Continued Observations from Globe 2006

I'm back from Globe 2006 conference. Frankly, looking back at the previous post, I wish I had taken the time to post my summaries at the end of each day, instead of just the first. I feel a little overwhelmed by the huge amount of information I heard and read.

What I would like to do here is to give a broad overview of what I think, at this point,  might be the broad takeaways for a possible environmental strategy for Kamloops. But first, here is the complete seminars I attended:

• Corporate Sustainablility Plenary: Leading the Sustainability Economy
• Balancing Regulation and Profit: Developers and the Planning Department
• Innovative Financing for Sustainable Infrastructure
• Green Procurement Policy: Settting Parameters for Change
• Energy and Environment Plenary: Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy
• Municipal Governance in  Action: Making Daily Decisions with Sustainable Goals
• Partnering for Sustainable Economic Development: Lessons Learned
• From Green Buildings to Equitable Neighborhoods: The Space Between Buildings
• Sustainability Cities Breakfast
• Urban Plenary: Bridging to the World Urban Forum and the 2010 Olympics
• Creative Financing for Brownfield Development

Here's my broad level overview of possible takeaways:

The global business leaders who spoke at Globe 2006 - leaders of British Petroleum, Dow Chemicals, Swiss Re Insurance, and Honda - all echoed the point that climate change, global warming, and resource depletion are massive problems. And they all claim to be proactively working to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

Cities, across the world, are also taking leadership roles in being part of the solution. As well as being environmentally sensitive, there is very likely strong money saving and, in fact, revenue generation opportunities for cities in being more green. Vancouver, for example, is creating a "sustainability precinct" that will be heated by sewer heat and that is actually forecasted to generate surplus energy that the city will be able to sell. Chicago has saved hundreds of thousands dollars by installing solar panels on city facilities. And Richmond has saved thousands by tunings its ice refrigeration systems in it's arenas.

The University of British Columbia is leading provincial efforts to show that green building techniques (also known in the "biz" as LEED certified) can be employed for the same or even for less cost as conventional building techniques. In the US, cities like Chicago have offered expedited building permit processing to green building projects.

Various cities are also working to decrease the environmental footprint of their own operations. Goals like zero waste and strong anti idling policies were mentioned. Vancouver has embarked on a extensive public education campaign to get Vancouverites to live more in concert with the planet - onedayvancouver.ca.

If you don't like the term "green", you can use a more an all encompassing "sustainability". If you don't like the term "sustainability", you might even use the even more all encompassing term "common sense". The Resort Municipality of Whistler has incorporated common sense principles into its whole philosophy - an example of which is the creation of affordable housing for those working in the resort, thus creating vibrant year round neighborhoods and less green house gas emissions from car travel.

I consider my thoughts very much a work in progress. If you have any thoughts, please email me or leave a comment below.

Comments

[David Manchester]

Good to see that you're still at it Arjun. This is a great source for those of us who are far away...

Anyway, on something of an aside, we've been doing some interesting stuff out here at McGill (your alma mater, I believe) as a part of the process of elaborating the new McGill "Master Plan". Some of the key aspects are reallocation of space, densification on existing lots/footprints, burying parking, and so forth, but there are also some very interesting aspects. The planners are hoping to coerce the city into allowing them to calm Penfield and MacTavish by narrowing the former and removing motor vehicles from the latter. They're also developing an interesting storm drain run-off catch plan that could save several hundred thousand dollars every year. Perhaps most exciting of all, they're planning major renovations of Burnside and Leacock towers, and the creation of a path from Roddick Gates to McLennan/Redpath library. Neat stuff, to be sure.

Why do I bring this up? Several reasons. First, it's pretty interesting, I'm sure, for a former student. Second, you have a university up on that hill there that could serve as an interesting showcase for environmental technologies. While I understand that the city has very little official contact with UCC, A few well-placed phone calls from a few motivated people could get the administration there thinking very seriously about how they might focus their development along more sustainable lines (both in terms of their built environment and their programs). Third, I really hope that you folks on council come around to doing something very serious about Seymour and Landsdowne streets. If you look at most of these cases, in Vancouver or elsewhere, downtown revitalization almost always starts with two things: 1) an anchor project that attracts other projects; and/or 2) significant changes in zoning and traffic circulation measures. I'd like to suggest that a key aspect of sustainability - especially in a city of Kamloops' size - isn't necessarily LEEDS or more buses (though those would be great)... it's a dense, revitalized downtown core. This means a downtown with grocery stores (why did council let that old Safeway be shut down all those years ago, I wonder?), that means residential towers, that means wide sidewalks and two-way traffic. It also means doing something very serious with city property, it means leaning on the CPR and the Thompson Park folks to develop some of their property west of 4th, and so forth.

I'd also say that it means building a new city hall to spur development, and it means an end to wasteful spending on discredited early nineties "tournament capital" money pits, but then, I suppose that ship has sailed.

Anyway, you're a councillor now, I'm sure you're getting all kinds of advice...

One last little bit though -

I assume you'll be headed to the world urban forum:
http://hq.unhabitat.org/wuf/2006/registration.asp

It's in Vancouver in June, and registration is free. Virtually every urban planner/architect, environmental activist, green capitalist or political type I know is going to be there.

And again, thanks for keeping us informed!