JLL platform used in feds’ Smart Buildings initiative

JLL platform used in feds’ Smart Buildings initiative

JLL Canada and RYCOM were selected by Public Services and Procurement Canada to implement a Smart Buildings initiative in federal buildings early this year, and it’s already yielding positive results. “It may be premature to focus on individual buildings,” said JLL Canada managing director of sustainability Jiri Skopek. “However, the overall program is already achieving up to 15 per cent energy savings amounting to over $2.7 million of energy saving annually.”

Sustainable Biz Canada

TD first U.S. bank to be named Green Lease Leader

TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank, has been recognized as a Green Lease Leader by the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Better Buildings Alliance. “This award recognizes our ongoing strategy to embed environmental provisions into our leasing process to further TD’s operational footprint performance,” said Irena Stankovic, Environmental Outreach Manager, TD Bank,

PR Newswire

Biggest US pension funds ‘must consider climate-related risks’

The US state of California has passed a landmark bill requiring two of the country’s biggest pension funds to consider “climate-related financial risk” when making investment decisions. The bill requires the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to identify climate risk in their portfolios and report on that risk to the public and to the legislature every three years.

IPE Real Estate

Tree-clad tower would be a first in Canada

The proposed Designers Walk building would have more than 450 trees, requiring major structural considerations to accommodate the trees, with irrigation, fertilizing and monitoring systems built into the structure. “A vertical forest is really like a hillside. It’s not potted plants on a decorated building. The building is really a host, like a hillside,” said architect Brian Brisbin.

Globe and Mail

Calgary home certified as Alberta’s first ‘passive house’

A family’s home in northwest Calgary has become the first in the province to be certified by the Passive House Institute — considered the gold standard for sustainable building. Ania Kania-Richmond says special energy efficient features heat her family’s nearly 2,000-square-foot home in Rocky Ridge without a furnace, despite Calgary’s frigid winters.

CBC

How Interface realized the carpet business was not sustainable

The neoliberal narrative holds that a company exists solely to make money for its owners. If owners use their profits for philanthropy, that is noble. But it is not the job of the corporate sector, so the story goes, to worry about the woes of the world. It’s an appealingly simple proposition, but that might better be called “Cheater Capitalism.” 

GreenBiz

Billionaire takes page from Rockefeller in farm push

Andre Desmarais’s farm seems too pretty to be real. A massive, colorful sculpture by French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle towers over beets and greens. Stained-glass windows by Quebec painter Marc Seguin adorn the pig barn on the 160-acre property that lies 6 kilometers from the U.S. border.

Bloomberg

	Manitoba Race to Reduce targets energy usage
	Throughout the last century, technological advancements have revolutionized the way we live. From transportation systems to the expedition of communication, these contributions have created a level of convenience and economic prosperity unknown to previous generations.
	Sustainable Biz Canada, July 26, 2018

 

The world of plastics, in numbers

From its early beginnings during and after World War II, the commercial industry for polymers — long chain synthetic molecules of which “plastics” are a common misnomer — has grown rapidly. In 2015, over 320 million tons of polymers, excluding fibers, were manufactured across the globe. Until the last five years, polymer product designers typically have not considered what will happen after the end of their product’s initial lifetime.

GreenBiz

Norway’s wealth fund to push for tougher standards

Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund wants companies in which it invests to follow stricter guidelines on global sustainability and strengthen efforts to combat plastic pollution of the oceans, it said on Wednesday. The fund, the world’s largest, invests the revenues of Norway’s oil and gas production and is a global investor with stakes in some 9,000 companies across 72 countries.

Globe and Mail

Outsourced pollution. It’s real, and tough to tally up

Over the past decade, both the United States and Europe have made major strides in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions at home.  But those efforts look a lot less impressive once you take trade into account. Many wealthy countries have effectively “outsourced” a big chunk of their carbon pollution overseas.

New York Times

Provinces not adopting Feds’ climate plan will lose funding

Provinces that don’t get on board with the federal Liberals’ plan to deal with climate change, including putting a price on pollution, will forfeit their share of a $2-billion federal fund, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says. Federal officials have been reviewing $420 million slated for Ontario after that province’s newly elected Tory government scrapped a cap and trade system and rejected imposing a price on carbon.

CTV – CBC – Toronto Star

	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

 

Globe editorial: The uselessness of climate-change defeatism

Politicians quit all the time, but few do it with the impact and dramatic flair of French Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot. On Aug. 28, Mr. Hulot appeared on a radio show and matter-of-factly announced his resignation, live and to the astonishment of the hosts. A long-time green activist, Mr. Hulot was glum rather than angry. “I don’t want to lie to myself any more,” he said.

Globe and Mail

Alberta pulling out of federal climate change plan

Alberta will pull out of the Federal national climate change plan until construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion gets back on track, Premier Rachel Notley said Thursday after the Federal Court of Appeal quashed approvals for the project.

