Without any planning on our part, this issue of the Communities in Transition Information Resource came together with a focus on the growing conversation about BC’s Climate Action Charter (CAC). As Tim Pringle notes in his article, the CAC is of great interest to the Real Estate Foundation of BC. Neither the CAC, nor reduction of green house gas emissions (GHGs) are, in themselves, land use issues. The various actions taken towards reducing GHGs and meeting CAC goals, however, will have an impact on land use practices and policies throughout the province. Many of the communities involved in Communities in Transition projects are already moving in this direction. This isn’t because they are focused on the Climate Action Charter or GHGs reduction, but simply because the kinds of sustainable land use practices supported by CIT tend to have a positive downstream effect on reducing a community’s GHGs.
Overviews of two current CIT projects bear this out. The Columbia Basin Climate Change Visioning Case Study is explicitly about how one community and a region is grappling with mitigation and adaption strategies. The Fraser Basin Council’s province-wide Smart Planning for Communities project, on the other hand, will provide communities with both direct and indirect help in meeting their CAC goals. In coming issues we will continue to highlight how BC communities are working with CIT to meet challenges related to a number of sustainability themes.
One of these "sustainability" themes is rural revitalization, the theme of last fall’s CIT-sponsored conference in Prince George. The Regional Innovation Chair in Cattle Sustainability at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) is an example of how the Real Estate Foundation is involved in rural revitalization in BC's Interior. Our interview with Nancy Van Wagoner , Associate VP for Research and Graduate Studies at TRU looks at what this unique applied research position means for grassland communities in the Interior.
Our column on what the City of Courtenay is doing with it's "1000 Trees" initiative picks up the CAC theme. It also underlines Tim Pringle's comments in his article about local governments taking leadership on broad sustainability issues.
The final piece in this issue follows up on Tim's most recent article (in the March issue of the CIT Information Resource) on the “sustainability conversation today.” It asks Carole Stark, Victor Cumming, and Peter ter Weeme, several people active in various streams of the “sustainability conversation,” to give their views on the state of the conversation.
We think these are important topics for land use practitioners in BC today. We encourage you to share this material – and to tell us where we’re on the mark, and where we miss the mark. Please email us, or use the blog reply options.
Already a number of you are telling us that the CIT Information Resource is providing good information in a useful format. Several items will be appearing in the newsletters and blogs of partner organizations. This is a positive sign. We want to make our materials as widely available as possible. If you see an opportunity for republication, electronically or in print, for education or non-commercial uses, please feel free to do so. We hope that you, as readers and as practitioners in community transition, will take what you like here, reference it, and share it for educational and non-commercial purpose. We only ask that you let us know how you are using it, even if it’s just to circulate an article in the office or amongst friends. We also look forward to suggestions for opinion pieces, letters to the editor, and reprints of your articles related to CIT themes.
We look forward to hearing from you!
hans peter meyer
Editor, Communities in Transition Information Resouce
editor@communitytransition.org
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Climate Change Action Charter and Community Sustainability in a Dollars and Cents Kind of World
by Tim Pringle
In 2007 the provincial government in BC launched the Climate Action Charter (CAC) initiative. With clear goals and a methodology for measuring progress towards these goals, the CAC encourages local governments to take positive action on an issue that affects all of us. To date, 174 of 187 local governments across BC have signed onto this voluntary initiative.
The "uptake" on the voluntary CAC is significant to us at the Real Estate Foundation of BC. We look at land from several perspectives: long term stewardship, the impact of policy on land uses, and the way these values are reflected in market activity, among them. Over the past 20 years this has crystallized into what I think of as balancing settlement activities with the ecological integrity of the land base. One of the big challenges has been to establish a shared metric: measuring what matters. The CAC gives land use practitioners a metric that is widely accepted as one of the measures of "sustainability": green house gas emissions (GHGs).
The Foundation has been approached by some local governments to help them address their CAC goals. Specific GHGs projects have not, to date, been part of our mandate. Having said this, it is important to note that the Foundation and CIT are involved in projects that will reduce GHGs. Many CIT community partners are involved in sustainability planning, growth management planning, or water management planning. These will have an impact on reducing GHGs. In turn, this will help their communities meet CAC goals.
A couple of examples: The Nicola Watershed Community Round Table is currently producing a Water Use Management Plan for the arid Nicola Valley. This largely rural area, with one urban centre at Merritt, depends on surface water to recharge ground water reserves. The valley faces the challenge of providing water for urban and agricultural needs. Basically, they are looking at ways to conserve water usage in both sectors so that water supply can be available for a certain amount of settlement growth and expansion of the agriculture sector. This becomes a land use question and a GHGs issue because one of the ways for the City of Merritt to become more efficient with its water usage is to become more compact. Sprawling growth uses water inefficiently. Construction practices also have an impact. Concrete-based building practices require a significantly higher water usage - for cement production, as well as for building and clean-up - than wood-frame construction. The province's new building code, which allows for wood-frame construction up to six storeys, will have an impact on water usage. LEED or equivalent standards for building and development also address water usage. These are important elements in a broader sustainable development approach that will reduce GHGs.
Water consumption is not directly a big factor in GHG emission, but what water serves definitely is. Everything that goes on in the urban, built environment uses water. That kind of connection is not yet, however, understood very well by communities. A more direct connect is the consequence of not reducing GHGs. In an already arid area like the Nicola Valley, summers will become drier and hotter, and demand on water will increase. As the Nicola Valley goes through its water management planning exercise a number of factors like this will come up for discussion. I anticipate seeing positive changes to how places like Merritt deal with built-form and density issues.
An example of where this is starting to happen is the Comox Valley. The area is going through several regional processes to support planning; one is the Regional Sustainability Plan (RSP). The consultancy working on this RSP has put together a sustainable development strategy document that is viewable at the Comox Valley Regional District website . Within that (on page 3) is a very useful and instructive "sustainable development matrix." Using the matrix you can see how certain actions or tools lead to a range of results. Reducing or recycling water, for example, becomes a Climate Action Charter related activity. Raising height restrictions in urban areas reduces the community carbon footprint. The City of Courtenay has recently approved zones that allow for six-storey buildings, part of their contribution to their climate change strategy. If the market responds, given the new building code, this will likely result in six-storey wood-frame construction. This will give Courtenay a denser footprint, and residential locations more oriented to transit. This is part of using a matrix for sustainability, using relevant development policy and design, which in turn has an impact on water consumption and other GHG related factors.
Many communities (and many CIT projects) haven't made the direct connection to CAC goals. For example, the Lake Windemere project in the Kootenays does not explicitly refer to the CAC. Connecting land use and development decisions to the health and ecological integrity of the lake, however, will feedback into choices that will contribute to local government CAC planning. Less sprawl is a benefit to the lake; it also has implications for GHG emissions. Groundwater recharge is important to the lake. Higher densities in areas that have already experienced interruptions to the natural hydrology, rather than disturbing un-interrupted systems —this also has an impact on both lake ecology and GHG emissions. Again, it's a built-form footprint issue.
Ultimately, it's a dollars and cents kind of world. For property owners and the real estate industry, the CAC should also have a positive impact. What I'm seeing suggests that, over time, strong sustainability plans and climate action plans ought to influence property values positively. Communities with strong plans will have stronger property values than those that don't. The actions that flow out of these plans — actions on climate change adaptation and mitigation — are an investment in sustaining community and neighbourhood quality of life.
In a very few years I can imagine that a real estate agent will be saying to a prospective client, "Our community has a very active Climate Change Action Mitigation plan. And, by the way, this is giving us a better range of household choices, and we're doing a good job of protecting our open spaces, and we know our watersheds are going to remain healthy." In short, communities taking these steps are moving on a range of things that will give a salesperson competitive advantage over someone in a neighbouring community that hasn't taken these steps.
Climate change and settlement choices are having an impact on the ecological systems on which our communities depend. One can imagine a number of negative possibilities. Some of these will become unfortunate truths for those places that don't adjust, that don't put their overall settlemen
t activities into the context of a sustainability plan. Hot Properties, a report published by the Real Estate Institute of BC in 2007, does a very good job of describing the problem.
Wouldn't it be terrible if, in say 40 years, your community was having problems with ground water and people were losing property value because of a lack of assurance that there wasn't adequate water? Or, it was extremely expensive because of the cost of water-servicing and management, encouraging people to look elsewhere to live just because it was too expensive?
