Natural Resources Canada sets bar high on sustainability

Natural Resources Canada sets bar high on sustainability

The Government of Canada is trying to lead by example in meeting the country’s sustainability commitments. In an effort to show the private sector it can be done, Natural Resources Canada (NRC) is setting energy efficiency and carbon reduction goals for its buildings higher than the bar set for the rest of the country.

Sustainable Biz Canada

‘The Journey to Net-Zero’, a lessons-learned report

EllisDon has launched ‘The Journey to Net-Zero’, a lessons-learned report for Mohawk College’s Joyce Centre for Partnership and Innovation as the project nears completion. The industry report is a strategic collaboration document that details lessons learned during construction of the Ontario’s first net-zero institutional building as well as the first pilot project under the Carbon Impact Initiative.

Canada Newswire

Alberta now has world’s largest protected boreal forest

Alberta is now home to the largest area of protected boreal forest in the world, following an announcement Tuesday that set aside more than 13,600 square kilometres of land across much of northeast Alberta. The provincial and federal governments, the Tallcree First Nation, oilsands giant Syncrude and the Nature Conservancy of Canada announced the creation of new protected areas at a news conference in Edmonton.

CBC

Toronto’s Evergreen Brickworks kiln building re-imagined

The floods keep coming. For eight years, that’s been the story at Evergreen Brickworks, a community and cultural centre near downtown Toronto. The former brick-making site in the Don Valley lies on a flood plain, and it’s designed to handle some water. “But it keeps happening, so that a ’50-year-flood’ comes almost every year,” Brickworks CEO Geoff Cape says.

Globe and Mail

Regenerative architecture is the new green

Imagine a bucket brimming with any finite resource. Over the years, that resource is diminished as a function of development, industrialization, manufacturing, and population growth. After a century of environmental thievery, the bucket is half-full and sustainability—with all of its good intentions—calls on us to use only what is needed so that we don’t compromise the needs of future generations.

BDC Network

Norway’s Powerhouse set to inspire net-positive buildings

What if instead of just reducing the environmental impact of the buildings we construct or striving “just” for zero energy status, we could construct or design structures that have a net positive effect on the planet? That’s the mission behind Powerhouse, a green building framework that has its roots in Norway.

GreenBiz – Smithsonian Magazine

Frick Environmental Center qualifies for LBC certification

The Frick Environmental Center in Pittsburgh, PA, announced that, after more than a year of extensive testing and documentation, it has received the Living Building Challenge (LBC) Certification, one of just 21 buildings in the world to be certified by the LBC. Given the LEED Platinum certification in November 2017, intensive work was needed to complete the Living Building Challenge.

Energy Manager Today

	WorldGBC, CaGBC partner in 2018 conferences
	The World Green Building Council Congress 2018 will be held in Toronto, Canada, in June, in partnership with the Canada Green Building Council’s Building Lasting Change conference.
	World GBC, April 24, 2018

 

Hickok Cole designs timber towers for Philadelphia

There are so many real timber towers on the boards or being built that one can ignore the speculative ones, but Sean McTaggart and his team at Hickok Cole Architects have designed an interesting one for Philadelphia, and tells TreeHugger that “Simply put, our mission is to change the public’s perception of what is possible with the material of wood, as an alternative to concrete & steel.”

TreeHugger

Developer of smartest building eyes U.S.

Coen van Oostrom, who built the greenest, smartest office building in the world, sees two things when he looks at U.S. CRE: lagging sustainability and a market with a heap of potential.  “When it comes to sustainability or technology, they are behind what is happening in Europe at the moment. And that gives us a fighting chance,” said van Oostrom, the founder of OVG Real Estate and Edge Technologies. 

Bisnow

Three events that signal change in microgrids

As energy insiders gathered in Chicago last week at Microgrid 2018, three events unfolded that signal how microgrid growth may take shape in the coming months and years. The first is the accession of microgrid champion Anne Pramaggiore to CEO of Exelon Utilities,  second was an entrance of an oil major into the microgrid market and third was the exceptional bullishness about microgrid growth.

Microgrid Knowledge

The costs of climate change are rising

Debate about reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions frequently references the costs of different policy choices going forward. There is comparatively little debate about the current and expected economic costs of climate change. Policy debate and decisions need to recognize that there is a cost to doing little or nothing to curb emissions.

