Psychology experiments in the past have demonstrated the enormous power of social norms. This power can be harnessed to get people to change their behaviours to green, more environmental ones. It is easier to do this at a local micro level, eg. schools, community groups etc.
It is much cheaper to fund a local social marketing campaign than a huge technological change. Small, micro changes one at a time are equivalent to a snowball rolling down a hill and result in a large change over time. There is not a single big solution but a mosaic of solutions, each adapted to the particularities of specific circumstances.
What can you do? Talk the green talk, walk the green talk, take a look at your community and see what can be done, find like-minded people and collaborate, educate yourself on effective behaviour change strategies.
If you’re in a position of authority you can catalyze change through your own leadership and vision, by publicly recognizing the efforts of those within your organization, or by providing practical support and financial incentives to green behavioural change initiatives.
Sustainability is not possible without changing our lifestyles. There is no silver bullet, no one big technological solution.
The Toronto Green Development Standard Cost Benefit Study drivers include better air quality, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and urban heat island effect, greater energy efficiency, improved water quality and water efficiency, less solid waste, protection of the urban forest and wildlife habitat, and reduced light pollution.
Highlights of Report:
Biggest problem to change for green development is resistance to change. There is great resistance to new plans that do not conform to any standard.
Recent Legacy: from 2001-2006 Stats Canada reports that in the GTA $52.96 billion in residential and $29.67 billion in commercial and institutional building permits were issued. The vast majority is not energy efficient or green as defined by the Toronto Green Development Standard. All these buildings will be around for at least 100 years.
The Toronto Green Development Standard and Towards 2030: Places to Grow:
Between 2007 and 2031 GTA and Hamilton area is forecasted to grow from 6 million to 8.6 million people an increase of 43%.
The Report considered the business as usual case, as well as The Toronto Green Development Standard case.
Recent cost-benefit studies suggest it costs 2-7% to go from a business as usual development to a green development but it does require design intelligence. The benefits of green development result in a 40% energy savings, 25% water savings, and an increase of 20-30% in productivity and health gains.
817,000 more dwellings will be built by 2031, 3 out of every 4 residential dwellings and 2 out of every 3 non-residential buildings will need to be retrofitted. Moving to a green development standard yields $8 in savings for every $1 invested.
The barriers to green development include: traditional construction practices; minimum code requirements; unrealistic cost recovery expectations (eg. 5 year payback); underdeveloped design capacity; confusing rating and labelling programs (ex. green globes versus silver or platinum); greenwash and eco-bling; questionable building performance; and conflicting and discouraging regulations and procedures. The biggest barrier is the lack of public awareness about building performance.
Heating and cooling accounts for 20% of energy use in Canada.
Equilibrium research project tries to create housing that produces as much energy as it consumes and reduces our impact on natural resources.
EQ project is a national residential design-building demonstration initiative to challenge builders and developers from across Canada to:
Design low impact affordable, healthy, highly energy and resource efficient housing; and
Facilitate public demonstrations, performance monitoring and reporting.
EQ housing features include energy efficient construction appliances and lighting, passive solar heating and cooling, water conservation and re-use, and sustainable community design and green infrastructure.
The advantages of an EQ home include security. A home that produces as much energy as it consumes protects its owner from fluctuations in energy prices. Also there would be improved comfort, improved air quality, less temperature fluctuations from the outdoor temperature. And of course it would be environmentally responsible.
Our vision is to build national capacity, to foster market acceptance and delivery of Equilibrium housing, to demonstrate that Equilibrium housing is an important component of Canada’s clean energy future. We hope for community scale demonstrations of 1500 Equilibrium homes to be underway by 2015. And we would like all new housing to be Equilibrium by 2030
Eden Mills, Ontario: Aiming to be North America’s First Carbon NeutralCommunity
Eden Mills is a community of about 250 households.
They have undertaken an inventory to quantify their home and transportation energy use.
They are reviewing opportunities for energy conservation and efficiency as well as green initiatives such as tree planting, wind power, and photovoltaic generation opportunities within their community.
They are aware that transportation is likely to be their biggest challenge.
The Green Development Incentive was pitched to council as a 1-year pilot program.
It provides development charge discounts for new, not retrofitted, industrial and commercial development. This development must incorporate LEED certification or a series of 5 green technologies.
Green technologies receive a 5% discount for incorporating 1 or more of the green technologies
LEED certified development receives at minimum 20% and goes up by 2.5% increments for gold and platinum
Program’s intent to offset the cost of green development not cover it.