Strategies that reduce GHGs are positive sustainability strategies. The cumulative impact of actions that local governments take to reduce their GHGs will have a big, and measureable, impact on the ecological integrity of the land base. While it is important to note that CAC planning is an element of sustainability planning, it is not a replacement for it. Because it provides goals and metrics, we see the CAC as an important; it leverages and encourages integrated sustainability planning and land uses. These outcomes have been of great interest to the Real Estate Foundation for most of its 21 years of grant-making.
Resources:
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009.
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
In 2007 the provincial government in BC launched the Climate Action Charter (CAC) initiative. With clear goals and a methodology for measuring progress towards these goals, the CAC encourages local governments to take positive action on an issue that affects all of us. To date, 174 of 187 local governments across BC have signed onto this voluntary initiative.
The "uptake" on the voluntary CAC is significant to us at the Real Estate Foundation of BC. We look at land from several perspectives: long term stewardship, the impact of policy on land uses, and the way these values are reflected in market activity, among them. Over the past 20 years this has crystallized into what I think of as balancing settlement activities with the ecological integrity of the land base. One of the big challenges has been to establish a shared metric: measuring what matters. The CAC gives land use practitioners a metric that is widely accepted as one of the measures of "sustainability": green house gas emissions (GHGs).
The Foundation has been approached by some local governments to help them address their CAC goals. Specific GHGs projects have not, to date, been part of our mandate. Having said this, it is important to note that the Foundation and CIT are involved in projects that will reduce GHGs. Many CIT community partners are involved in sustainability planning, growth management planning, or water management planning. These will have an impact on reducing GHGs. In turn, this will help their communities meet CAC goals.
A couple of examples: The Nicola Watershed Community Round Table is currently producing a Water Use Management Plan for the arid Nicola Valley. This largely rural area, with one urban centre at Merritt, depends on surface water to recharge ground water reserves. The valley faces the challenge of providing water for urban and agricultural needs. Basically, they are looking at ways to conserve water usage in both sectors so that water supply can be available for a certain amount of settlement growth and expansion of the agriculture sector. This becomes a land use question and a GHGs issue because one of the ways for the City of Merritt to become more efficient with its water usage is to become more compact. Sprawling growth uses water inefficiently. Construction practices also have an impact. Concrete-based building practices require a significantly higher water usage - for cement production, as well as for building and clean-up - than wood-frame construction. The province's new building code, which allows for wood-frame construction up to six storeys, will have an impact on water usage. LEED or equivalent standards for building and development also address water usage. These are important elements in a broader sustainable development approach that will reduce GHGs.Water consumption is not directly a big factor in GHG emission, but what water serves definitely is. Everything that goes on in the urban, built environment uses water. That kind of connection is not yet, however, understood very well by communities. A more direct connect is the consequence of not reducing GHGs. In an already arid area like the Nicola Valley, summers will become drier and hotter, and demand on water will increase. As the Nicola Valley goes through its water management planning exercise a number of factors like this will come up for discussion. I anticipate seeing positive changes to how places like Merritt deal with built-form and density issues.
An example of where this is starting to happen is the Comox Valley. The area is going through several regional processes to support planning; one is the Regional Sustainability Plan (RSP). The consultancy working on this RSP has put together a sustainable development strategy document that is viewable at the Comox Valley Regional District website . Within that (on page 3) is a very useful and instructive "sustainable development matrix." Using the matrix you can see how certain actions or tools lead to a range of results. Reducing or recycling water, for example, becomes a Climate Action Charter related activity. Raising height restrictions in urban areas reduces the community carbon footprint. The City of Courtenay has recently approved zones that allow for six-storey buildings, part of their contribution to their climate change strategy. If the market responds, given the new building code, this will likely result in six-storey wood-frame construction. This will give Courtenay a denser footprint, and residential locations more oriented to transit. This is part of using a matrix for sustainability, using relevant development policy and design, which in turn has an impact on water consumption and other GHG related factors.
Many communities (and many CIT projects) haven't made the direct connection to CAC goals. For example, the Lake Windemere project in the Kootenays does not explicitly refer to the CAC. Connecting land use and development decisions to the health and ecological integrity of the lake, however, will feedback into choices that will contribute to local government CAC planning. Less sprawl is a benefit to the lake; it also has implications for GHG emissions. Groundwater recharge is important to the lake. Higher densities in areas that have already experienced interruptions to the natural hydrology, rather than disturbing un-interrupted systems —this also has an impact on both lake ecology and GHG emissions. Again, it's a built-form footprint issue.
Ultimately, it's a dollars and cents kind of world. For property owners and the real estate industry, the CAC should also have a positive impact. What I'm seeing suggests that, over time, strong sustainability plans and climate action plans ought to influence property values positively. Communities with strong plans will have stronger property values than those that don't. The actions that flow out of these plans — actions on climate change adaptation and mitigation — are an investment in sustaining community and neighbourhood quality of life.
In a very few years I can imagine that a real estate agent will be saying to a prospective client, "Our community has a very active Climate Change Action Mitigation plan. And, by the way, this is giving us a better range of household choices, and we're doing a good job of protecting our open spaces, and we know our watersheds are going to remain healthy." In short, communities taking these steps are moving on a range of things that will give a salesperson competitive advantage over someone in a neighbouring community that hasn't taken these steps.
Climate change and settlement choices are having an impact on the ecological systems on which our communities depend. One can imagine a number of negative possibilities. Some of these will become unfortunate truths for those places that don't adjust, that don't put their overall settlemen
t activities into the context of a sustainability plan. Hot Properties, a report published by the Real Estate Institute of BC in 2007, does a very good job of describing the problem.Wouldn't it be terrible if, in say 40 years, your community was having problems with ground water and people were losing property value because of a lack of assurance that there wasn't adequate water? Or, it was extremely expensive because of the cost of water-servicing and management, encouraging people to look elsewhere to live just because it was too expensive?
Strategies that reduce GHGs are positive sustainability strategies. The cumulative impact of actions that local governments take to reduce their GHGs will have a big, and measureable, impact on the ecological integrity of the land base. While it is important to note that CAC planning is an element of sustainability planning, it is not a replacement for it. Because it provides goals and metrics, we see the CAC as an important; it leverages and encourages integrated sustainability planning and land uses. These outcomes have been of great interest to the Real Estate Foundation for most of its 21 years of grant-making.
Resources:
- Climate Action Charter
- Livesmart BC
- BC Climate Action Toolkit Website
- BC Green Choices
- Local Government and Climate Change: Current Law and Urgent Action (UBC Robson Square, Vancouver, March 6, 2009)
- Hot properties: How global warming could transform BC's real estate
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009.
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
Cattle Industry Sustainability - Rural Revitalization and Thompson Rivers University
by hans peter meyer
The cattle industry in BC's Interior is, as Nancy Van Wagoner makes clear in the comments that follow, facing some challenges. Dr. John Church is the recently appointed Chair in
Cattle Industry Sustainability. He says that the industry has contracted by at least a third over the last five years, with the cow herd shrinking from approximately 345,000 to 210,000 head since 2004. Responding to this challenge is a multi-disciplinary task that involves land uses, animal husbandry, industrial practices, and regional economics. "John is talking about a BC-based system...[that] would give us a more regional economy in agriculture," says George Penfold, Chair in Rural Economic Development at Selkirk College, "this would provide a secondary value-added industry centred around beef." An important element in all of this is the health of the ecosystems, animals, and end product. All of it adds up to an innovative academic-industry partnership to address a rural revitalization in BC's Interior grasslands.
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) began the process of creating the BC Regional Innovation Chair (RIC) in Cattle Industry Sustainability in 2005. In the fall of 2008, though the support of the Real Estate Foundation and other funders, TRU recruited Dr. John Church to take the Chair. For background on the Chair in Cattle Industry Sustainability, CIT recently interviewed Nancy Van Wagoner. Ms. Van Wagoner is Associate VP for Research and Graduate Studie
s at TRU, and was instrumental in the hiring of Dr. Church and the development of the Chair at TRU.
CIT: Why was TRU interested in establishing the Chair in Cattle Sustainability?
NVW: TRU is in the heart of BC’s Interior. The grasslands here, the cattle industry, all the ranching industries - they're all very important to this part of the province. Like many agricultural industries, ranching is challenged by many factors. We believed that, given our expertise and our location, TRU was in a good position to make a difference. Not only directly on the industry and ranchers, but on the sustainability of the industry. This includes the use of the land, sustainability of the land, planning, integration with other uses.
