Buildings on climate change agenda tops CaGBC’s big year

Buildings on climate change agenda tops CaGBC’s big year

It means a lot to Thomas Mueller, president and CEO of the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC), that the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change recognizes the building sector as an area critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Mueller pushed hard to get buildings recognized as a major contribution to emissions. But it’s also only the beginning as far as he’s concerned.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Avison Young joins EllisDon’s Carbon Impact Initiative

The EllisDon-backed Carbon Impact Initiative (CII) this week announced real estate services firm Avison Young has signed on as a founding partner. The low-profile CII has a high profile mission: make Canada’s real estate industry a leader in the drive towards a low carbon economy. Considering that commercial real estate plays a major role in carbon emissions, it’s a tall order.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Sustainability disclosure, performance benefits real estate investors

What does the higher-risk investor appetite mean for real estate sustainability disclosure and performance? Some investment managers hesitate to report environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of their funds operating in the upper spectrum of risk, often presuming that sustainability negatively affects returns.

Green Biz

CaGBC launching zero carbon building framework in 2017

The next phases of the Zero Carbon Initiative include the identification of specific pathways to zero carbon, a zero carbon building pilot program, and the development of a verification program to be completed and launched by Canadian Green Building Council by the end of the second quarter of 2017.

Canadian Green Building Council

Canada one of top 10 countries for LEED

The US Green Building Council announced the Top 10 Countries for LEED, a list that highlights countries outside the United States that are making significant strides in sustainable building design, construction and market transformation. These countries represent the ever-growing international demand for LEED-certified green buildings.

US Green Building Council

Toronto looking to alleviate civic stresses such as ice storms

The City of Toronto in conjunction with 100 Resilient Cities launched a major effort today to improve Toronto’s resilience to the shocks and stresses of an urban city in the 21st century. The initiative will include taking a hard look at stresses for our city, such as housing and transit, and unplanned events, such as flooding and ice storms.

Globe-Net

Hotel industry makes significant strides in sustainability

The hotel industry is taking sustainability seriously. In the Americas, 82 per cent of hotels participating in a new survey on green lodging trends said they have someone in charge of sustainability. Just having a “green team” or sustainability champion on site “significantly increases the chance of success when it comes to implementing green products, strategies and operational practices,” said Glen Hasek, the publisher and editor of Green Lodging News.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Loblaw’s plans to reduce its carbon footprint

Loblaw Companies Limited announced a commitment and strategy to reduce its carbon footprint 20 per cent by 2020 and 30 per cent by 2030. The company has an action plan focused on energy-efficient stores and distribution centres, fuel-efficient transportation, and managing refrigerants and organic waste diversion.

Canada Newswire

Montreal top pick for data centres because of inexpensive hydro

Internet giant Amazon Web Services has opened a cluster of data centres near Montreal due to the ready availability and cost of hydro-electric power in Quebec. The company, which is notoriously secretive about its data centres, said there are now at least two data centres just outside Montreal to offer web-based services to the “Canada Region.” 

Ottawa Citizen

Montreal boasts the greenest households

Households in Edmonton generate, on average, almost four times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions as their counterparts in Montreal, according to a study released in late December by the University of British Columbia. Montreal homes were ranked the greenest — at 5.4 tonnes per year — largely because of the widespread use of clean hydroelectric power. 

Canada.com

Solar power firm hopes to light up Vancouver

A solar power company that has successfully installed more than 2,500 residential solar systems in southern California is now going after the Vancouver market. Headquartered in San Diego, but with a Vancouver based chairman and CEO, Solar Alliance Energy Inc. is targeting the luxury home market in Canada’s west coast city.

Sustainable Biz Canada

Smart water meter company launching in Ontario

Eddy Home is launching the Eddy IQ in the Ontario market, giving homeowners one-of-a-kind insight into household water usage and time sensitive warnings in cases of common home water emergencies. The Eddy IQ is a smart meter that learns a household’s water usage patterns and monitors for irregularities that could signal a small leak.

Marketwired

Latest Burlington development transit-friendly

Burlington-based Adi Developement Group says it wants to correct the misconception that local homeowners need to be car owners, too. Its latest infill project, located next door to the Aldershot GO station, will be transit- and pedestrian-friendly, with all the essentials either on-site or nearby. This master-planned community will also feature wider roads and GO signage.

