SHARC’s wastewater heat recovery breaks into hotel sector

SHARC’s wastewater heat recovery breaks into hotel sector

Alberta’s Lake Louise Inn is the first hotel in the world to install SHARC International Systems Inc.’s Piranha wastewater heat recovery system. “They’re always trying to be greener and more energy-efficient and more environmentally sensitive,” said SHARC chief executive officer and chairman Lynn Mueller of Atlific Hotels, which manages Lake Louise Inn and more than 55 other hotels.

Sustainable Biz Canada

‘Tall timber’ developments take a star turn in Toronto

On a site tour earlier this month of Toronto’s first substantial “tall timber” project, the developer, Jeff Hull of Hullmark Developments, good-naturedly encouraged visitors to hug the columns – should they feel so inclined. As contractors have been installing the sturdy “glulam” columns in Hullmark’s new post-and-beam building at 80 Atlantic Ave. architects and developer officials have been spotted occasionally embracing these impressive objects.

Globe and Mail

International Code Council mass timber policy up for public comment

Fourteen tall mass timber code change proposals were approved during the International Code Council (ICC) public comment hearings. The proposals are now subject to ICC’s online voting, scheduled to begin in November. The final outcome of the voting is expected in December. The proposals deal with type of construction, performance method, and fire and safety issues.

BDC Network

ACEEE identifies top barriers to zero energy building adoption

Building code updates in parts of the US and Canada are helping to encourage the development of zero energy buildings coast-to-coast that produce at least as much energy as they consume. However, barriers to successful adoption remain, according to a new white paper from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

Energy Manager Today

Will increasingly indoorsy Canadians answer the call of the wild?

“I think it becomes more of a hassle to get outside,” says Daniel Kouto, who lives in Toronto. He and his wife work full-time, so once a weekend they make a purposeful effort to take their dog and 1-year-old son out of the city to a forest, lake, or trail.” But it’s often easier to just stay home. That disconnect sits at the heart of a study published by the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

CS Monitor

Across Canada, caribou are on course for extinction, expert

Caribou, the iconic herbivore that graces the back of the Canadian quarter, is on a pathway to extinction in every region where it is currently found, says one of the country’s foremost experts on the species. The stark assessment has emerged from nearly a decade of meticulous research aimed at understanding how 11 different subsets or “designatable units” of caribou should be listed under the federal Species at Risk Act.

Globe and Mail

Why investors are backing zero deforestation

The UN-REDD Program is a bold attempt by the international community to reduce deforestation and its destructive impacts on climate change, biodiversity and the livelihoods of forest-dependent people. The United Nations’ program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) introduced a new system to financially incentivize developing countries to prevent deforestation.

GreenBiz

	Clean Transition Bonds & sustainable finance
	Corporate Knights and the Council for Clean Capitalism today released draft Clean Transition Bonds Guidelines. CTBs will be instrumental in enabling Canada’s energy and other carbon-intensive industries to further reduce their emissions.
	Corporate Knights, October 29, 2018

 

Canadian cities consistent, environmentally friendly: Report

It’s no secret cities must seek ways to be attractive places for people to live, work and play. To do so is to ensure a long, healthy and prosperous future — a sustainable future. A new report released Tuesday by Arcadis, the leading global design and consultancy firm for natural and built assets, reveals sustainability scores for 100 cities worldwide. Each of the five Canadian cities highlighted — Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary — land in the top 40 worldwide.

Globe Newswire – Globe Newswire

Canada joins International Commission on Climate Adaptation

Yesterday, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, Catherine McKenna, formally announced Canada’s participation in and support of the new Global Commission on Adaptation. The Commission will be co-managed by the Global Center on Adaptation and World Resources Institute (WRI), and a new collaboration with the Global Center, aiming to help address critical climate adaptation gaps.

Water Canada

Feds earmark $1.5B to help smaller businesses adapt to carbon pricing

The federal government expects to spend nearly $1.5 billion helping small and medium-sized businesses adapt to carbon pricing over the next five years — but it will not exempt them from the new carbon tax regime. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says the government is no longer allowing anyone in Canada to pollute for free but that there will be supports to help small businesses adapt by making their operations more energy efficient.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Plastic crackdown: Europe moves to ban single-use plastic

Throwaway plastic items such as cutlery, cotton buds, straws and stirrers soon could be banned across Europe after MEPs backed measures to drive down the growing mountain of single-use plastic waste this week in Strasbourg. The EU Parliament voted strongly in favor of a complete ban by 2021 on a range of plastic products which have readily available, non-plastic alternatives, such as plates, cutlery and balloon sticks.

GreenBiz

	The new plastics economy global commitment
	In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, the signatories to the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment — which are collectively responsible for producing 20 percent of all plastic packaging globally and represent the full value chain for plastics — have pledged to eradicate plastic waste and pollution.
	Green Biz, CSR Wire, October 29, 2018

 

Stanley Park ecosystems and seawall at risk from rising sea levels

Stanley Park is widely considered a gem of Vancouver’s geography but the beloved seawall and surrounding wildlife are at risk of disappearing due to rising sea levels caused by climate change, according to a local sustainability specialist. Angela Danyluk says coastal residents can expect to see one metre of sea level rise by the year 2100, which would have serious effects on the ecosystem of Vancouver’s shoreline.

CBC

Venice flooding is worst in a decade

In Venice, ferocious winds drove the high tide to more than 61 inches, or 156 centimeters, above average sea level on Monday, one of the highest levels ever recorded, plunging much of the city under water. It was the highest flood in a decade in Venice, though far short of the record, more than 76 inches above level, set in November 1966.

