Globe and Mail

Ford government silent on climate change plan

As crews in Toronto continue to clean up from Tuesday’s massive rain storm, climate change scientists say we should brace for more frequent and more intense storms than the one that battered the city.  In the span of just a few hours on Tuesday night, between 50 and 100 millimetres of rain fell on the city. 

CBC – CBC

Corporate Sustainability

Avison Young launches fourth annual Global Citizenship report

Mark E. Rose, Chairand CEO of Avison Young, the world’s fastest-growing commercial real estate services firm, announced that it has released its fourth annual Global Citizenship report. Global Citizenship is the umbrella name of Avison Young’s corporate social responsibility, sustainability and philanthropy strategy.

Canada Newswire

Waste Management

Trillion litres of sewage leaked into lakes and rivers

Last Wednesday, a team of people from the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper environmental group descended on the Toronto harbourfront looking for any signs the previous night’s massive, flash-flood rainfall had caused the city’s ancient combined sewer system to overflow into the lake. They didn’t need to dip a single test tube into the water to know it had.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail