Business backs net zero emissions for buildings by 2050

Business backs net zero emissions for buildings by 2050

Three major global businesses have backed the World Green Building Council’s ambitious long-term target to ensure that all buildings are net zero carbon emissions by 2050, as official sponsors of the Advancing Net Zero project; engineering firm Integral Group, international property group Lendlease and the product manufacturer the ROCKWOOL Group.

World GBC – Climate Action Programme

Leduc has the largest rooftop solar system in Western Canada

Mayor Greg Krischke could barely contain his enthusiasm as he announced the opening of the largest rooftop solar system in Western Canada in his home city of Leduc, Alberta — the city that was also home to the birth of the oil industry in 1947. The 3,622 solar modules being installed on this building’s roof will provide 1.1 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity each year, he said.

Pembina Institute

Bulk Barn has embraced the Zero Waste movement

In glorious news for zero wasters, Canada’s largest bulk food chain will accept reusable containers and bags in all stores, starting the end of February. In one fell swoop, Bulk Barn has revolutionized grocery shopping in Canada. The largest bulk food retailer in the country has just announced that it will accept reusable containers in all stores, starting February 24, 2017.

TreeHugger

How energy-data-as-a-service is enabling innovation

Energy management is of increasing importance to business leaders across many corporate functions, driven by increased energy supply options (including renewables and storage); opportunities to reduce energy use and cost; increased focus on corporate responsibility and sustainability; and significant product innovation across the industry.

Green Biz

USGBC and demand response: Piloting demand response in LEED

Energy use has long been a focus of USGBC. Historically, LEED energy use strategies focused on efficiency: reducing the amount of energy used to perform a certain task or provide a certain service. As LEED has matured, we’ve given more thought to other ways building owners and facility managers can improve the sustainability of their energy use. In LEED v4, we introduced a new credit for demand response (DR).

US GBC

Smart buildings and the IoT are complex, challenging

New technologies generally bring confusion and a certain amount of uncertainty. The challenges grow in proportion to the complexity of the innovation being deployed. This means that smart buildings and the Internet of Things (IoT) on which it relies are raising a lot of concerns evident in a survey in the United Kingdom.

Energy Manager Today

Mattamy Homes hires sustainability expert

Mattamy Homes, North America’s largest, privately-owned home builder, is getting serious about sustainability. The Burlington, Ontario-based developer has installed a leader in green building as its new Vice-President of Sustainable Development. Subhi Alsayed is charged with making North America’s largest, privately-owned home builder top in its field in sustainable practices.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Vancouver boosts energy-efficiency standards low rise residential

The City of Vancouver plans to boost green building requirements for new residential buildings under seven storeys, including “exceptionally large” single-family homes. The energy efficiency measures, which would kick in March 1, 2018 if they’re approved by council next week, would cut greenhouse gas emissions from the affected buildings by 40 to 55 per cent, according to a city report.

Vancouver Sun

York Region’s, Bill Fisch forestry centre to get LEED Platinum

The Bill Fisch Forest Stewardship and Education Centre opened last year to chorus of rave reviews, and those accolades keep pouring. Always touted as an environmentally-sustainable structure, the centre recently received a LEED Platinum certification, a first for York Region.

York Region

University of Calgary’s Taylor Institute receives LEED Gold

The first building in Canada dedicated solely to improving post-secondary teaching and learning has received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. The Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning is the University of Calgary’s ninth project to receive LEED certification.

University of Calgary

Okanagan College’s green buildings earn gold

Green technology took top nods at the 25th Tommie awards, with two Okanagan College projects recognized for their environmental innovation. Held by the Canadian Home Builders Association, the Tommie Awards celebrate the achievements of the Okanagan’s building industry’s finest. The College’s new Trades Complex at the Kelowna campus landed top spot for Best Environmental Initiative at the awards Gala on January 28.

Okanogan Life

Canadian pension plan to weigh risks of climate change

A decision by an Ontario public pension manager to study the potential consequences of climate change is the latest sign that pension plans are increasingly becoming concerned about how it can hurt the bottom line. OPTrust released a report last week that reviewed how four climate scenarios, factoring in policy changes and disasters including hurricanes and wildfires, would affect its $18 billion portfolio.

