On June 21, I was privileged to attend Our Common Future 2.0, a symposium hosted by Corporate Knights magazine, chaired by the environment policy pioneer Maurice Strong. It marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and recognized the achievements of many environmental veterans, including Jim MacNeill, who introduced the term “sustainable development.”

Despite the vigorous enthusiasm of George Smitherman, Galen Weston, and Elizabeth May, it was noted that civil society’s effect on policy is slipping. While Sylvia Ostry decried the “exhilaration of pessimism”, Maria Ivanova, Director of the Global Environment Governance Project at the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy, cited the struggle to determine “what we need to change and what it needs to change to.”

There was no unanimity between the participants. However, a voice from the private sector, Kathy Bardswick, President and CEO of The Co-operators Group, counselled academics and policy makers to MAKE IT SIMPLE for business to act in response to the potential devastation of climate change.

So as Toronto contemplates the aftermath of the G20, where the word “environment” was scarcely uttered, we must wonder what real difference it will make to take a sustainable approach in managing our homes. Even if protesters tried to impose planetary sensibilities on visiting world financial leaders, their voices were displaced by the attention paid to the “security threats” on the streets.  From the large local investment in this world meeting, it seems that the lessons to learn are personal.

It is said that what cannot be measured cannot be managed. While government leaders convened to deal with some very large numbers over the very short term, those of us who believe that environmental, social responsibility needs to take its place alongside profit, pleasure and personal enhancement in society’s permanent value set—we have one major G20 takeaway. Until environmental “replacement value” is monetized and the big stacks of environmental poker chips look like others on the table, the environment will be treated as a government policy luxury.

Policy that doesn’t take sustainability into account is in fact incomplete policy. Look no further than the Gulf of Mexico: the overriding concern in government response to the crisis is commercial: lost income to fishermen, tourism and in fact other oil companies.  Environmental degradation and damage to marine life appear secondary.

Business activity that doesn’t take into account the entire life cycle of its environmental impacts is irresponsible practice. To accept that environmental considerations are a luxury that we cannot afford is no more credible than saying we can’t afford to make cars with seatbelts.

So it’s up to us—the consumers—to support companies that take the environment seriously. They need to further the cause that their visionary owners embrace. When we demonstrate that we’re spending money on green energy, smarter building, sustainable agriculture and responsible travel, and there’s a dollar value on our green economy, then maybe our “common future” will be noticed by those in charge.

By Paul Cassel, Publisher of Our Green Home

Paul Cassel is President of Up Marketing, a sustainability focused marketing and communications company.

So you’ve decided to make your home more energy efficient. Fortunately, retrofits are becoming more affordable thanks to a variety of grant and incentive programs.

ONTARIO HOME ENERGY AUDIT AND RETROFIT REBATES:
These two programs provide homeowners with up to $150 towards the cost of a home energy audit and rebates of up to $10,000 for retrofits that address the energy issues identified in the audit.
www.homeenergyontario.ca
1-888-688-4636

$100 rebate for each toilet you replace with a low flush or dual flush toilet
$500 for replacing your domestic hot water system with an instantaneous gas water heater
Up to $60 for replacing your exterior door with an ENERGY STAR model
$60 for installing a minimum of five electronic thermostats for your electric baseboard heaters
$600 for replacing your wood-burning appliance with a model that meets the wood burning appliance standards or a wood pellet stove
$800 for installing an ENERGY STAR qualified air source heat pump
$40 rebate for a window air conditioner
$1200 for replacing your heating equipment with an ENERGY STAR qualified oil or gas boiler
$1200 for replacing your oil furnace with an ENERGY STAR rated furnace
$200 for sealing your basement heaters with an insulation value RSI 3.5 (a measure of thermal resistance)
$800 for insulating 100% of your crawl space total wall surface
$300 for improving the air tightness of your home and reaching the target amount that is in your energy efficiency evaluation report. Go 20% over and add a bonus rebate of $150
$600 for certifying a Home Ventilating Institute heat recovery ventilator
$2800 for replacing the heat pump unit for an existing earth energy system
$7000 for installing an energy efficient CAN/CSAC 448 compliant earth-energy system

COOL SAVINGS REBATE PROGRAM

$25 rebate when a program-registered contractor installs a programmable thermostat
$125 rebate for replacing an existing furnace with the purchase of a mid or high efficiency furnace
$250 rebate for the replacement of an existing central air conditioner, heat pump or ductless split system
$400 rebate when you have an existing CAC replaced with the purchase and installation of a stand-alone CEE “tier 2” level CAC system or heat pump (Must already have CAC system or furnace)
www.everykilowattcounts.com/residential/coolsavings
1-877-797-9473.