Globe and Mail

	Ontario’s organic waste plan targets highrises
	Toronto is hoping that new provincial rules will stop residents of the city’s apartment buildings, condos, and other multi-residential buildings from throwing food scraps in the garbage. Almost half of Toronto residents live in multi-residential buildings.
	CBC, May 14, 2018

 

Sustainability data urgently needed to make progress

More information on energy efficiency and the environmental impact of real estate investments is urgently needed if the industry is to move forward in reducing carbon emissions according to David Ironside, chief investment officer for continental Europe at LaSalle Investment Management.

IPE Real Estate Assets

Deloitte finds businesses are fighting climate change

Spurred by consumer demand for eco-friendly practices, many businesses across the US are moving aggressively to reduce their carbon footprint, including a major embrace of renewable energy and alternative-fueled vehicles, according to Deloitte’s “Resources 2018 Study – Businesses Drive, Households Strive.”

Energy Manager Today

New Ceres report links sustainability to governance

A new report by the nonprofit organization Ceres finds that companies with strong systems for board sustainability oversight are more likely to perform better on sustainability challenges. The report analyzes the board governance systems and sustainability performance of 475 of the world’s largest publicly held companies listed on the Forbes Global 2000.

Ceres.org – Systems Rule: How board governance can drive sustainability performance

What’s the true impact of green bonds?

One major stumbling block for implementation of the Paris Agreement (PDF) remains one of financing, particularly the opportunity for developing countries to catch up. In this environment, green bonds have emerged as one of the simplest solutions for raising money. To some, this financing vehicle is almost a panacea: Issue green bonds and the problem will be solved.

GreenBiz

Market Trends and Research

She wasn’t an environmental expert, but now she has a ‘Green Nobel’

To author and documentarian Claire Nouvian, one of the clearest symbols of the fragility of the seas is a creature that almost nobody knows about. Her sense of awe for the piglet squid – and other deep-water denizens – overcame her lack of an environmental background. It also propelled her into a campaign against bottom trawling, called one of the most destructive forms of commercial fishing. 

CS Monitor

Market trends and research

Neighboring seas are flowing into a warming Arctic Ocean

Above Scandinavia, on the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean, mackerel, cod, and other fish native to the European coast are migrating through increasingly ice-free waters, heading deeper into the Arctic Basin toward Siberia. Thousands of miles to the west, above Alaska, kittiwakes and other polar seabirds are being supplanted by southern birds following warm waters streaming north through the Bering Strait.

Yale Environment 360

Renewable Energy

Kathy Hannun’s quest to provide household geothermal energy

Renewable energy is almost synonymous with two forms of electricity in today’s market: solar and wind. While most new additions to the renewable energy mix in the United States are solar and wind-based, a new venture has launched to expand and diversify this trend. Dandelion Energy is pioneering the next generation of home geothermal.

GreenBiz

Solar leases could be a boon to Midwest dairy farmers

Dairy farmers in Illinois have the potential to earn tens of thousands of dollars a year by leasing land for community solar projects. The Illinois chapter of the American Dairy Association of the Midwest is working with UpField Group to sign agreements with individual farmers to lease up to 20 acres for solar projects.

Energy Manager Today

Residential Green Buildings

Here’s a new idea: off-the-rack prefabs by top architects

Cube Haus is “disrupting the existing housing market, delivering high-design value, modular homes at reasonable prices.”  Writing in the Guardian, architecture critic Oliver Wainwright asks: What if buying a house were more like buying a car?

TreeHugger

Government Programs and Incentives

The case for nixing carbon taxes

Our country must focus on three vital things: develop more good jobs, because many are disappearing; build new businesses that can be taxed, rather than increase the burden on existing taxpayers; and improve our physical environment while we do this. One obvious way to achieve this is to encourage “value-add” in the oil industry.

Globe and Mail

Waste Management

Hamilton supports Ingersoll’s fight not to take Toronto’s trash

One year after winning its own battle against a waste disposal plant, Hamilton is throwing its support behind a small Ontario town in a similar situation — Ingersoll. City councillors voted Tuesday to back the town of 12,000 located east of London in its quest to keep a landfill for Toronto garbage out of its watershed.

CBC

What happens to solar panels when their useful lives ends?

Solar power is having its hockey stick moment. Since the early 2000s, the number of solar panels being installed worldwide has been growing exponentially, and it’s expected to continue to do so for decades. By the end of 2015, an estimated 222 gigawatts worth of solar energy had been installed worldwide.

GreenBiz

Going plastic-free

Following the news that a Dutch supermarket has opened the world’s first plastic-free food aisle, Robert Glass, ABB’s global food and beverage communications manager, explores the alternatives to plastic food packaging. Since 2016, the world has increasingly grown to realize the environmental impact of plastics.

Eco-business