The ingredients of success or lessons learned:
Use the CGBC Municipal Green Building Toolkit
Establish a staff committee with representatives from various departments
Determine what approach is best for your municipality (i.e. mandatory or voluntary)
Consult, consult, consult
Educate and promote
City of Vaughan, Block 39 and Kortright Development Residential DevelopmentStandards
Block 39 will be the largest Energy Star development in Canada. It neighbours natural heritage sites such as Kortright Centre. We want to reduce the ecological footprint of block 39 as much as possible.
There are 8 landowners in block 39, 1,100 dwellings of single detached homes and 300 semi-detached or town homes will be built.
The collaborators are the City of Vaughan, the TRCA, the Developers, EnergQuality, PowerStream and CMHC.
Keys to success included: involving local, regional, and national organizations; workshops raised issues of agreement and concern; the fact that ENERGY STAR was very doable; technical issues were resolved with EnerQuality Corp; and more pre-consultation resulted in fast-tracking approvals process.
The standards were extended to a city-wide policy which requires all new subdivisions to be ENERGY STAR compliant, all new high rise developments must include a three stream recycling system, and all new and renovated city buildings need to be constructed to a LEED standard.
Projected impact of ENERGY STAR policy
Approximately 3000 single detached homes built every 5 years
At 2-3 tonnes of carbon saved each year, approximately 6000-9000 carbon emissions will be reduced as a result of ENERGY STAR policy
Next Steps will include having EnerQuality monitor the results, considering a pilot project for a sustainable development checklist as well as the possibility of additional environmental measures in broader policy initiatives such as Environmental Master Plan and Official Plan Review.
Embarked on Toronto’s Green Development Standard as a way of articulating high level official plan policies around sustainability into the many critical decisions we make about site design. There seems to be something lost in translation between the high level policies, the zoning bylaws and the Ontario building code.
Foundation of the Green Development Standard is the Official Plan, which includes innovative methods of reducing stormwater flows, use of advanced energy efficient technologies and development of innovative green spaces that will reduce the urban heat island effect.
How did we do it? We began with a survey of 100 cities around the world, put together a GTA developers’ survey, published a discussion paper, held a public meeting and then trained city staff.
The Standard focuses on components of site and building design that can be made more sustainable. It provides a set of performance measures to be applied to various development features. It is mandatory for city-owned properties and encourages private sector green development.
We looked at environmental pressures and identified developmental features and performance measures that could make a difference. These include performance measures to address urban heat island such as shading the hardscape of a new building or site, as well as cool paving technologies, and green roofs where 50% of the rooftop is green.
The green standard also supports emerging Toronto environmental policies such as the migratory bird policies.
We looked to other private third party rating systems such as LEED to identify performance measures.
Urban forest currently covers 17% of the city. We’d like to get to 30-40% coverage. We need to provide more space and more soil for trees in odd spaces such as sidewalks. We are also considering innovative covers such as green walls, which absorb a lot of stormwater.
City of Pickering, Sustainable Development Guidelines
The impetus behind the study concerns the new urban areas that need to be developed, the growing awareness of the need to change behaviour.
In 2005-2006 we held initial workshops with residents and stakeholders on sustainability. We reviewed best practices across Canada. We actually discovered there wasn’t a need to convince the public to make sustainability changes.
We realized that political and staff buy-in is critical. Most developers want to do what is familiar/easy – their motivation is to sell homes and make money - ours is to protect the pubic interest over the long term. It is best to draw on other work out there (eg. LEED). The public is a great asset, but difficult to engage as people are busy. Long term evolution in neighbourhood planning is challenging to capture in a one-off rating system. Rating systems are hard to apply to very small subdivision plans or site-specific re-zonings.
What we would do different if we could? We would establish an education program for staff, organize education sessions for local developers, and ensure that the next step is programmed to avoid losing momentum. We would engage the public and other stakeholders in more innovative and frequent ways. And finally we would consider guidelines over a rating system.
This Plan was 10 years in the making. The area spans 8000 hectares.
The town negotiated preservation of 600 hectares of natural heritage with developers.
In January 2008 the North Oakville East Master Plan was released. It divides the land into 14 neighbourhoods that are interconnected and dense, with a neo-traditional style of neighbourhood. The neighbourhoods are pedestrian-friendly, compact and public transit supported. A trail system allows you to go from one end of the community to another by foot or bike.
There will be an interregional transit system and community level bus service. There will be no cul-de-sacs.
Urban squares are pedestrian oriented. Streets are narrow, reflective of a more compact urbane environment. Urban cross sections have on-street parking and cycling lanes. The transit-oriented design includes transit hubs.