ADDITIONAL REBATES AND MONEY SAVING INCENTIVES CAN BE FOUND AT:
www.ontario.ca/additup 1-800-565-4923
www.gogreenontario.ca 1-800-565-4923
www.ecoaction.gc.ca 1-800-622-6232
www.trd.fin.gov.on.ca 1-800-263-7965
www.cleanairfoundation.org

By Jim Harris

With the launch of an energy program that pays homeowners for solar power, it’s the best time ever to make green energy choices

Ontario Power Authority’s (OPA) microFIT (Feed-in-Tariff) program pays 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for solar power over a 20-year contract and has been inundated with applications since its inception. Installing the largest system possible costs $70,000 and pays the homeowner $10,000 a year, which means the system pays for itself in seven years.

But before installing a solar photovoltaic (PV) system, homeowners should make sure even faster payback items are completed first. Energy efficiency is the cheapest means of power generation. The average Canadian homeowner can save $17,000 of energy over five years with an average of three and half year paybacks, claims Godo Stoyke’s in Carbon Busters’ Home Energy Hand Book.

The first step to becoming more efficient is to get an energy audit from an independent certified energy advisor. Three experienced Toronto auditors are GreenSaver, Enwise Power Solutions, and the Windfall Ecology Centre. An audit costs up to $360 and the provincial government will rebate half of this amount up to $150.

Energy advisors recommend energy efficient improvements for your home from least cost to more expensive options. Typical improvements include: draft proofing, increasing insulation in your attic and walls, replacing old appliances with new energy efficient ones, switching from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs, and installing efficient windows. Once you’ve done this, your heating and air conditioning demands may be cut in half, so you could get a newer, smaller, more efficient furnace when it comes time to replace your old one.

In terms of appliances, you could be saving $800, $1,300, or $700 over the life of your refrigerator, washer and freezer respectively. And, as electricity rates rise in the future, these savings will increase.

Homeowners can get a rebate of up to $5,000 from the province of Ontario for energy efficiency improvements and Toronto residents can get another $1,000 under the Home Energy Assistance (HEAT) program.

Reaping the rewards of your newly retrofitted, energy efficient home, you’ll have some extra money to invest.

While an investment of $30,000 to $70,000 for solar power is sizeable, Tom Rand, the MaRS Discovery District’s Cleantech Advisor, makes the economic case: if the energy savings combined with what OPA pays you are greater than your debt servicing requirements, your investment is cash flow positive from day one. So, you’re making money while adding to the value of your property.

Assume you invest $20,000 to retrofit your home for energy efficiency and $30,000 to install solar PV. If you take out a $50,000 mortgage on your house at four and a half per cent interest for a fixed five-year term with a 38-year amortization period and monthly payments of $228, you’d make $248 a month from the OPA payments alone, and your energy savings would add to this figure.

There are community buying groups which streamline the process for home owners, while achieving lower pricing through bulk purchasing.  Toronto city councilor, Joe Mihevc and Earth Day Canada President, Jed Goldberg were both part of the West Toronto Initiative for Solar Energy (WISE) along with Ken Traynor. Together they went through the myriad choices the group had to agree upon: the solar PV supplier, the installer, and the contracts details. Following the experience, Traynor founded Toronto Renewable Energy Cooperative, which guides community groups through the process. There are now eight Toronto buying groups and another five throughout Ontario. For a list of groups see OurPower.ca.

If you do choose to try the microFIT program, you will have to wait three months to have your application processed. Some 13,500 microFit applications flooded into the OPA, far exceeded expectations, says Ben Chin, OPA Vice President of Communications. More than 99 per cent are for solar PV.

Of course, there are many other home power generation options, including solar hot water system, micro wind turbines, geothermal or air sourced heat pumps such as the Acadia, which can be installed with 70 per cent less capital cost than geothermal.

