Is building along busy corridors unhealthy?

Is building along busy corridors unhealthy?

The City of Vancouver has an ambitious plan to add 18,100 units of housing to the Cambie corridor in the next 25 years, many of them along Cambie Street itself. Michael Brauer, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health,  says there are certainly environmental and health benefits to building density into a city but there are also risks people should consider.

CBC

Passive House a green dream come true

Aneesa Blake and Reed Cassidy’s newly built home has many wow factors, but the couple is most proud of one that’s a bit unusual. The Fifth Street home was rated one of the top 15 in Canada for air tightness. That’s a big deal when your house is a certified Passive House, the leading standard in energy-efficient construction today.

Times Colonist

Green building jobs surge to 31,700 in B.C.

The job-creating power of the green building sector, a key driver of the clean economy, continues to grow in British Columbia. Today, the Pembina Institute released an update to the British Columbia Green Buildings Map, an interactive resource that quantifies the jobs in the industry. The latest research pegs the number of jobs in the green building sector at 31,700.

Pembina Institute – Radio Canada – Journal of Commerce

Solar power at Banff recreation centre will save $15K per year

The Town of Banff’s biggest consumer of electricity will now get 20 per cent of it from solar power, thanks to the installation of the largest solar photovoltaic system in the Bow Valley. The Fenlands Banff Recreation Centre started harnessing the sun’s power on July 25 with an array of 984 solar panels on its roof.

CBC

A B.C. solar panel installer says it’s time to cut the red tape

A small business owner who installs solar panels on people’s properties is frustrated that so many municipalities have different sets of rules when it comes to issuing permits. Hans Wekking says his clients could be spared all kinds of bureaucratic headaches if there was a streamlined set of guidelines for the entire province.

CBC

How green roofs can protect city streets from flooding

Spring and summer 2017 have been among the wettest on record in eastern North America, including southern Ontario. Rainfall amounts in the spring broke records in places like Toronto, where 44.6millimetres of rain fell in 24 hours. The relentless downpours caused the stormwater infrastructure in Canada’s biggest city to overflow, leading to flooding of busy downtown streets.

The Conversation

The commercial building sector is disrupting the lighting industry

Lighting controls for commercial buildings are not a new concept. From manual switches to scheduling to occupancy sensors to daylighting, the ability to manage the energy and comfort associated with lighting in the commercial market continues to gain momentum. Beyond individual controls, networked lighting control systems are also on the rise, increasing penetration of all lighting controls.

Green Biz

	Talk about local ‘pollution’ not global warming
	Pollution can be seen, smelled and touched, making it more tangible than global warming. If we need to get public support behind climate action, let’s start talking about this problem, says University of Cambridge’s Tae Hoon Kim.
	Eco Business, August 23, 2017

 

How to create healthy learning environments with active design

The philosophy of active design makes a student’s well-being and health a key priority in campus design. An active environment helps students develop the body and mind, creating a setting where they learn to make healthy choices and establish habits that last a lifetime.

BDC Network

U.S. universities are learning how to accelerate sustainability

Universities create knowledge relevant to sustainability, they train sustainability practitioners and they often act as beacons of sustainability leadership in their communities or even nations. A good example of this would be the ambitious climate commitment, to which more than 90 colleges and universities in the United States have signed on.

Green Biz – Second Nature

Datacenter giant Equinix is buying Bloom fuel cells

By several measures, the deal trumpeted this week by Equinix, one of the world’s largest Internet colocation providers, and Bloom Energy, the scrappy fuel cell company that had its “60 Minutes” moment way back in 2010, is a whopper.  This technology is alive and well as a “corporate sustainability” strategy, even though other renewable energy procurement strategies might pencil out as cleaner onsite options. 

Green Biz

Logistics company DHL races towards net-zero emissions

DHL is the largest logistics and express delivery company in the world. It’s not surprising that its carbon emissions are massive. But those emissions have declined substantively in the last nine years, and those reductions will be tiny compared to what DHL will achieve if its aggressive projections are realized. 