CBC – Globe and Mail

Why aren’t Quebec’s political leaders dicussing climate change?

A summer of record-setting, sweltering temperatures in Montreal was capped off this week with yet another heat warning from Environment Canada and climatologists say hotter, more extreme weather can be expected in the years to come. But as Quebec’s political leaders campaign in sticky, uncomfortable conditions, there has been little emphasis on environmental issues.

CBC

Quebec securities regulator to help companies identify slavery

Quebec’s securities regulator is offering to help public companies disclose their exposure to modern slavery, including forced labour, human trafficking and child labour. The Autorite des marches financiers says Canadian companies could be exposed directly or indirectly to the tens of millions of people around the world who are estimated to be affected by involuntary work made under threat or penalty.

The Chronicle Herald

Products, Technology and Design

Canadian oilpatch rules could cut global emissions: Study

Research suggests Canadian oil is among the world’s most carbon-heavy, but Canada’s industry also has rules that if adopted worldwide could make a big dent in global greenhouse gas emissions. Joule Bergerson of the University of Calgary said emissions from oil production could be cut by almost a quarter if oil-producing countries adopted regulations similar to Canada’s that limit the amount of gas flared or vented into the air.

CBC

China invests in B.C. clean energy firms

Randy MacEwen has made 39 separate trips to China in less than four years — an indication of how much opportunity the British Columbia-based executive sees in that country. On Wednesday, MacEwen, who is chief executive of Burnaby-based hydrogen fuel cell maker Ballard Power Systems Inc. announced a $208 million deal that links the company’s future to China’s fast-growing clean vehicle market.

Financial Post – Bloomberg

Lego plans to use sustainable building blocks

The chief executive officer of Lego A/S says it’s difficult to know the financial implications of a plan — backed by one of Denmark’s richest families — to no longer make toy bricks from plastic. “I’m not even sure that we currently yet can live up to the quality that we want. But it’s an agenda that we want to drive and an agenda that our owner is behind. We want to become a leader on this,” said Niels B. Christiansen.

Toronto Star

Market Trends and Research

Predesigned, prefabricated, Passivhaus and possibly perfect

I was always a fan of selling plans and extolling the virtues of prefabrication; it becomes more like industrial design, where you have a product that you refine, work out the bugs, and get some real design and production efficiencies. That’s why I am so excited about the GO Home line from GO Logic architects in Maine.

TreeHugger

Eco-tourism proving to be a good fit for Nova Scotia

Tourists are more travel-savvy, connected and environmentally-conscious than ever before, making the jobs of tourism professionals more complicated than in years past. Visitors are no longer looking for a destination — they’re looking for a story. While tourism in Nova Scotia continues to develop with technology and the times, our true charm  remains in the simple pleasures on offer.

The Chronicle Herald

Renewable Energy

EU lifts restrictions on solar panels from China

The European Union will end its five-year-old restrictions on solar panel imports from China, officials said on Monday, as Brussels and Beijing increase their own trade cooperation in the face of protectionist steps from the United States. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, suggested the decision would boost the bloc’s renewable energy goals as it rejected an appeal from the European solar industry to reconsider the move.

South China Morning Post – BBC

Rooftop solar will help small businesses in a recession

The U.S. economy has been on one of the longest bull runs in history, but with mostly stagnant wage growth, rising interest rates and record-high asset prices across all asset classes, it’s poised for a potential fall. No one knows how long the ride will keep going up, and many smart small businesses are bracing themselves for the downturn.

GreenBiz

Government Programs and Incentives

How states are tackling energy efficiency standards

Even though the Trump administration has slowed progress toward more energy efficient appliances for the American people, states are taking it upon themselves to keep the momentum going. Here’s a look at what the states have been doing this year, according to Lauren Urbanek, senior advocate for the National Resources Defense Council’s Center for Energy Efficiency Standards.

Energy Manager Today

Municipal Policy and Urban Issues

Urban sprawl and bad planning are fuelling wildfires

Climate change bears much of the blame for longer, drier and more lightning-prone fire seasons. But decades of forest-management policies that called for extinguishing naturally occurring fires as quickly as possible have made forests denser and more susceptible to major blazes. At the same time, urban sprawl is pushing housing development farther into the wilderness.

The Globe and Mail

Waste Management

Cigarette butts polluting the ocean more than plastic straws

Plastic straws are getting all the attention lately, with cities like Vancouver and Seattle banning the use of them. Even major corporations like Starbucks and McDonald’s have jumped on the environmental bandwagon and implemented their own plastic straw ban, citing ocean pollution. But there is a worse polluter floating in the ocean according to environmental experts.

Global News

Ban on plastic bags in Winnipeg likely to be shelved

Winnipeg’s water and waste committee will consider a proposal to ban single-use plastic bags in the city — but the councillor in charge says the motion is unlilkely to go anywhere so close to an election. In July, council’s East Kildonan-Transcona community committee voted to ask city staff to implement a plastic bag ban in Winnipeg.

CBC