Globe and Mail

Canada to ban asbestos

Canada will ban asbestos use by 2018, in what many health advocates hail as a victory for public health. The federal government’s move is aimed at eventually reducing the rate of asbestos-related diseases. Hard work lies ahead, though, as the country deals with the deadly legacy of asbestos that exists in everything from homes and hospitals to elementary schools and universities.

Globe and Mail

American Geophysical Union retrofitting headquarters to net zero

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is sending a message via an ambitious net-zero (NZ) renovation of its Washington, D.C., headquarters. The goals are to save money, save energy — and show others how this can be done. “We want to serve as a model,”AGU’s Executive Director and CEO Chris McEntee said.

Energy Manager Today

Products, Technology and Design

Study to look at smart thermostat effectiveness

The Center for the Built Environment at University of California, Berkeley, announced in September that it will lead a three-year study combining smart thermostats — possibly Nest or Ecobee — with ceiling fans. Big Ass Solutions, maker of energy efficient fans for industrial, commercial and residential spaces, will provide about 160 energy-efficient Haiku ceiling fans for the study.

Green Biz

Green Building Rating Systems

Ontario community centre achieves LEED silver

The new Meadowvale Community Centre in Mississauga, Ontario is the first new community centre the city has built in a decade and the first designed and built to achieve LEED Silver status. The 7,896-square-metre brick and glass facade building was built over a 24-month period.

Daily Commercial News

Market trends and research

New handbook released on finance for city leaders

JLL Vice President Doug Carr, an expert in the public institutions advisory practice, coauthored one of the chapters of the UN-Habitat’s just published handbook titled: Finance for City Leaders. The handbook presents an up-to-date, and in-depth analysis of the challenges posed by rapid urbanization and the various financing tools municipalities have at their disposal.

CSR Wire

Infrastructure investment could unlock civic capital

Companies could unlock US$3.7 trillion a year in cities with an annual investment of US$2.5 trillion in sustainable business models by 2030. This could also lead to more than 170 million jobs, according to a new report, Valuing the SDG Prize in Cities, from the Business and Sustainable Development Commission.

Globe-Net

Municipal Policy and Urban Issues

Cities use natural features to fight climate change-caused flooding

Detroit’s rains are getting heavier – an August 2014 flash flood cost Metro Detroiters an estimated $1.8 billion in property damage – a shift that climate scientists link to climate change. So the city went a different route by embarking on a plan to use or restore natural landscapes like wetlands and floodplains to absorb stormwater and floods, a tactic known as “green infrastructure.”

Christian Science Monitor

Renewable Energy

Alberta firehall hopes to set example with solar power

A northern Alberta county hopes to inspire other municipalities to look at producing their own renewable power after it put solar panels on a local fire hall. Northern Sunrise County, about 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, installed 88 panels that went into service last week on the roof of the St. Isidore/Three Creeks fire station.

Edmonton Journal

New natural gas refuelling stations added in Quebec

Sani-Estrie and Gaz Métro  announced that the first public refuelling station for compressed natural gas (CNG) has been set up in the Eastern Townships, the tenth such installation to join the Blue Road. This station will be accessible to the public, and to transportation companies and municipalities who use or who wish to adopt this alternative fuel.

Canada Newswire

Wind turbine company signs 10-year lease with PEI

A second modern manufacturer will soon be moving into the old Georgetown Timber Yard in eastern P.E.I. Frontier Power Systems will renovate a space at the old yard for manufacturing wind turbine blades. The company will sign a 10-year lease with the province and will make investments to renovate the facility.

CBC News

Commercial Green Buildings

BlackBerry opening research centre for self-driving cars

BlackBerry Ltd. and Canada are opening a research centre for self-driving cars that raises the possibility of government backing for the former smartphone maker’s automotive software unit. Chief Executive Officer John Chen and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the centre at QNX’s headquarters near Ottawa, Ontario, where it will be based.