Green Biz

	Solving the ozone problem remains elusive
	Did the Montreal Protocol fix the ozone hole? With chlorofluorocarbons (CFC;s) banned, many scientists said it was only a matter of time before the ozone layer recharged, and the annual hole over Antarctica healed for good.
	Yale 360, August 23, 2017

 

Canada needs to take its green trade to the global market

The expansion of the climate-change policy agenda in Canada and throughout most of the world creates growing interest in clean technology and services that can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other negative environmental effects. Much of the clean-tech discussion in Canada has focused on the domestic market but there is a much larger business in the international green-trade market.

Globe and Mail

Pittsburgh: Leading Green Building Hub?

Once the epicenter of America’s manufacturing prowess, Pittsburgh has undergone decades of transformation as it shifted from its role as the center of the U.S. steel industry to what is now home to one of the leading technology clusters in North America. But in addition to software, biotech and robotics, Pittsburgh has also become one of the leading green building laboratories within the U.S.

Triple Pundit

Trump administration disbands federal climate committee

The Trump administration announced it is disbanding a federal advisory panel aimed at helping policymakers and the private sector incorporate government climate change projections into long-term planning, The Washington Post reported. The 15-person advisory committee, which operates under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is made up of academics, local government officials, and corporate representatives.

Yale 360 – Washington Post

Norway’s SWF falling short on sustainability, says think tank

Norway’s NOK7.75trn ($C 1,228 bn.) sovereign wealth fund has strong policies on sustainability and climate change but falls short on putting these into action. The Re-Define report argued that the oil fund needed “to learn from its peers and significantly enhance its approach to managing climate risk and investing sustainably, based on rigorous risk/return considerations”.

IPE Real Estate

Products, Technology and Design

Brooklyn’s microgrid rewrites relationships with utility companies

Residents of a social housing complex in Brooklyn, New York, can’t stop another tempest like Superstorm Sandy from crashing through their city, but they can feel secure that it won’t cause a power cut. In June, the 625-unit Marcus Garvey Village cut the ribbon on its very own microgrid, a localized network of electricity production and control.

The Guardian

Market Trends and Research

Paul Hawken on One Hundred Solutions to the Climate Crisis

Paul Hawken acknowledges that the subtitle of his latest book, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, is brash. But the author and entrepreneur says he can get away with it because the plan he and his collaborators put forward is the first and only of its kind.

Yale 360

The construction industry has a productivity problem

For years, everyone has been complaining that we still build our homes and buildings like they did a hundred years ago. Our construction industry is a shambles of poor energy efficiency and low quality. Now the Economist writes that the industry has a serious productivity problem that is getting worse.

TreeHugger – The Economist

Commercial real estate

Opinion: Reflections on a shiny facade

Despite a growing obsession with the sleek all-glass aesthetic in architecture, floor-to-ceiling glass walls are not a good thing in almost any climate. International Finance Corporation green building expert Prashant Kapoor explains why.

Eco-business

Government Programs and Incentives

10 organizations call for rapid transformation to low-carbon buildings

Leading building and energy professionals are urging the federal government to prioritize swift action to make Canada’s homes and buildings ultra energy-efficient and low-carbon in discussions between federal, provincial, and territorial energy ministers.

Pembina Institute

Corporate Sustainability

How cloud computing is helping companies stay green

Cloud computing is now being used by a wide variety of businesses around the world. Both large corporations and small businesses are now taking advantage of what it can offer. There are many benefits of using cloud computing.

Globe-net.com

Transit, bikes and transportation

Poll shows most Calgarians aspire to drive electric vehicles

The City of Calgary is a step closer to formulating a strategy for electric vehicles.  New feedback from residents will be used to help draft recommendations on enabling home and workplace charging, the city said in a report dated Aug. 15.

Calgary Herald

Waste Management

So many governments focus on food waste

Since the year 2000, local and national governments have dramatically increased the number of initiatives focused on addressing the problem of food waste. Now, governments in more than 20 countries around the world are taking action to reduce food waste, according to a new report from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF).

Environmental Leader

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