There is also the economic aspect of the industry. At TRU we could bring together an inter-disciplinary team to focus on these issues, with leadership provided by the Chair.
You have to realize that to address the issue of cattle industry sustainability is not a one person job. There are so many factors and issues: There is the health side of it, having a healthy animal. The stewardship of the grasslands. And then everything that happens afterward to create the healthy raw meat product, and value-added raw meat products that have a reasonable price and return to the rancher, so that we have an economically sustainable industry.
The expertise of the Chair has been a lever to create a focused team that involves over 30 researchers and research partners. It's also brought in over $1.5 million in new analytical equipment. It's very exciting.
CIT: Who are some of the other partners and programs involved in the Chair’s activities at TRU?
NVW: We have programs in biological sciences, natural resource sciences, chemical sciences, and also in physical geography. We also have a Canada Chair in Community Eco-systems who focuses on grasslands, with a state-of-the-art greenhouse. He works alongside other researchers with expertise in range management, grassland biodiversity, wildlife and they all work together to address the issue of sustainable grassland ecosystems.
We also have a number of collaborative projects with the Grasslands Conservation Council and other environmental NGOs with an interest in grassland ecosystems. And we work with innumerable provincial agencies, as well as Food and Agriculture Canada.
CIT: What region does the Chair address?
NVW: Our focus is on BC, and most of our work so far has in the BC Interior. It's still early days, but Dr. Church has been very well received by the ranching community. He's very grounded in this c
ommunity. The industry doesn't end at a border, but our focus is on BC's cattle industry, especially here in the Interior. This is important, not only to our chair, but to the people and organizations that made the Chair possible
CIT: You've mentioned that the RIC Chair has had a very positive impact on TRU as a regionally-based institution. Can you elaborate on that?
NVW: In just the short time I've been here at TRU, we've increased our capacity to carry out analytical work. We've brought new people on board. We have analytical facilities that are second to none. Some are the best in the world. This is very, very exciting.
One of the critical factors in our success to date is TRU's roots as a college with trades and technical training, as well as academic programs. This means that we have a culinary arts program and a retail meats program. One of our new pieces of equipment is a state-of-the-art smokehouse. This enables us to develop value-added meat products.
Where else do you have a commercial kitchen capable of developing new food products, some of the best chemists and biologists, a Centre for Bio-products, as well as a world class Cattle Industry Chair? This is a unique combination of resources and expertise. What we've put together here is quite incredible.
CIT: What kinds of issues are facing the cattle industry sustainability, and how is TRU playing a role?
NVW: We're looking at this as a stewardship issue, with a number of perspectives. But the bottom line in terms of industry sustainability is that you've got to have a ranching industry that is economically viable. That's our starting point: How do we make that happen?
This gives us several areas of focus: One is the stewardship of the natural resources. If you mess that up, you don't have an industry for anybody. So we look at the sustainability of the grassland ecosystem. We look at biodiversity. Then we look at the impact of ranching on the natural environment, in terms of the carbon footprint, the green house gas emissions (GHGs) involved in the industry, including production of methane by the animals. Our focus,however, isn't to just identify the problem, but to identify the solution.
There's also the health of the animal. We want BC to be producing the healthiest red meat products on the market, in terms of their nutritional content, their Omega-3 content. Some of the residues that might be a function of ranching practices – hormones, for example – how can we ensure that we are producing the cleanest, healthiest red meat products available to the consumer?
CIT: How does this relate to community and regional economic development?
NVW: One of the reasons that the cattle Chair is so important at this time is the growing interest on local food. The challenge is that there has to be a way to make it profitable for the local producer, or we're going to lose them. Producers need to be able to make a good living providing food for a local market.
So we are analyzing the economics of the "value chain." We need to make sure there is a good return to the producer. New technologies are part of this. And then identifying the market, both for raw meat products and value-added products. In today's marketplace, we refer to the raw meat product as a value-added product if it's cleaner than your traditional red meat product.
This is an important focus for us at TRU: What needs to change in ranching, so that it is seen as a viable, profitable career choice for younger generations.
It’s important to emphasize that we couldn't do this kind work without our partners. The Real Estate Foundation, the Cattle Industry Development Council, the Leading Edge Endowment Fund , and many others – we couldn't do it without their support.
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
The cattle industry in BC's Interior is, as Nancy Van Wagoner makes clear in the comments that follow, facing some challenges. Dr. John Church is the recently appointed Chair in
Cattle Industry Sustainability. He says that the industry has contracted by at least a third over the last five years, with the cow herd shrinking from approximately 345,000 to 210,000 head since 2004. Responding to this challenge is a multi-disciplinary task that involves land uses, animal husbandry, industrial practices, and regional economics. "John is talking about a BC-based system...[that] would give us a more regional economy in agriculture," says George Penfold, Chair in Rural Economic Development at Selkirk College, "this would provide a secondary value-added industry centred around beef." An important element in all of this is the health of the ecosystems, animals, and end product. All of it adds up to an innovative academic-industry partnership to address a rural revitalization in BC's Interior grasslands.Thompson Rivers University (TRU) began the process of creating the BC Regional Innovation Chair (RIC) in Cattle Industry Sustainability in 2005. In the fall of 2008, though the support of the Real Estate Foundation and other funders, TRU recruited Dr. John Church to take the Chair. For background on the Chair in Cattle Industry Sustainability, CIT recently interviewed Nancy Van Wagoner. Ms. Van Wagoner is Associate VP for Research and Graduate Studie
s at TRU, and was instrumental in the hiring of Dr. Church and the development of the Chair at TRU.CIT: Why was TRU interested in establishing the Chair in Cattle Sustainability?
NVW: TRU is in the heart of BC’s Interior. The grasslands here, the cattle industry, all the ranching industries - they're all very important to this part of the province. Like many agricultural industries, ranching is challenged by many factors. We believed that, given our expertise and our location, TRU was in a good position to make a difference. Not only directly on the industry and ranchers, but on the sustainability of the industry. This includes the use of the land, sustainability of the land, planning, integration with other uses.
There is also the economic aspect of the industry. At TRU we could bring together an inter-disciplinary team to focus on these issues, with leadership provided by the Chair.
You have to realize that to address the issue of cattle industry sustainability is not a one person job. There are so many factors and issues: There is the health side of it, having a healthy animal. The stewardship of the grasslands. And then everything that happens afterward to create the healthy raw meat product, and value-added raw meat products that have a reasonable price and return to the rancher, so that we have an economically sustainable industry.
The expertise of the Chair has been a lever to create a focused team that involves over 30 researchers and research partners. It's also brought in over $1.5 million in new analytical equipment. It's very exciting.
CIT: Who are some of the other partners and programs involved in the Chair’s activities at TRU?
NVW: We have programs in biological sciences, natural resource sciences, chemical sciences, and also in physical geography. We also have a Canada Chair in Community Eco-systems who focuses on grasslands, with a state-of-the-art greenhouse. He works alongside other researchers with expertise in range management, grassland biodiversity, wildlife and they all work together to address the issue of sustainable grassland ecosystems.
We also have a number of collaborative projects with the Grasslands Conservation Council and other environmental NGOs with an interest in grassland ecosystems. And we work with innumerable provincial agencies, as well as Food and Agriculture Canada.
CIT: What region does the Chair address?
NVW: Our focus is on BC, and most of our work so far has in the BC Interior. It's still early days, but Dr. Church has been very well received by the ranching community. He's very grounded in this c
ommunity. The industry doesn't end at a border, but our focus is on BC's cattle industry, especially here in the Interior. This is important, not only to our chair, but to the people and organizations that made the Chair possibleCIT: You've mentioned that the RIC Chair has had a very positive impact on TRU as a regionally-based institution. Can you elaborate on that?
NVW: In just the short time I've been here at TRU, we've increased our capacity to carry out analytical work. We've brought new people on board. We have analytical facilities that are second to none. Some are the best in the world. This is very, very exciting.
One of the critical factors in our success to date is TRU's roots as a college with trades and technical training, as well as academic programs. This means that we have a culinary arts program and a retail meats program. One of our new pieces of equipment is a state-of-the-art smokehouse. This enables us to develop value-added meat products.
Where else do you have a commercial kitchen capable of developing new food products, some of the best chemists and biologists, a Centre for Bio-products, as well as a world class Cattle Industry Chair? This is a unique combination of resources and expertise. What we've put together here is quite incredible.
CIT: What kinds of issues are facing the cattle industry sustainability, and how is TRU playing a role?
