BOMA to offer Fitwel certification in Canada

BOMA to offer Fitwel certification in Canada

Commercial buildings in Canada will likely soon have healthier workforces, thanks to a strategic partnership between BOMA Canada’s BOMA Best certification program and the new Fitwel health-promoting building certification. Launched in February by the U.S.-based Center for Active Design, the Fitwel certification measures a number of evidence-based criteria in buildings to rate their effectiveness in promoting health.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Half of Vancouver residents’ trips are by foot, bike, public transit

The City of Vancouver has successfully met three of its 20 measurable targets as part of its Greenest City Action Plan, according to an implementation update presented to city council members today (June 27). The 2016–2017 report reveals that 50 percent of trips in the region are now taken by foot, bike, or transit.

Straight.com

Trudeau announces new Ambassador for Climate Change

Strong action is needed now more than ever to tackle climate change, protect our environment and generate the long-term economic development that will grow the middle class and support a sustainable, clean growth economy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Jennifer MacIntyre has been appointed Canada’s new Ambassador for Climate Change, effective immediately.

Office of the Prime Minister

Scientists brace for climate-fund cutoff

Climate scientists across Canada are preparing to shutter research projects and lay off staff as time runs out on the federal program that supports their work. The break comes despite the Trudeau government’s repeated emphasis on the need for science-based decision-making in response to climate change.

Globe and Mail

Feds fund three City of Richmond environmental projects

The City of Richmond received $327,000 from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Green Municipal Fund for a trio of planning projects, a solar energy feasibility study, a brownfield site assessment remediation action feasibility study and a micro sewer heat recovery feasibility study.

Richmond News

Vancouver approves fees for electric car charging stations

Motorists driving electric vehicles in Vancouver will soon have to pay to use the city’s 16 curbside charging stations. The fees will start at $2 an hour for a slow charge to $16 an hour for a fast charge, in addition to a regular parking meter rate.

CBC

Seven lessons learned on commissioning projects

Commissioning helps projects achieve greater occupant comfort and satisfaction, higher building energy efficiency, and ensures ease of maintenance for the building engineering staff.  Commissioning a building is how an owner is able to have full confidence that the building is operating as designed and that it isn’t wasting a single dollar on inefficient systems.

BDC Network

CaGBC wins award for environmental excellence

The CaGBC has won a 2016 Ontario Minister’s Award for Environmental Excellence. The award was presented at a special awards gala on June 21 by Glen Murray, Ontario Minister of Environment and Climate Change, and accepted on behalf of CaGBC by President and CEO Thomas Mueller. CaGBC was recognized for its development of a National Energy Benchmarking Framework.

Canada Green Building Council

Oilsands, mining companies watch B.C. solar project with intrigue

After a century of pulling lead and zinc from the Sullivan mine in southeast British Columbia, the energy company Teck recently shut down the operation and began years of restoration work. There was no way it could be turned into a housing subdivision or some other development.

CBC

Increasing number of farms switching to solar power

Farmers have always followed a natural progression when it comes to technology. “(Farmers aren’t) using horses to plow their fields anymore. Solar’s just kind of another step that allows them to be competitive and control the cost that’s a business expense,” said Nathan Jones, solar energy advisor with miEnergy.

Regina LeaderPost

JLL adds new VP to its smart building team

JLL tapped Yann Palmore as vice-president of its Smart Buildings Program. Palmore’s primary responsibility will be to help JLL clients understand and implement data-driven building technologies and strategies into their commercial real estate portfolios.

CP Executive

	A primer on two new wellness standards
	While our focus on wellness may seem like just the latest trend, occupant health has been an important goal of the built environment for centuries. In the 1800s, access to fresh water, natural light, and clean air significantly reduced the number of deaths from infectious diseases.
	BDC Network, June 28, 2017

 

High-rise wooden buildings to make cities more sustainable

A century ago, concrete and steel allowed cities to reach for the skies. But the materials that made possible landmarks like New York City’s Empire State and Chrysler buildings, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, or the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur also yield huge amounts of planet-warming carbon when they’re produced.