NY Times – Vancouver Province

The risk of ‘cascading’ natural disasters is on the rise

In a recent commentary, we identified a number of costly and deadly catastrophes that point to an increase in the risk of “cascading” events — ones that intensify the impacts of natural hazards and turn them into disasters. Multiple hazardous events are considered cascading when they act as a series of toppling dominoes, such as flooding and landslides that occur after rain over wildfires.

GreenBiz

Bitcoin mining could cancel out climate change efforts, scientists say

emand for bitcoin could single-handedly derail efforts to limit global warming because the increasingly popular digital currency takes huge amounts of energy to produce, scientists said on Monday. Producing bitcoin at a pace with growing demand could by 2033 defeat the aim of limiting global warming to 2 C, according to U.S. research published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

CBC

Products, Technology and Design

Ontario utility launches offering off-grid co-gen power

OOM Energy Inc. has created a new concept that it says will revolutionize how people and business get their electric power. The company, based in Oakville, Ontario, has developed a system that takes customers off the power grid, and provides electricity that is cheaper, more reliable, and environmentally friendly.

Canadian Biomass Magazine

Feds make further investment in General Fusion

The Government of Canada is continuing to invest in innovative sectors such as clean technology that will grow Canada’s economy and address the world’s environmental challenges.  It recently announced a $49.3-million investment in General Fusion, a clean technology company seeking to transform the world’s energy supply with safe, sustainable and economical fusion energy.

Canada Newswire – Sustainable Biz Canada

Global zoo and animal organization joins Forest Stewardship Council

 The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), today announced a partnership to develop a global framework aimed at creating a more sustainable world through responsible forest management. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) aims to support FSC’s national network partners and members of WAZA in promoting responsible forest management as an important tool for the conservation of nature and of endangered species.

Eco-business

Market Trends and Research

How to shift public attitudes and win the global climate battle

From the perspective of innovation, policy, and cost, we know what to do and can do it. Clean-tech innovation is in full bloom, with an unmatched innovation culture in the United States and progress happening all over the world. We know how to set policy standards, provide incentives, introduce carbon pricing, stoke up research and development.

Yale 360

Here’s what climate change could look like in Canada

Climate change is here, experts say, and Canada can expect to suffer the consequences. The effects of a warming planet are going to be felt from coast to coast to coast. And, if we stick to a “business-as-usual” scenario — no change to our emissions — it’s going to happen a lot sooner than scientists initially thought, according to a recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

CBC – Regina Leader-Post

Plant-based diets for better health and planet?

New research shows the world is not producing nearly enough fruit and vegetables to feed everyone. Canadian researchers compared global agricultural production with the sort of diet backed by nutritionists and said they found a “fundamental mismatch” between what is being produced and what the world’s population would actually need.

Eco-Business

Commercial real estate

NY utility funds net zero performance for new buildings

The New York State Energy and Research Development Authority recently announced that $1 million is available for net zero energy performance in new buildings. According to NYSERDA, the money can go to large real estate portfolio owners mechanisms that enable the design, construction and operation of net zero buildings.

Energy Manager Today

Renewable Energy

Regina pledges to go to 100% renewable energy by 2050

Regina city council has voted unanimously in favour of being “100 per cent renewable” by 2050. That means completely moving away from fossil fuels when it comes to generating power for the city.  “People at all levels of government should be taking climate change seriously,”councilor Andrew Stevens said. “And this means the municipal leadership when it comes to building alternatives.

CBC – CBC

Canadian Solar subsidiary signs record agreement

Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ-Q) Tuesday announced its wholly owned subsidiary Recurrent Energy LLC has signed two 15-year power purchase agreements with Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Monterey Bay Community Power for a 150 megawatt solar power system with 180 megawatt-hours of battery storage. This joint procurement effort represents the largest contracted solar-plus-storage project in California to date.

PR Newswire

Wind power sweeps over party lines, says industry

Wind power is catching on and blowing across political lines — or at least that’s what the wind energy industry hopes.  The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) annual conference and exhibition kicked off on Oct. 23 in Calgary and will run until the 25th. The gathering is considered the single biggest wind energy event in Canada, according to Robert Hornung, the association’s president. 

CBC

CAQ government looking to abandon $600M wind farm

The Quebec government wants out of the contentious Apuiat wind farm project and has tapped Hydro-Québec to come up with an exit strategy, Radio-Canada has learned. The Apuiat project, first proposed in 2015, is to produce an estimated 200 megawatts annually from about 50 wind turbines on Quebec’s North Shore, near the town of Port-Cartier.

CBC

Government Programs and Incentives

Sask. moves forward on environmental plan

Saskatchewan is moving part of its climate change strategy, known as Prairie Resilience, into law — by amending a law it first introduced nearly a decade ago. Environment Minister Dustin Duncan introduced Bill 132, The Management and Reduction of Greenhouse Gases Amendment Act, on Tuesday.

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Trump’s effort to rollback critical climate regulations

In a recent Associated Press interview, President Trump claimed to be “an environmentalist” and offered that he has “a natural instinct for science.” The goals of his administration suggest otherwise. In fact, this week we are in the middle of the public comment period on the Trump-directed rollback of four climate-related rules administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Ceres.org

Corporate Sustainability

Choosing clean green certified companies enhances a facility

If you’re a facility management professional, you’re engaged in an ongoing effort to evaluate and selectively implement a variety of productivity options that promise to enhance the efficiency, functionality, and harmonious operation of your worksite environment. Part of this task should include choosing environmentally friendly solutions to make your facility as green as possible.

Environmental Leader