NVW: We're looking at this as a stewardship issue, with a number of perspectives. But the bottom line in terms of industry sustainability is that you've got to have a ranching industry that is economically viable. That's our starting point: How do we make that happen?
This gives us several areas of focus: One is the stewardship of the natural resources. If you mess that up, you don't have an industry for anybody. So we look at the sustainability of the grassland ecosystem. We look at biodiversity. Then we look at the impact of ranching on the natural environment, in terms of the carbon footprint, the green house gas emissions (GHGs) involved in the industry, including production of methane by the animals. Our focus,however, isn't to just identify the problem, but to identify the solution.
There's also the health of the animal. We want BC to be producing the healthiest red meat products on the market, in terms of their nutritional content, their Omega-3 content. Some of the residues that might be a function of ranching practices – hormones, for example – how can we ensure that we are producing the cleanest, healthiest red meat products available to the consumer?
CIT: How does this relate to community and regional economic development?
NVW: One of the reasons that the cattle Chair is so important at this time is the growing interest on local food. The challenge is that there has to be a way to make it profitable for the local producer, or we're going to lose them. Producers need to be able to make a good living providing food for a local market.
So we are analyzing the economics of the "value chain." We need to make sure there is a good return to the producer. New technologies are part of this. And then identifying the market, both for raw meat products and value-added products. In today's marketplace, we refer to the raw meat product as a value-added product if it's cleaner than your traditional red meat product.
This is an important focus for us at TRU: What needs to change in ranching, so that it is seen as a viable, profitable career choice for younger generations.
It’s important to emphasize that we couldn't do this kind work without our partners. The Real Estate Foundation, the Cattle Industry Development Council, the Leading Edge Endowment Fund , and many others – we couldn't do it without their support.
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
CURRENT CIT PROJECT OVERVIEWS
Columbia Basin Climate Change Visioning Case Study and Smart Planning for Communities
by hans peter meyer
The CIT program at the Real Estate Foundation is a response on the part of the Foundation's Governors to land use related issues that are specifically non-metropolitan in nature. Established as a signature program of the Foundation, CIT works with a wide range of project and funding partners in communities across BC to help them plan for and make transitions. One major focus of last year's CIT activities was the Reversing the Tide Conference held in Prince George, which grappled with how to plan for and sustain vibrant rural communities and small towns across the province.
Two current projects, the Columbia Basin Climate Change Visioning Case Study and the Fraser Basin Council's Smart Planning for Communities program, relate to community sustainability and climate change. Sustainable land use planning and practices have been ongoing themes at the Real Estate Foundation through most of it's 20+ years.
Columbia Basin Climate Change Visioning Case Study (CCVCS)
Project Proponent: The Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP) at the University of British Columbia
Project Partners: City of Kimberley, Columbia Basin Trust, Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning, Real Estate Foundation of BC, Selkirk College
The Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP) is an informal group of researchers at the University of British Columbia specializing in landscape visualization, environmental perception, public land management processes, and sustainable landscapes. CALP will use its landscape visualization tool in a series of public engagement sessions as part of a new Columbia Basin Trust initiative, Communities Adapting to Climate Change. The CALP project is a pilot study focused on collaborative community process and scenario-building as a way to respond to the effects of climate change. It is part of the larger Columbia Basin Climate Adaptation Project in Kimberly, BC. Learnings from the Kimberley pilot will be applied to similar processes throughout the Columbia Basin.
Ellen Pond is a researcher with CALP. CIT interviewed Ms. Pond about the Kimberley project and learnings so far.
CIT: Tell me about the project in Kimberley and why it’s important?
EP: Kimberley is struggling to find its feet as a result of changes to its major industry. For 100 years the City had the largest zinc and lead mine in the world...and the mine has provided a very strong economic base through it's history. But it closed in 2001. So this is a community in transition economically, but they are also a very forward-thinking community. The Mayor signed on to the Climate Action Charter, and there is a lot of interest in the community in responding to environmental issues and particularly climate change.
If you look at climate change impacts in the Kootenays, the worst case scenarios — which, unfortunately, are the scenarios we're tracking now based on existing emission levels — the impact is going to be more intense than on the coast. Temperature increases in the summer will be greater. There will be significant changes in precipitation, including more rain and less snow. This could be economically significant as Kimberley has an economically important ski hill.
CIT: What other kinds of effects is the project identifying?
EP: The Kimberley Climate Action Project has working groups set up to look at forests, tourism, water, infrastructure, and alternate scenarios — to assess the risks and vulnerabilities and come up with adaptations that the community can develop. In some ways, what we're seeing isn't rocket science. Adaptation measures aren't necessarily going to be a complete change of direction. The community in some ways is already taking steps based on current risks. For example, there is already a program to do controlled burns within in-town forested areas, to limit risk impacts of forest fires. Forest fires aren't a new risk. But the risk will increase as we get ever-drier summers.
CIT: Your project is about community process with regard to adapting to climate change. What are you learning so far?
EP: That's a good question. This is a collaborative, community-based process. It involves bringing together municipal staff, community experts, and community members generally. We're presenting the work publicly to the community, and we're surveying the community about climate change. At the same time, because this project is taking longer than originally anticipated, I think we're going to see a better process in the long term. A longer process allows people to find more information, and it allows for more exchanges between meetings. We're not far off the schedule we'd hoped for, but the bit of extra time that it is taking has allowed us to develop better scenarios.
CIT: You’ve suggested that there are other benefits from taking more time. What are they?
EP: This is supposed to be a "climate adaptation" project, but the community has asked that it look at some mitigation as well. So CALP and the Kimberley scenarios group are trying to lay out a spread range of pathways that the town can take with regards to climate change actions, from impacts and adaptation to mitigation. We don't want to be prescriptive, but instead show suggestions of the different things that can be done.
Ultimately, the more spatial and visually-based information that the community brings to us the better we can make it visual with our scenarios. As well, the better the climate science gets, the more the information is "downscaled" from global/regional models to local conditions. This helps communities get better at assessing risks. On-going scientific research, community adaptation projects, and integrating climate scenarios into planning processes are all needed for local communities to adapt to climate change impacts, and reduce emissions.
CIT: What kinds of connections are being made between climate change adaption/mitigation and land use practices?
EP: Funding from the Real Estate Foundation and the Ministry of Community Development has enabled us to do some linking between land use planning and climate change scenarios. We're developing a couple of scenarios for how Kimberley could build out into the future, and asking questions about how these different development pathways help — or possibly hinder — adaptation as well as greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).
One of the interesting things that has come up as we develop scenarios is the impact of Kimberley's significant turn to tourism as a core economic driver. Really, this is an amenity driven real estate development component, and it could have a big impact on GHGs. Right now the town is a very compact community. Very compact and very walkable, compared to many other BC communities. It's a "smart growth" town without meaning to be, because much of it was built before cars. As they've moved into the current model of real estate development there's a tendency towards sprawl. Barring high-tech solutions, the sprawl model has high GHGs associated with it. One of the scenarios we've been working on involves infill development, and alternative transportation connections to Cranbrook.
CIT: Last comments?
EP: Yes. It's quite remarkable what CIT and the Real Estate Foundation is enabling us to do with this project. Communities like Kimberley just don't have the resources to do this kind of a visualization project. With CIT's help, we are bringing material and a communication and scenario-exploration tool, and a process, into the community that will aid in planning and decision-making for the future. Not just for Kimberley, but for communities throughout the Columbia Basin.
For more information:
Ellen Pond
(e) epond (at) interchange.ubc.ca
Collaborative For Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP)
University of British Columbia
#2045-2424 Main Mall
Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 1Z4
(t): 604.822.4148
www.calp.forestry.ubc.ca
Columbia Basin Climate Change Visioning Case Study project information is available on the CIT site.
Smart Planning for Communities (SPC)
Project Proponent: Fraser Basin Council
Project Partners: BC Hydro, BC Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, BC Ministry of Community Development, BC Ministry of Environment, First Nations Mountain Pine Beetle Initiative, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the Real Estate Foundation of BC
SPC is a collaborative BC-wide initiative sponsored in part by the Real Estate Foundation through the Communities in Transition program. SPC helps local governments (municipalities, regional districts, and Firsts Nations) navigate the many resources, approaches, and tools related to creating socially, environmentally, economically, and culturally sustainable communities. Five sustainability facilitators are now in place around the province. They provide a free service offering strategic support, education and training, assistance in accessing funding, and provision of in-house and third party technical expertise to BC communities.