Seeker.com

Mobility tech could be $600 billion boon for cities

Ridesharing apps, autonomous vehicles, electric cars, bicycles. It’s easy to feel your wheels are spinning when it comes to keeping up with the automakers, startups and cities racing to keep pace with a new wave of transportation technologies. Now, however, consultants at McKinsey actually have put a number on how much “integrated mobility” stands to save cities.

GreenBiz

Walmart, GM becoming biggest purchasers of wind energy

Wind contracts among corporate power users have grown from five per cent in 2013 to 40% in 2016, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Though tech companies like Google and Salesforce have long been using renewable energy, corporate giants such as Walmart and General Motors have become some of America’s biggest purchasers of such energy.

Energy Manager Today

MGM Resorts International earns four Green Globes

The Green Building Initiative (GBI) announced that MGM Resorts International has earned Four Green Globes certifications for 26 retrofit building projects at various MGM Resorts’ Las Vegas properties. More than 45 million square feet of hotels, casinos, convention centers and resort campus spaces have been retrofit retrofitted.

Green Lodging News – CP Executive

	Who needs ‘baseload’ power?
	In April, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced a 60-day study on electricity market design and grid reliability, meant to assess to what extent current market designs fail to adequately compensate “baseload” (coal- and nuclear-fired) power plants.
	Green Biz, June 26, 2017

 

Products, Technology and Design

Details on the Tesla solar shingle emerge in UL certifications

As Lloyd reported last month, Tesla is already taking orders for installation of the Tesla solar roof. Tesla makes it so easy too. You can put a deposit down with a solar roof ordering system that requires only two inputs; which tile style do you want?  And how many powerwall battery systems do you need?

TreeHugger

High-tech CityTree cleans as much pollution as 275 trees

Urban pollution is an enormous problem in many cities around the world, and poor air quality can mean an increase in chronic conditions like asthma, while also making it difficult for people to walk, bike or enjoy the outdoors. One obvious solution is to plant more green spaces, as plants can help to significantly improve air quality and reduce particulate matter.

TreeHugger

Sabey Data Centers use ‘hot aisle containment’

Seattle-based Sabey Data Centers achieved the highest level of energy savings in 2016, according to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) 2017 Better Buildings Progress Report. Sabey’s energy savings beat all other data center companies enrolled in the Better Buildings Challenge program, a DOE initiative launched in 2011 to improve energy efficiency in commercial, industrial and multifamily buildings.

Energy Manager Today

Market Trends and Research

Are green buildings standards helping to reduce climate change?

The alphabet soup of green building standards is not enough to help the construction industry meet its goal of net zero buildings carbon emissions by 2050, said a keynote speaker at a recent conference in Hong Kong.

Eco-business

Municipal Policy and Urban Issues

L.A. law requires energy and water efficiency benchmarking

The City of Los Angeles recently passed an ordinance requiring buildings of 20,000 square feet or more to take steps to improve energy and water efficiency. Structures of that size must: Benchmark their use of energy and water consumption Provide this information to the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety Demonstrate steps being taken to reduce energy and water consumption

BDC Network

Commercial real estate

Johnson Controls’ HQ Asia Pacific achieves LEED Platinum

Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) announced that Johnson Controls’ new headquarters Asia Pacific has achieved both LEED Platinum and EDGE green building certifications. Johnson Controls is among a select group of projects to receive both certifications for a single project.

US Green Building Council

Marks & Spencer to build a global ‘sustainability tribe’

When UK retailer Marks & Spencer launched its ambitious sustainability strategy in early 2007, it dubbed the strategy “Plan A” to remind us that we have just one planet, so there is no Plan B. Plan A amounted to nothing less than a complete restructuring of the company’s supply chain and it launched with an ambitious list of 100 commitments.

