Canada to get its first net-positive energy office building

Canada to get its first net-positive energy office building

While GreenLife Del Ridge has emphasized small ecological footprints in its projects, president Dave de Sylva is going one step further. Howland Green Business Centre, on Cachet Woods Court near Highway 407 and 16th Avenue in Markham, Ont., now at the marketing stage of development will produce more energy than it uses says the builder.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Walmart Canada collaborates with Food-X in Vancouver

Walmart Canada and Sustainable Produce Urban Delivery (SPUD) announcedan agreement to offer SPUD’s food delivery platform, Food-X Urban Delivery Inc. to Walmart.ca customers in Metro Vancouver. Food-X helps Walmart fulfill last mile home delivery and — through shared warehousing and consolidation of orders — reduces waste, truck trips and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Canada Newswire

Eliminating the idea of waste by recycling everything

“Why does waste even exist?” That’s the question at the heart of TerraCycle’s own existence. Since 2001, the company has been taking hard-to-recycle waste and turning it into raw material for use in new products. It operates in over 20 countries and engages over 60 million people. This year marked a period of significant growth for the relentlessly innovative company.

GreenBiz

Restaurant Association sustainability report highlights progress

The National Restaurant Assn. (NRA) just released The State of Restaurant Sustainability 2018 Edition.  It is based on a survey of 500 restaurant owners and operators about their environmental efforts and sustainability opportunities and challenges within their operations. More than 1,000 consumers also were surveyed.

Green Lodging News

Report Report: Planting trees, circularity, risk and responsible exits

The Report Report is a monthly wrap-up of recent research on sustainable business and clean technology, produced by Corporate Eco Forum, a by-invitation membership organization comprised of large, global companies that demonstrate a serious commitment at the senior executive level to sustainability as a business strategy issue.

GreenBiz

CDP reveals shortfall in carbon disclosure by N.A. companies

Many North American companies are not fully disclosing their carbon emissions. There are encouraging signs that companies are investigating these blind spots and taking action to prepare for the low-carbon transition.  Some 1,900 companies worldwide responded to CDP’s data request, of which about a quarter are headquartered in the U.S or Canada.

GreenBiz

How sustainable forest certification has failed

When the Forest Stewardship Council got its start in 1993, it seemed to represent a triumph of market-based thinking over plodding command-and-control government regulation. After the failures of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit environmental organizations, social movements, and industry banded together to establish a voluntary system for improving logging practices and certifying sustainable timber.

Yale 360

	Sustainable Brands to host SB’18 Vancouver
	Sustainable Brands® reveals highlights for its upcoming global flagship conference: SB’18 Vancouver. More than 3,000 brand and business leaders will convene June 4 -7 at the Vancouver Convention Centre
	Sustainable Brands, February 22, 2018

 

US wholesale energy markets opens to storage systems

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued an order allowing the participation of electric storage resources in the capacity, energy, and ancillary services markets operated by regional transmission organizations and independent system operators. It is intended to “enhance competition and promote greater efficiency in the nation’s electric wholesale markets.

Energy Manager

Is the EIA energy market the same as ours?

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) most recent Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) should give anyone watching today’s energy markets a jolt of surprise for exhibiting erroneous data about the costs of renewables, and for its simple and outdated outlook on how the market is changing and will in time transform.

Microgrid Knowledge

Photovoltaics eliminate emissions from Italian HQ building

Arval, a long-term car rental company based in Italy, has recently received a new zero impact headquarters building on the outskirts of Florence. The building is dubbed the “Photovoltaic Bolt” thanks to its arrow-like shape and large photovoltaic “wings.”  It is energy self-sufficient thanks to geothermal pumps and a large array of photovoltaic panels.

BDC Network

Tool aims to make pedestrians safer and happier

On the congested streets of Kuala Lumpur, pedestrians usually find themselves at the bottom of the pecking order. Not uncommon in Southeast Asia’s cities, the emphasis is on cars and keeping traffic moving, despite nascent efforts to make the Malaysian capital more friendly for those on two legs.

Eco-Business

How U.S. infrastructure is built on American inequality

It’s a little after 3pm in Detroit’s 8 Mile neighbourhood, and the cicadas are buzzing loudly in the trees. Children weave down the pavements on bicycles, while a pickup basketball game gets under way in a nearby park. The sky is a deep blue with only a hint of an approaching thunderstorm – in other words, a muggy, typical summer Sunday in Michigan’s largest city.

The Guardian

Some fear California drought cuts could erase water rights

A proposal to make California’s drought-era water restrictions permanent could allow the state to chip away at long-held water rights in an unprecedented power grab, representatives from water districts and other users told regulators. The state Water Resources Control Board delayed a decision about whether to bring back what had been temporary water bans from California’s recent drought.

Financial Post

Why California billionaires prep for the apocalypse in New Zealand

If you’re interested in the end of the world, you’re interested in New Zealand. If you’re interested in how our current cultural anxieties – climate catastrophe, decline of transatlantic political orders, resurgent nuclear terror – manifest themselves in apocalyptic visions, you’re interested in the place occupied by this distant archipelago of apparent peace and stability against the roiling unease of the day.

The Guardian

How do you build a healthy city? Copenhagen reveals its secrets

The Danish capital ranks high on the list of the world’s healthiest and happiest cities. With obesity and depression on the rise worldwide, here are its lessons for how to combat them culturally Maybe it’s the Viking heritage. There is an icy open-air pool in the waters of Copenhagen’s harbour, and although it is mid-winter Danes still jump in every day.

The Guardian

	CaGBC seeking Manager, Strategic Partnership
	The Manager, Strategic Partnerships is responsible for identifying and securing funding (government grants and contracts, corporate and foundation funding) to support the Canada Green Building Council’s (CaGBC) initiatives and programs.
	Canada Green Building Council, February 22, 2018

 

Residential Green Buildings

Ottawa’s original green architect builds her own condo

With a vision of living and working in a condo that met her rigorous energy-efficient and green standards and desire for a built-in community within walking distance of amenities, Chapman began the process of building a four-unit condo on a double lot she purchased in 2009 in New Edinburgh neighbourhood in Ottawa.

Ottawa Citizen

Government Programs and Incentives

ROB magazines profile of Environment Minister Catherine McKenna

Few newly minted cabinet ministers have gone into circulation as quickly as Catherine McKenna. In 2015, barely 79 hours after being sworn in, the Trudeau government’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change—a political neophyte—was flying to France to press her country’s position in advance of the Paris climate talks.

Globe and Mail

Corporate Sustainability

Mobilizing private capital for SDGs is good for business

There is a growing need for the world to mobilize capital in the direction of achieving the SDGs. The investment landscape shows a large gap between the amount of capital it will take to achieve the SDGs by 2030 and the financial resources from government and development aid that are currently available.

GreenBiz

Leaders from Mars to McDonald’s give voice to partnerships

Collaboration runs through the sustainability movement like a sinew that not only holds it together, but also gives it its strength. And with good reason. In many ways, the sustainability movement exists today in response to the lack of collaboration in the past, especially on the part of businesses.

GreenBiz

Transit, bikes and transportation

Bike storage towers become an “Iconic Gateway”

London’s Old Street roundabout used to be in a crappy part of town, but now, Shoreditch is hot. There is a design competition happening that Dezeen says will see the removal of the “outdated and intimidating” 1960s roundabout and its replacement with an “innovative idea” to rejuvenate the junction.

TreeHugger

Other

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