Maureen LeBourdais is Program Manager of Smart Planning for Communities at the Fraser Basin Council. CIT interviewed Ms. LeBourdais in March of this year about SPC.
CIT: Tell me a little about the background to the Smart Planning for Communities (SPC) project. Why another “sustainability” planning initiative?
MLeB: That is one of the challenges facing smaller communities right now: there is so much going on right now under the heading of "sustainability planning." An example is that at a local government level, Councils sign on to the Climate Action Charter. But then staff wonder, 'Where do we start? There is so much information; there are so many "toolkits" and resources and players and consultants and approaches... We need an easier way to navigate through all of this.'
Many local governments in BC are already under-staffed, whether they're municipalities, regional districts, or First Nations. In parts of rural BC, there often is not a planner on staff at all. What planning gets done takes place off the corner of someone's desk. These people want to do the right thing, but available funding tends to drive what they can do. They aren't always able to take a holistic approach even though they may want to.
SPC is a response to this. Local governments have been telling us at FBC that they need help with sustainability planning. They also said, 'Please don't send us to a website. I want a warm body on the ground, who can come in, can talk to my staff. Someone who understands local government, and someone who knows my region. to help us navigate through this. At the bottom line, that's what SPC is: facilitators who come into the community when invited. They work with local politicians, with staff, wherever the need is identified, to determine: Where do we start? What are the resources available to us? How do we decide which ones are the best fit for what our community needs?
CIT: What kinds of responses are you getting from the local governments you work with?
MLeB: We're hearing that local governments are very, very pleased to have this support. I've received comments like, 'Thank goodness you're here,' or, 'This is exactly what I was looking for,' and 'This is what we need.'
CIT: Can you give an example of how SPC interacts with communities?
MLeB: We use the term 'light touch' to describe how we work. We're not going in as consultants, and we're not going deep into community, trying to take the place of planning staff they don't have. Our focus is on providing a bit of process advice, some referrals to technical expertise, helping the community decide what the priorities are and where to start. We support them to reach decisions about how they want to proceed, and then help them identify the resources they need to do this.
Sometimes what we do is a very small thing. It might just be answering a question about some funding. Or, reviewing a proposal the community has prepared, giving them feedback, asking them, 'Have you thought about this, or that?'
Sometimes it can be a presentation to Council. Often we see a situation where there is a champion on the local government body. It could be the Mayor or a Councilor, or someone on staff, an individual who really wants to see their community forward on reduction of GHGs. They just want a presentation, for us to come in and answer: What is sustainability planning? What is Smart Growth? What is Natural Step? What's the difference? How do we know which one we should be doing? What are the next steps? A presentation like this makes the language and ideas behind "sustainability" clearer or more accessible to people who aren't trained. It supports the local champion.
We've also learned that communities learn best from stories: they want to know what other communities, similar to their own, are doing. Rather than go in and recommend a framework, we'll go in and say, 'Here's what this framework is about, and here's a community like yours (maybe the same size or the same sector - agriculture or tourism), and here's a name you can call in that local government to find out how that framework or approach worked for them.
CIT: You've referred to "navigation" as your role.
MLeB: Yes. We're branded as "sustainability facilitators," but the facilitators refer to themselves as "navigators." That's how they see their role: not just helping communities connect to each other and the expertise they need, but navigating the many options and approaches that are available, without being directive.
It's hard for smaller communities. There is a perception of a number of organizations and consultants providing the same or similar services around sustainability planning. It's confusing. Our question to ourselves at SPC is: How can we play a role in doing this better? Maybe we can facilitate partnerships [between organizations] on certain activities? How do we make our resources [in the sustainability planning field] go further, to better help communities? And we're asking ourselves: How can SPC play a role in bringing this together?
We assist local governments and First Nations to understand who is providing the funding, services, and expertise - who they are and what they are doing. Then, by referring communities to them, SPC helps facilitate that connection between community sustainability planning needs and the resources and expertise available. This role is increasingly important given the likelihood of diminished financial resources as a result of the economic downturn.
For more information:
Maureen LeBourdais
(e) mlebourdais (at) fraserbasin.bc.ca
Fraser Basin Council
1st Floor - 470 Granville St.
Vancouver, BC V6C 1V5
(t) 604-488-5350
(e) info (at) fraserbasin.bc.ca
Smart Planning for Communities project information is available on the CIT site.
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009.
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
by hans peter meyer
The CIT program at the Real Estate Foundation is a response on the part of the Foundation's Governors to land use related issues that are specifically non-metropolitan in nature. Established as a signature program of the Foundation, CIT works with a wide range of project and funding partners in communities across BC to help them plan for and make transitions. One major focus of last year's CIT activities was the Reversing the Tide Conference held in Prince George, which grappled with how to plan for and sustain vibrant rural communities and small towns across the province.
Two current projects, the Columbia Basin Climate Change Visioning Case Study and the Fraser Basin Council's Smart Planning for Communities program, relate to community sustainability and climate change. Sustainable land use planning and practices have been ongoing themes at the Real Estate Foundation through most of it's 20+ years.
Columbia Basin Climate Change Visioning Case Study (CCVCS)
Project Proponent: The Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP) at the University of British Columbia
Project Partners: City of Kimberley, Columbia Basin Trust, Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning, Real Estate Foundation of BC, Selkirk College
The Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP) is an informal group of researchers at the University of British Columbia specializing in landscape visualization, environmental perception, public land management processes, and sustainable landscapes. CALP will use its landscape visualization tool in a series of public engagement sessions as part of a new Columbia Basin Trust initiative, Communities Adapting to Climate Change. The CALP project is a pilot study focused on collaborative community process and scenario-building as a way to respond to the effects of climate change. It is part of the larger Columbia Basin Climate Adaptation Project in Kimberly, BC. Learnings from the Kimberley pilot will be applied to similar processes throughout the Columbia Basin.
Ellen Pond is a researcher with CALP. CIT interviewed Ms. Pond about the Kimberley project and learnings so far.
CIT: Tell me about the project in Kimberley and why it’s important?
EP: Kimberley is struggling to find its feet as a result of changes to its major industry. For 100 years the City had the largest zinc and lead mine in the world...and the mine has provided a very strong economic base through it's history. But it closed in 2001. So this is a community in transition economically, but they are also a very forward-thinking community. The Mayor signed on to the Climate Action Charter, and there is a lot of interest in the community in responding to environmental issues and particularly climate change.
If you look at climate change impacts in the Kootenays, the worst case scenarios — which, unfortunately, are the scenarios we're tracking now based on existing emission levels — the impact is going to be more intense than on the coast. Temperature increases in the summer will be greater. There will be significant changes in precipitation, including more rain and less snow. This could be economically significant as Kimberley has an economically important ski hill.
CIT: What other kinds of effects is the project identifying?
EP: The Kimberley Climate Action Project has working groups set up to look at forests, tourism, water, infrastructure, and alternate scenarios — to assess the risks and vulnerabilities and come up with adaptations that the community can develop. In some ways, what we're seeing isn't rocket science. Adaptation measures aren't necessarily going to be a complete change of direction. The community in some ways is already taking steps based on current risks. For example, there is already a program to do controlled burns within in-town forested areas, to limit risk impacts of forest fires. Forest fires aren't a new risk. But the risk will increase as we get ever-drier summers.
CIT: Your project is about community process with regard to adapting to climate change. What are you learning so far?
EP: That's a good question. This is a collaborative, community-based process. It involves bringing together municipal staff, community experts, and community members generally. We're presenting the work publicly to the community, and we're surveying the community about climate change. At the same time, because this project is taking longer than originally anticipated, I think we're going to see a better process in the long term. A longer process allows people to find more information, and it allows for more exchanges between meetings. We're not far off the schedule we'd hoped for, but the bit of extra time that it is taking has allowed us to develop better scenarios.
CIT: You’ve suggested that there are other benefits from taking more time. What are they?
EP: This is supposed to be a "climate adaptation" project, but the community has asked that it look at some mitigation as well. So CALP and the Kimberley scenarios group are trying to lay out a spread range of pathways that the town can take with regards to climate change actions, from impacts and adaptation to mitigation. We don't want to be prescriptive, but instead show suggestions of the different things that can be done.
Ultimately, the more spatial and visually-based information that the community brings to us the better we can make it visual with our scenarios. As well, the better the climate science gets, the more the information is "downscaled" from global/regional models to local conditions. This helps communities get better at assessing risks. On-going scientific research, community adaptation projects, and integrating climate scenarios into planning processes are all needed for local communities to adapt to climate change impacts, and reduce emissions.