Bloomberg News

Israeli mall holds massive rooftop garden

The Dizengoff Center is a vast shopping mall in central Tel Aviv, Israel.  As part of a project called Green in the City  an urban rooftop farm on the mall has been established over the past year. It comprises two commercial greenhouses, totalling over 8,000 square feet of growing space, as well as an educational area where citizens can learn urban farming techniques.

Treehugger

World Green Building Council adds three new members

The World Green Building Council is delighted that three new Green Building Councils have joined the organization – taking our total number of member Green Building Councils up to 74.Green Building Councils in Luxembourg and Venezuela have joined as Prospective members, and Norway as an Established Green Building Council.

World Green Building Council

Residential Green Buildings

Healthy home building catching on

Across the country, home builders large and small are working to determine whether healthy building standards are important for their buyers. Many building pros have been reluctant to offer health and wellness features because they think they will cost more, interfere with schedules and budgets, and lead to conversations with clients about things they don’t understand.

Builder Online

How to build the healthiest home possible

If I was still practicing architecture and a client came to me with a request to do the healthiest house possible, a new build on an open site in a temperate to cool climate, this is what I might propose these days.

Treehugger

Green building ratings

University lays claim to largest net zero science lab building

The John J. Sbrega Health and Science Building, which opened last fall on the Fall River, Mass., campus of Bristol Community College, claims to be the largest zero net energy classroom and science lab building in the U.S. Northeast. The 50,600-sf building, whose construction cost was $31.5 million, consists of two occupied floors and a mechanical penthouse.

Building Design + Construction

Corporate Sustainability

Financial institutions launch sustainable investing in Holland

Major Dutch financial institutions, including the country’s largest pension investors, have committed to an investment agenda pivoting around the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. The 18-strong group includes the asset managers for the €179bn healthcare pension fund PFZW and €372bn civil service pension scheme ABP, and insurance companies and banks.

Investments & Pensions Europe

Municipal Policy and Urban Issues

Bikes and The City

UPS employs eBike for delivery service

UPS today announced its first eBike in the U.S. This new electrically-assisted tricycle began delivering packages in  Portland, Ore., on November 21. UPS anticipates this eBike prototype could become a component of its delivery capabilities in some other cities across the country.

CSR Wire

Water Management

An approach to rehabilitating aging water infrastructure

As much of the Canada’s wastewater and sewer infrastructure approaches the 50-year to 100-year mark, it must be rehabilitated to remain in use for a growing population. Yet municipal wastewater treatment facilities, sewers, water mains, and vaults endure some of the most severe and corrosive environments in the infrastructure landscape.

Water Canada

New wastewater treatment plant for Windsor, N.S.

The completion of the new wastewater treatment facility in Windsor incorporates the latest technologies to meet the standards of the Federal Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations. It will greatly reduce the amount of effluent released into the St. Croix River and eliminate combined sewage overflows.

Marketwired

Regina wastewater plant upgrades come in under cost

The final bill for Regina’s upgraded wastewater treatment plant has come in lower than expected. In late December, the city said the project now has a capital cost of $175 million — $6 million less than was previously forecast.

CBC News

Waste Management

Report: How to improve curbside recycling

A recycling report by the EPA and The Recycling Partnership, The 2016 State of Curbside Report, analyzes 465 municipal recycling programs across the US and suggests ways to improve curbside recycling. The federal agency and the nonprofit, say this data is critical to increasing recycling rates in the future and moving towards a circular economy approach. 

Environmental Leader

How one company finds profit in recycling

Can recycling be profitable? Lakeshore Recycling Systems CEO Alan Handley says yes. Within six months of opening its new Heartland single-stream recycling facility, the company is generating a profit — about $100 per ton in revenues from commodity sales — and expects to divert more than 1 million tons of material from landfill by 2025.

Environmental Leader

Healthcare industry tackles plastic recycling

Plastics used in the healthcare industry — more than 10 billion pounds annually — are traditionally single-use, and tossed in the trash after being used. Globally, only 14 percent of plastic packaging is collected for recycling.

Environmental Leader

Newfoundland receives funding for water and waste projects

The governments of Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador are investing in projects to ensure that water and wastewater systems in the province are up to date, efficient and meet communities’ increasing capacity needs. The governments announced more than $14 million for 11 water and wastewater projects.

Marketwired