Eco-Business

Renewable Energy

IKEA adding more solar to increase energy savings

Retailer IKEA has long been a company committed to renewable energy and that rings true again with the installation of a massive solar array atop its new Burbank, California store. The store’s 71,000-square-foot solar array consists of a 646 kW system, built with 1,872 panels, and will produce approximately 1,033,000 kWh of electricity annually for the store.

Energy Manager Today – Biz Journals

Residential Real Estate

McMansion Hell website under attack by Zillow

It was funny, it was educational, and it is, at least for the moment, gone. McMansion Hell was a hilarious website run by Kate Wagner, that skewered all the terrible, terrible designs of big American homes. It was funny but did important work.

TreeHugger.com

Government Programs and Incentives

China sets up pilot zones to boost green finance

China announced plans on Monday to set up pilot zones for green finance, supporting its industrial upgrades and anti-pollution campaign. The pilot zones will be in Guangdong, Guizhou, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces as well as Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to plans issued by the People’s Bank of China and six other agencies.

Eco-Business

U.S. climate change policy cannot wait for Trump

U.S. cities will lead national policy on climate change after the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, working to reduce emissions and become more resilient to rising sea levels, Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans said at an annual meeting in Florida.

The Guardian

Corporate Sustainability

My clean-energy green dream

I was privileged to participate last week in the Corporate Eco Forum’s annual confab — a remarkable event in which top sustainability professionals from our biggest and most forward-leaning corporations get together both to ideate and to speak practically about overcoming obstacles on the road to becoming carbon neutral.

GreenBiz

Green finance: The hunt for pennies on the pavement

Dave Chen is a glass half-full sort of person, which is probably to be expected of a man who runs a multi-billion dollar investment firm and owns a wineyard that produces Oregon’s finest sustainably grown Pinot Noir. But business hasn’t always come easy in the nine years since Chen founded Equilibrium Capital.

Eco-business

Emergent leadership for the green building community

The following is an edited excerpt from “Emerge: A Strategic Leadership Model for the Sustainable Building Community” by Kathleen O’Brien (New Hope Press, 2016). I’ve been involved in the sustainable building field for more than 30 years as an educator, writer, researcher, facilitator, strategic planner and project manager. 

Green Biz

Municipal Policy and Urban Issues

Three barriers holding equitable cities back

In the grand scheme of pressing issues facing residents of U.S. cities warnings about the long-term consequences of climate change can, understandably, take a back seat. Missing all too often from the discussion about why climate justice still matters, explained Shalanda Baker of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, is how these concerns stand to compound one another if the environment keeps getting more volatile.

Green Biz

As cities get greener, lower-income residents fear gentrification

By many measures, the effort to convert old elevated railway on Chicago’s Northwest Side into a signature park has been a smashing success. The 2.7-mile recreation trail, known as The 606, built on old Chicago & Pacific Railroad line has been praised as a model use of public space since it opened two years ago.

USA Today

Water Management

Looking at future stormwater solutions

Onto each city, some rain must fall. But we can be smarter about how we deal with it. Most of the time rainwater is treated as a nuisance or a threat, something to be quickly swept away and dumped into rivers or lakes so that it doesn’t end up in our basements.

Water Canada

Starbucks’ four billion cups go to landfill each year

Even the best paper mills in the world cannot recycle coffee cups because the plastic lining clogs machinery. Starbucks should stop ignoring this problem. Starbucks has a very big problem with disposable cups. Every year, the coffee giant distributes more than four billion single-use non-recyclable cups to customers.

TreeHugger

Waste Management

Plastic bag wars heating up in the U.S.

The plastic bag wars are getting fierce. As people become more aware of the extent to which single-use plastics are polluting the world’s oceans and hurting wildlife, there is increasing pressure on municipal governments either to ban outright or impose a small fee on items such as plastic bags, foam takeout containers, disposable water bottles, and straws.

TreeHugger

Other

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