CIT: What kinds of connections are being made between climate change adaption/mitigation and land use practices?
EP: Funding from the Real Estate Foundation and the Ministry of Community Development has enabled us to do some linking between land use planning and climate change scenarios. We're developing a couple of scenarios for how Kimberley could build out into the future, and asking questions about how these different development pathways help — or possibly hinder — adaptation as well as greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).
One of the interesting things that has come up as we develop scenarios is the impact of Kimberley's significant turn to tourism as a core economic driver. Really, this is an amenity driven real estate development component, and it could have a big impact on GHGs. Right now the town is a very compact community. Very compact and very walkable, compared to many other BC communities. It's a "smart growth" town without meaning to be, because much of it was built before cars. As they've moved into the current model of real estate development there's a tendency towards sprawl. Barring high-tech solutions, the sprawl model has high GHGs associated with it. One of the scenarios we've been working on involves infill development, and alternative transportation connections to Cranbrook.
CIT: Last comments?
EP: Yes. It's quite remarkable what CIT and the Real Estate Foundation is enabling us to do with this project. Communities like Kimberley just don't have the resources to do this kind of a visualization project. With CIT's help, we are bringing material and a communication and scenario-exploration tool, and a process, into the community that will aid in planning and decision-making for the future. Not just for Kimberley, but for communities throughout the Columbia Basin.
For more information:
Ellen Pond
(e) epond (at) interchange.ubc.ca
Collaborative For Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP)
University of British Columbia
#2045-2424 Main Mall
Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 1Z4
(t): 604.822.4148
www.calp.forestry.ubc.ca
Columbia Basin Climate Change Visioning Case Study project information is available on the CIT site.
Smart Planning for Communities (SPC)
Project Proponent: Fraser Basin Council
Project Partners: BC Hydro, BC Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, BC Ministry of Community Development, BC Ministry of Environment, First Nations Mountain Pine Beetle Initiative, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the Real Estate Foundation of BC
SPC is a collaborative BC-wide initiative sponsored in part by the Real Estate Foundation through the Communities in Transition program. SPC helps local governments (municipalities, regional districts, and Firsts Nations) navigate the many resources, approaches, and tools related to creating socially, environmentally, economically, and culturally sustainable communities. Five sustainability facilitators are now in place around the province. They provide a free service offering strategic support, education and training, assistance in accessing funding, and provision of in-house and third party technical expertise to BC communities.
Maureen LeBourdais is Program Manager of Smart Planning for Communities at the Fraser Basin Council. CIT interviewed Ms. LeBourdais in March of this year about SPC.
CIT: Tell me a little about the background to the Smart Planning for Communities (SPC) project. Why another “sustainability” planning initiative?
MLeB: That is one of the challenges facing smaller communities right now: there is so much going on right now under the heading of "sustainability planning." An example is that at a local government level, Councils sign on to the Climate Action Charter. But then staff wonder, 'Where do we start? There is so much information; there are so many "toolkits" and resources and players and consultants and approaches... We need an easier way to navigate through all of this.'
Many local governments in BC are already under-staffed, whether they're municipalities, regional districts, or First Nations. In parts of rural BC, there often is not a planner on staff at all. What planning gets done takes place off the corner of someone's desk. These people want to do the right thing, but available funding tends to drive what they can do. They aren't always able to take a holistic approach even though they may want to.
SPC is a response to this. Local governments have been telling us at FBC that they need help with sustainability planning. They also said, 'Please don't send us to a website. I want a warm body on the ground, who can come in, can talk to my staff. Someone who understands local government, and someone who knows my region. to help us navigate through this. At the bottom line, that's what SPC is: facilitators who come into the community when invited. They work with local politicians, with staff, wherever the need is identified, to determine: Where do we start? What are the resources available to us? How do we decide which ones are the best fit for what our community needs?
CIT: What kinds of responses are you getting from the local governments you work with?
MLeB: We're hearing that local governments are very, very pleased to have this support. I've received comments like, 'Thank goodness you're here,' or, 'This is exactly what I was looking for,' and 'This is what we need.'
CIT: Can you give an example of how SPC interacts with communities?
MLeB: We use the term 'light touch' to describe how we work. We're not going in as consultants, and we're not going deep into community, trying to take the place of planning staff they don't have. Our focus is on providing a bit of process advice, some referrals to technical expertise, helping the community decide what the priorities are and where to start. We support them to reach decisions about how they want to proceed, and then help them identify the resources they need to do this.
Sometimes what we do is a very small thing. It might just be answering a question about some funding. Or, reviewing a proposal the community has prepared, giving them feedback, asking them, 'Have you thought about this, or that?'
Sometimes it can be a presentation to Council. Often we see a situation where there is a champion on the local government body. It could be the Mayor or a Councilor, or someone on staff, an individual who really wants to see their community forward on reduction of GHGs. They just want a presentation, for us to come in and answer: What is sustainability planning? What is Smart Growth? What is Natural Step? What's the difference? How do we know which one we should be doing? What are the next steps? A presentation like this makes the language and ideas behind "sustainability" clearer or more accessible to people who aren't trained. It supports the local champion.
We've also learned that communities learn best from stories: they want to know what other communities, similar to their own, are doing. Rather than go in and recommend a framework, we'll go in and say, 'Here's what this framework is about, and here's a community like yours (maybe the same size or the same sector - agriculture or tourism), and here's a name you can call in that local government to find out how that framework or approach worked for them.
CIT: You've referred to "navigation" as your role.
MLeB: Yes. We're branded as "sustainability facilitators," but the facilitators refer to themselves as "navigators." That's how they see their role: not just helping communities connect to each other and the expertise they need, but navigating the many options and approaches that are available, without being directive.
It's hard for smaller communities. There is a perception of a number of organizations and consultants providing the same or similar services around sustainability planning. It's confusing. Our question to ourselves at SPC is: How can we play a role in doing this better? Maybe we can facilitate partnerships [between organizations] on certain activities? How do we make our resources [in the sustainability planning field] go further, to better help communities? And we're asking ourselves: How can SPC play a role in bringing this together?
We assist local governments and First Nations to understand who is providing the funding, services, and expertise - who they are and what they are doing. Then, by referring communities to them, SPC helps facilitate that connection between community sustainability planning needs and the resources and expertise available. This role is increasingly important given the likelihood of diminished financial resources as a result of the economic downturn.
For more information:
Maureen LeBourdais
(e) mlebourdais (at) fraserbasin.bc.ca
Fraser Basin Council
1st Floor - 470 Granville St.
Vancouver, BC V6C 1V5
(t) 604-488-5350
(e) info (at) fraserbasin.bc.ca
Smart Planning for Communities project information is available on the CIT site.
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009.
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
1000 Trees at a Time: How One City is Stepping Towards its Climate Action Charter Goals
by hans peter meyer
Tim Pringle recently put the Climate Action Charter (CAC) into the context of property values. “Ultimately,” he said, “it’s a dollars and cents kind of world.” But he wasn't saying
, OK folks, all this enviro stuff is making real estate too expensive. If anything, Pringle, who's been at the cutting edge of real estate and land use research in BC for over 20 years has a twist on 'bottom-line' optics that may surprise many. Especially those involved in the buying and selling of homes. “One can imagine a number of possibilities,” he said, apropos communities not taking positive steps to address the imbalance between settlement and ecosystems. “Some of these will become unfortunate truths for those places that don’t adjust. That don’t ... put their overall settlement activities into the context of a sustainability plan.”
From a taxpayer, investor, and homeowner point of view the situation could be ugly. “Wouldn’t it be terrible,” Pringle wondered, “if in say 40 years, your community was having problems with ground water and people were losing property value because of a lack of assurance that there wasn’t adequate water? Or, it was extremely expensive and people looked elsewhere to live just because it was too expensive...because of water[-related issues]?
The up side is that 174 of 187 local governments in BC have signed on the Climate Action Charter (CAC). Of these, Pringle cites my town, the City of Courtenay, as showing considerable leadership.
Frankly, I was a little surprised about Courtenay’s leadership position. I suppose it’s because I just don’t give the folks at City Hall enough respect. Nor do I appreciate how the tireless efforts of stewardship groups have made an impact on decision-makers, civic staff, and electors. Things are changing quickly in my little burg, and I’m starting to feel proud of the fact. The most recent sign of change is the City's "1000 Trees" initiative.