Calgary Herald

Cement develops appetite for C02

Three new studies illuminate the sheer complexity of the aspect of climate science known as the carbon cycle − how carbon dioxide gets into the atmosphere and out again. Sometimes, human agency is at work, but nature takes care of it anyway – as one of the studies reveals in the case of cement, the world’s most widely-used building material.

Globe-net.com

N.Y. health center capitalizes on ‘solar wall’

Unlike most rooftop systems, a new solar array Urban Health Plan’s Simpson Pavilion in the Bronx, N.Y., has been installed on the side of the building. The 37kW “solar wall” will optimize the facility’s clean energy production and save money for critical community health care services, according to Quixotic Systems, which installed the array.

Proud Green Building

Air pollution cut 30% in 12 months on London’s Oxford Street

Oxford Street—the iconic shopping street in the center of London—has long suffered from unsafe air pollution levels. And while bus strikes have occasionally brought temporary relief, finding a long-term solution to this life threatening problem has proven an uphill struggle. Now, however, there are promising signs of significant progress.

TreeHugger

Products, Technology and Design

Global CleanTech 100 list has 11 Canadian winners

Technology has disrupted industries ranging from finance and healthcare to education and news publishing. Over the past few years, it has begun to transform something much larger: the environment. Cleantech is a growth industry, and last week saw the publication of the 2017 Cleantech 100 list.

Financial Post

Green Building Rating Systems

USGBC remembers Bill Worthen

USGBC remembers Bill Worthen, a longtime leader in the green building movement.  Over his 20-year career as an architect, Bill Worthen worked to better connect policy, practice and design through the power of collaboration, sustainability and storytelling. To the world, he was a leader in his profession and a champion of the green building movement.

US GBC

Market Trends and Research

Banks, UN set standards for sustainable development investments

Nearly 20 leading global banks and investors, totalling $6.6 trillion in assets, have launched a United Nations-backed global framework aimed at channelling the money they manage towards clean, low carbon and inclusive projects. The Principles for Positive Impact Finance provide financiers and investors with a global framework applicable across their different business lines.

Eco Business

Lowered operational costs, increased productivity, higher asset values

Green building continues to play a growing role in the construction industry, with building industry professionals forecasting that more than 60 percent of their projects will be “green” by 2018. This, according to the World Green Building Trends 2016 SmartMarket Report, by Dodge Data & Analytics and United Technologies Corporation, shows the rising global demand for green building continues to double every three years.

Environmental Leader

Want to save money? Go green

Energy managers can score points with C-suite executives – as well as their fellow workers – by doing everything they can to make their buildings green. A story at website for The Society for Human Resource Management found that people who work in environmentally healthier buildings are healthier themselves, have a better time and are more productive than those who don’t.

Energy Manager Today

Market trends and research

Deep energy retrofits: Big investment, big rewards

Energy managers understand that there are “low hanging fruit” steps and more fundamental – and more extensive – deep energy retrofits which, of course, cost more and have correspondingly greater upside potential. Since the spring of 2015, Efficiency Vermont has run The Deep Retrofit pilot program at five organizations.

Energy Manager

Commercial real estate

Marriott green headquarters in Maryland

Marriott International Inc. announced it has signed a letter of intent with a joint venture between The Bernstein Companies and Boston Properties to develop its new corporate headquarters and hotel project in downtown Bethesda.

Green Lodging News

Commercial Green Buildings

Nanjing Green Towers will be Asia’s first vertical forest

A new mixed-use project from Stefano Boeri Architects, Nanjing Vertical Forest will comprise two towers rising from a 20-meter shared podium. What makes this project unique is, according to the architects, this will be the first vertical forest built not only in China, but in all of Asia. The building’s facades will feature 600 tall trees, 2,500 cascading plants and shrubs.

BDC Network

Green building ratings

Massachusetts, Colorado, Illinois top of LEED Green Building list

Massachusetts, Colorado, and Illinois lead the list of the Top 10 States for LEED, an annual ranking of U.S. states that made significant strides in sustainable building design, construction, and transformation over the past year.

BDC Network

Government Programs and Incentives

Green bond proceeds fund environmentally-friendly infrastructure

Ontario has successfully issued its third green bond, raising $800 million to help build clean transportation and environmentally friendly infrastructure projects in communities across the province.  Proceeds from the bond will support 12 projects.