I love trees (love to plant ‘em, love to grow ‘em, love to enjoy their shade and myriad living benefits, love to cut ‘em down and make firewood and boards out of ‘em too). But it wasn’t until I stopped by the City’s Earth Day table that I heard about the “1000 Trees” initiative, one of my biggest reasons for feeling proud of my town.
In partnership with a local nursery, the City is sponsoring a substantial discount on up to 3 trees per household. To get my 3 trees I’ll have to make a trek to City Hall before the end of May. I’ll get my coupons and trundle off to the nursery for some fruit trees to put some food on my table, some shade and water conservation activity into in my urban footprint. All of it good stuff. All of it “responsible citizen” stuff.
The City isn’t doing this to beautify my yard. It’s part of their commitment to meeting green house gas (GHG) emission reduction targets they’ve taken on as signatories to the provincial Climate Action Charter. The goal is for local governments to become carbon neutral by 2012. Not a lot of time. Civic staff estimate that the “1000 trees” action will “offset two tonnes of carbon emissions each year for 80 years.” I'm impressed.
Hats off to the City of Courtenay for helping me — and others (about 700 tree coupons out so far...) — with my postage stamp urban forest. But the City is earning my respect (and market advantage for real estate agents) for other climate change actions. The list includes:
- encouraging higher densities generally and moving ahead with raising building height (we now have a 7 storey option in some parts of town — how I wish we’d had a couple of these mid-rises close to the store when I was in retail downtown);
- participating in 3 related current regional planning processes that will have a positive impact on all of us over the next 20-50 years (the Sustainability Planning process, Regional Growth Strategy, and the Regional Conservation Strategy);
- supporting the Learning Lunches offered by Convening for Action Vancouver Island (CAVI), one of the best ways I’ve seen of getting inter-regional discussion and learning about new approaches to dealing with water and development issues;
- willingness to work with eNGOs like the Comox Valley Land Trust.
As a taxpayer, I see the tax dollars invested in the “1000 trees” as an example of local government money smarts: money spent today is paying down the cost of dealing with climate change in the long term. I hope to see the same kind of money smarts when it comes to investing in public transit over more roads and bridges. Our climate is changing. It’s not a ‘political’ issue; it’s a civic and fiscal responsibility issue.
For more on the City of Courtenay's “1000 trees” initiative.
For more on the Climate Action Charter.
A version of this article appeared in the May issue of The Island Word
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009.
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
Tim Pringle recently put the Climate Action Charter (CAC) into the context of property values. “Ultimately,” he said, “it’s a dollars and cents kind of world.” But he wasn't saying
, OK folks, all this enviro stuff is making real estate too expensive. If anything, Pringle, who's been at the cutting edge of real estate and land use research in BC for over 20 years has a twist on 'bottom-line' optics that may surprise many. Especially those involved in the buying and selling of homes. “One can imagine a number of possibilities,” he said, apropos communities not taking positive steps to address the imbalance between settlement and ecosystems. “Some of these will become unfortunate truths for those places that don’t adjust. That don’t ... put their overall settlement activities into the context of a sustainability plan.”From a taxpayer, investor, and homeowner point of view the situation could be ugly. “Wouldn’t it be terrible,” Pringle wondered, “if in say 40 years, your community was having problems with ground water and people were losing property value because of a lack of assurance that there wasn’t adequate water? Or, it was extremely expensive and people looked elsewhere to live just because it was too expensive...because of water[-related issues]?
The up side is that 174 of 187 local governments in BC have signed on the Climate Action Charter (CAC). Of these, Pringle cites my town, the City of Courtenay, as showing considerable leadership.
Frankly, I was a little surprised about Courtenay’s leadership position. I suppose it’s because I just don’t give the folks at City Hall enough respect. Nor do I appreciate how the tireless efforts of stewardship groups have made an impact on decision-makers, civic staff, and electors. Things are changing quickly in my little burg, and I’m starting to feel proud of the fact. The most recent sign of change is the City's "1000 Trees" initiative.
I love trees (love to plant ‘em, love to grow ‘em, love to enjoy their shade and myriad living benefits, love to cut ‘em down and make firewood and boards out of ‘em too). But it wasn’t until I stopped by the City’s Earth Day table that I heard about the “1000 Trees” initiative, one of my biggest reasons for feeling proud of my town.
In partnership with a local nursery, the City is sponsoring a substantial discount on up to 3 trees per household. To get my 3 trees I’ll have to make a trek to City Hall before the end of May. I’ll get my coupons and trundle off to the nursery for some fruit trees to put some food on my table, some shade and water conservation activity into in my urban footprint. All of it good stuff. All of it “responsible citizen” stuff.
The City isn’t doing this to beautify my yard. It’s part of their commitment to meeting green house gas (GHG) emission reduction targets they’ve taken on as signatories to the provincial Climate Action Charter. The goal is for local governments to become carbon neutral by 2012. Not a lot of time. Civic staff estimate that the “1000 trees” action will “offset two tonnes of carbon emissions each year for 80 years.” I'm impressed.
Hats off to the City of Courtenay for helping me — and others (about 700 tree coupons out so far...) — with my postage stamp urban forest. But the City is earning my respect (and market advantage for real estate agents) for other climate change actions. The list includes:
- encouraging higher densities generally and moving ahead with raising building height (we now have a 7 storey option in some parts of town — how I wish we’d had a couple of these mid-rises close to the store when I was in retail downtown);
- participating in 3 related current regional planning processes that will have a positive impact on all of us over the next 20-50 years (the Sustainability Planning process, Regional Growth Strategy, and the Regional Conservation Strategy);
- supporting the Learning Lunches offered by Convening for Action Vancouver Island (CAVI), one of the best ways I’ve seen of getting inter-regional discussion and learning about new approaches to dealing with water and development issues;
- willingness to work with eNGOs like the Comox Valley Land Trust.
As a taxpayer, I see the tax dollars invested in the “1000 trees” as an example of local government money smarts: money spent today is paying down the cost of dealing with climate change in the long term. I hope to see the same kind of money smarts when it comes to investing in public transit over more roads and bridges. Our climate is changing. It’s not a ‘political’ issue; it’s a civic and fiscal responsibility issue.
For more on the City of Courtenay's “1000 trees” initiative.
For more on the Climate Action Charter.
A version of this article appeared in the May issue of The Island Word
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009.
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
Sustainability: The State of Conversation Today, Part II
by hans peter meyer
A dozen years ago, the sustainability conversation invoked images of the "3-legged stool" of economy, society, and ecology. Now, thanks to folks like Mark Holland, we've got the "8 pillars" of sustainability. In between, the conversation went off the radar in BC as our forest and real estate industries tanked. The ecological leg of the stool wasn't as important as putting bread on the table.
So where are we at today? We've had 2-3 short years of intense discussion about sustainability, thanks in part to Mr. Gore. We are all much more aware of the need to do something about climate change, whether we think it's driven by our carbon lifestyle or just the whimsy of the planet. But our forest industry is in the tank. Again. As is our real estate and development industry. Again. Since October, we're also trying to figure out how to do something about global warming etc in the context of a financial freeze. Do we mimic the late '90s, and casually drop ecological concerns from the conversation about survival, which is what "sustainability" is really about?
I've been talking to people about this, and the consensus is that, Yes, the conversation has changed, but it hasn't gone away.
Peter ter Weeme is a principal with Junxion , a Vancouver-based firm specializing in sustainability consulting. He's seeing a definite change in the conversation. It isn't that people want to walk away from it in the name of cost-cutting, he says, but that "sustainability" is playing a role in how costs are cut. He points to the way that ecological and economic values are sync-ing in the discussion about energy and energy efficiency. For example, BC Hydro's push to meet emerging energy needs through conservation rather than construction. "I'm in Toronto right now," ter Weeme told me, citing another example. "They're talking about powering their public transit with wind power." These are conscious moves towards sustainability. For an examples of how concerns for financial efficiencies can have 'green' side effects, ter Weeme points out that current cuts to business and government travel budgets will help them close the gap on their carbon reduction targets.
For residents of non-metro communities, however, one of the biggest changes ter Weeme sees on the horizon is the deepening of the "buy local" emphasis that has been growing in recent years. "I think we're going to see the end of the big box economics. The costs associated with transportation will start to undermine the advantage of big boxes. People are already being motivated to shop local, to buy local produce."
This is consistent with what Victor Cumming says about carbon-based changes emerging with regard to regional economics. Cumming is a 30 year veteran of regional economic development in Canada and internationally. He sees the market collapse in the fall as signaling the end of the idea that "globalization will save us, that an increased consumption pattern will save us, that we could, in essence, grow into more wealth without any clear understanding that there are some biological limits." For non-metro communities the upside is that some of the economies of scale (and cheap carbon-based transportation, ie. the economics of the big boxes) may be challenged by the economies of locality.
There is a growing realization, says Cumming, "that some of all of this grandiose economic activity needs to be tempered with concepts of long term carbon sustainability. This is going to really change people's thinking about wages, production levels, local economy -- in ways we have never thought about these before. In the Okanagan, for example, it's likely we'll come to the conclusion that shipping all fruit to Vancouver, so that it can be distributed from a single point, back to where it came from, will have to change. Old concepts where you can maximize margins by maximizing the carbon footprint, that kind of thinking has to change. Shipping milk to Calgary to process, so that it can be brought back... Those kinds of things will eventually go away."
Carole Stark is a community planning and sustainability consultant with the Chinook Institute for Community Stewardship. Her home community of Canmore, Alberta shares many qualities with the attractive, high-amenity non-metro communities in southwestern BC and Vancouver Island. Like them, Canmore has been hit hard by the downturn in real estate and construction related activities. But while Stark encounters fear for the future in her community, she says this is tempered by the community's commitment to following through on a recent "sustainability plan." The planning process identified key needs: "diversification of the economy, and social connectedness. We need to remain connected as a community, including residents and weekenders, if the economy is strong. But if the economy slows down, we need to remain connected as well, maybe even more so." With the subsequent downturn, fears have emerged, but the town has a plan, and is not abandoning the sustainability conversation. Stark sees the community resolutely moving "on to the next steps, getting on to working on the priorities that have been identified, and changing the way that they build relationships with residents and other stakeholders."
Stark's research suggests that the current real estate slowdown is temporary for high-amenity communities like Canmore. But beyond the amenity-migration market, there appears to be a bigger shift taking place. "I don't think this is just a momentary blip in how we do things," says ter Weeme, echoing Cumming. "I think we're seeing a real values shift happening. People have been sold a bill of goods - the whole global consumption thing - and they're seeing that it isn't working."
Has the financial situation changed the conversation about sustainability? Yes, says Victor Cumming, "It's changed everything." The focus seems to have shifted to local, to the community. Some communities, like those Carole Stark works with, have the advantage of a "sustainability plan" that looks beyond short term gains. But it takes considerable leadership within a community to hold to medium and long term perspectives when families need jobs and mortgages need paying. Communities in the Comox Valley are in the process of developing a "sustainability plan." While this is critical, especially at a time when significant value shifts may be taking place, a plan is, after all, only as good as the commitment to follow through with it.
Post script:
For Part I of this review of the state of the sustainability conversation, see Tim Pringle's March blog post for the Communities in Transition program.
Tim is Director of Special Programs at the Real Estate Foundation of BC and has been participating in the evolution of the sustainability conversation since the early 1990s.
A version of this article appeared in the April 2009 issue of The Island Word.
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009.
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
A dozen years ago, the sustainability conversation invoked images of the "3-legged stool" of economy, society, and ecology. Now, thanks to folks like Mark Holland, we've got the "8 pillars" of sustainability. In between, the conversation went off the radar in BC as our forest and real estate industries tanked. The ecological leg of the stool wasn't as important as putting bread on the table.
So where are we at today? We've had 2-3 short years of intense discussion about sustainability, thanks in part to Mr. Gore. We are all much more aware of the need to do something about climate change, whether we think it's driven by our carbon lifestyle or just the whimsy of the planet. But our forest industry is in the tank. Again. As is our real estate and development industry. Again. Since October, we're also trying to figure out how to do something about global warming etc in the context of a financial freeze. Do we mimic the late '90s, and casually drop ecological concerns from the conversation about survival, which is what "sustainability" is really about?
I've been talking to people about this, and the consensus is that, Yes, the conversation has changed, but it hasn't gone away.
Peter ter Weeme is a principal with Junxion , a Vancouver-based firm specializing in sustainability consulting. He's seeing a definite change in the conversation. It isn't that people want to walk away from it in the name of cost-cutting, he says, but that "sustainability" is playing a role in how costs are cut. He points to the way that ecological and economic values are sync-ing in the discussion about energy and energy efficiency. For example, BC Hydro's push to meet emerging energy needs through conservation rather than construction. "I'm in Toronto right now," ter Weeme told me, citing another example. "They're talking about powering their public transit with wind power." These are conscious moves towards sustainability. For an examples of how concerns for financial efficiencies can have 'green' side effects, ter Weeme points out that current cuts to business and government travel budgets will help them close the gap on their carbon reduction targets.For residents of non-metro communities, however, one of the biggest changes ter Weeme sees on the horizon is the deepening of the "buy local" emphasis that has been growing in recent years. "I think we're going to see the end of the big box economics. The costs associated with transportation will start to undermine the advantage of big boxes. People are already being motivated to shop local, to buy local produce."
This is consistent with what Victor Cumming says about carbon-based changes emerging with regard to regional economics. Cumming is a 30 year veteran of regional economic development in Canada and internationally. He sees the market collapse in the fall as signaling the end of the idea that "globalization will save us, that an increased consumption pattern will save us, that we could, in essence, grow into more wealth without any clear understanding that there are some biological limits." For non-metro communities the upside is that some of the economies of scale (and cheap carbon-based transportation, ie. the economics of the big boxes) may be challenged by the economies of locality.
There is a growing realization, says Cumming, "that some of all of this grandiose economic activity needs to be tempered with concepts of long term carbon sustainability. This is going to really change people's thinking about wages, production levels, local economy -- in ways we have never thought about these before. In the Okanagan, for example, it's likely we'll come to the conclusion that shipping all fruit to Vancouver, so that it can be distributed from a single point, back to where it came from, will have to change. Old concepts where you can maximize margins by maximizing the carbon footprint, that kind of thinking has to change. Shipping milk to Calgary to process, so that it can be brought back... Those kinds of things will eventually go away."
Carole Stark is a community planning and sustainability consultant with the Chinook Institute for Community Stewardship. Her home community of Canmore, Alberta shares many qualities with the attractive, high-amenity non-metro communities in southwestern BC and Vancouver Island. Like them, Canmore has been hit hard by the downturn in real estate and construction related activities. But while Stark encounters fear for the future in her community, she says this is tempered by the community's commitment to following through on a recent "sustainability plan." The planning process identified key needs: "diversification of the economy, and social connectedness. We need to remain connected as a community, including residents and weekenders, if the economy is strong. But if the economy slows down, we need to remain connected as well, maybe even more so." With the subsequent downturn, fears have emerged, but the town has a plan, and is not abandoning the sustainability conversation. Stark sees the community resolutely moving "on to the next steps, getting on to working on the priorities that have been identified, and changing the way that they build relationships with residents and other stakeholders."Stark's research suggests that the current real estate slowdown is temporary for high-amenity communities like Canmore. But beyond the amenity-migration market, there appears to be a bigger shift taking place. "I don't think this is just a momentary blip in how we do things," says ter Weeme, echoing Cumming. "I think we're seeing a real values shift happening. People have been sold a bill of goods - the whole global consumption thing - and they're seeing that it isn't working."
Has the financial situation changed the conversation about sustainability? Yes, says Victor Cumming, "It's changed everything." The focus seems to have shifted to local, to the community. Some communities, like those Carole Stark works with, have the advantage of a "sustainability plan" that looks beyond short term gains. But it takes considerable leadership within a community to hold to medium and long term perspectives when families need jobs and mortgages need paying. Communities in the Comox Valley are in the process of developing a "sustainability plan." While this is critical, especially at a time when significant value shifts may be taking place, a plan is, after all, only as good as the commitment to follow through with it.
Post script:
For Part I of this review of the state of the sustainability conversation, see Tim Pringle's March blog post for the Communities in Transition program.
Tim is Director of Special Programs at the Real Estate Foundation of BC and has been participating in the evolution of the sustainability conversation since the early 1990s.A version of this article appeared in the April 2009 issue of The Island Word.
©Real Estate Foundation of BC / 2009.
We encourage the reproduction of articles on this website non-profit educational purposes. Please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses.
What's coming in the May issue?
Thanks to Steve Van Wagoner for the image of cattle in some of BC's grasslands.
hans peter meyer
Editor, Community in Transition Information Resource
editor@communtytransition.org
www.communitytransition.blogspot.com
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