Renew Canada

Spotted in Washington: conservatives supporting climate action

The event just as easily could ​have been canceled. It was planned back​ in October, when the organizers weren’t expecting a Trump election victory. Yet here they were last week​, five economists and an attorney, talking about the idea of a nationwide tax on carbon emissions. 

Christian Science Monitor

Corporate Sustainability

Financial services companies can turn SDGs into opportunities

It is estimated that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in late 2015, will cost between $90 trillion and $120 trillion by 2030. In this light, there is no doubt that the financial services industry has a role to play in funding the objectives.

Green Biz

How Citigroup has gamified employee engagement

“Sustainability has been so focused on impacts to the environment… and lost in the conversation are the people in the building — the occupants,” said Steve Avadek, director of sustainability for Citi Realty Services. Avadek sat down with GreenBiz at VERGE 16 to talk about Citigroup’s ambitious green building record and its employee engagement initiatives.

Green Biz

A conversation with RMI’s CEO Jules Kortenhorst

After hosting a workshop for a company on how it could purchase renewable energy in 2013, Rocky Mountain Institute CEO Jules Kortenhorst said the organization quickly noticed an opportunity. “We came to realize that more and more corporate executives are making commitments to renewable energy,” said Kortenhorst.

Green Biz

How to run a meaningful community engagement program

Community engagement, known to some as corporate social responsibility, is not only the right thing to do, but it can also provide an enduring shared benefit for all involved. But acting with good intentions is quite different from doing the right thing in a way that truly benefits your business and its shareholders, employees and most importantly, society.

Globe and Mail

Municipal Policy and Urban Issues

Cities and Towns

Experimenting with green laneways in Toronto

The City of Toronto has more than 2,400 publicly owned laneways. These back alleys, that run throughout the city, behind our streets, connecting our residential and commercial neighbourhoods, are an integral part of the urban landscape. If all 2,400 laneways were put together, they would take up around over 100 hectares of space, equal to about two-thirds the size of Toronto’s High Park.

Water Canada

City says bylaw changes part of bigger, greener picture

The City of Vancouver is pushing forward its green building agenda with proposed changes to the building bylaw aimed at new multi-residential buildings six storeys and under. The recommended updates, which go before council Feb. 7, mainly deal with improving the performance of a building’s envelope — walls, windows, doors and roofs.

VanCourier

Urban densification a key to the future

The common thought is that cities grow organically as living and working space needs changes. But it does not have to be as haphazard. In some cases, great care is taken in how cities evolve. Experts say that these planned densification strategies are a great way to drive energy efficiency.

Energy Manager Today

Waste Management

Illegal dumping of construction waste costing taxpayers

During his daily nine-kilometre run Andrew Waldichuk started to notice the garbage. He’d see old appliances, toilets, furniture, garbage bags, Styrofoam and drywall. In early January, on a remote strip of Cambie Road, he and his running buddies spotted about 30 bags marked “asbestos” dumped alongside a berry farm.

Globe and Mail

City of Saskatoon says landfill not environmentally sustainable

If something doesn’t change soon, the City of Saskatoon could be looking for a new landfill. In a report to a city committee Tuesday afternoon, administration said the city wasn’t meeting its waste diversion targets. That means the city’s landfill is filling up faster than expected. That could become an expensive problem.

CBC

‘Greenwashing’ costing Walmart $1-million

Walmart has agreed to pay $1 million to settle greenwashing claims that allege the nation’s largest retailer sold plastic products that were misleadingly labeled “biodegradable” or “compostable” in violation of California law.

Environmental Leader

BioEnergy Hawaii to build waste-to-energy plant

Hawaii County Planning Department has approved a waste-to-energy plant that aims to reduce the amount of waste headed to landfills and instead to divert it to create energy. The Hawaii Tribune-Herald is reporting that BioEnergy Hawaii will lease about 15 acres to build a modern facility.

Environmental Leader

Other

How the terms ‘sustainability’ was twisted to deny freedom

Corporate social responsibility and sustainability are two concepts that have become increasingly popular in recent years. Activists, politicians, and business leaders use them, and corporate and government actions are partly judged according to them. But what exactly do these concepts mean? Are they compatible with efficient management in a free society?

Financial Post