And to top it all off, you can buy 100 per cent green electricity from Bullfrog Power, which produces power only from wind, solar and low impact hydro.

Jim Harris is a bestselling author, National Post columnist and management consultant, jimh@jimharris.com.

By Cynthia McQueen

Every locavore knows farmers feed cities. And, they fly their “I eat local” flags high. But do they know why eating local in Ontario is a very unique experience?

Local food producers supply Toronto’s 30 farmers’ markets by taking advantage of one of the largest and most diverse greenbelts in the world—the Ontario Greenbelt.

The Greater Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt has become a model for the world in keeping the grey green. With 7,100 working farms, including world-class vineyards, the international community has taken notice. Wildlife, habitat, land, water and air are all benefiting from this five-year-old experiment that Wayne Roberts, Toronto’s former Food Policy Project Coordinator, calls an unusual thing.

“It’s a greenbelt that protects both farming and at risk landscape and at risk plants and animals. It’s what we call a working landscape” says Roberts.

And, the landscape works hard. Ontario’s Greenbelt maintains more than 50 per cent agricultural land use while saving 1.8 million hectares of environmentally sensitive land from development and urban sprawl.

And, it does all this while protecting more than half a million acres of lakes, wetlands, river valleys, forests, and habitat for wildlife and endangered species.

At the same time, the Greenbelt purifies our water. Farmland, wetlands, forests, and natural areas allow rainwater to trickle into the ground where it follows the aquifers, results in springs, and feeds the rivers and lakes.

“But if you have asphalt, the water will collect; it will pick up dog sh-t; it will pick up cigarette butts; it will pick up bubblegum; it will pick up oil that was spilled from cars and other stuff, and it funnels it into a sewer system,” explains Burkhard Mausberg, President of the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation.

Before the city installed tanks to contain rainwater overflow, the constant rain Toronto experienced in early June would have closed the beaches due to E. Coli contamination from the accumulation of animal feces in the storm water. Preventing problems like these from recurring, Mausberg says, is why we need more open spaces.

The Holland Marsh, just 50 kilometres north of Toronto, is one of those open spaces and an essential part of what makes the Greenbelt class 1 farmland—the highest class. Every year, enough carrots and onions are grown in the peat-moss-like soil of the marsh for every man, woman, and child in Canada to eat four pounds each.

“We like to call ourselves both the soup and salad bowl of Ontario,” says Jamie Reaume, Executive Director of the Holland Marsh Growers’ Association. He calls the marsh a gift to Ontario. In order to maintain that gift, 40-50 per cent of those onions and carrots, go to soup and salad bowls in America’s northeastern seaboard. Because local consumers do not pay the true cost of food production, many farmers struggle to make a living.

Food at supermarkets is cheap because farmers are competing in global markets with food produced on the other side of the world by people who are not paid a fair wage, says Lori Stahlbrand, Founder and President, Local Food Plus.

By supporting your local farmers, you pay more of the true cost of food up front, which makes the food seem more expensive. “We don’t pay the true cost of food at the supermarket, we pay for it down the road in terms of long distance transportation, environmental degradation, and our health,” explains Dr. Lauren Baker, Director of Sustain Ontario.

But local doesn’t necessarily mean sustainable. If something is grown locally, but uses pesticides, that’s just as problematic as buying sustainable food shipped in from thousands of miles away.

Reaume says getting food from places we can’t locate on a map is not sustainable.

For whatever reason a locavore chooses to eat food grown nearby, in Ontario, when you eat locally, you help maintain habitat for over 60 endangered species of plants and animals, while curbing urban sprawl, and purifying our water. It may seem, to some, like a costly investment, but to others it’s an investment in the future.

Roberts sees the cost this way: “I would eat locally for the same reason I would buy life insurance—I hope to live and if I don’t live I’d like to have my family well looked after.”

In the same vain, Mausberg relates the Greenbelt to our health as a system and an organic social network. He suggests the Greenbelt is similar to OHIP. “Fifty years ago somebody said, we should have OHIP and people sort of looked at this as odd. But look at how health care has defined us as a culture. In 50 years, we’re going to look at the Greenbelt with the same lens and say, ‘How smart were we to put that land aside.’”

Cynthia McQueen is a freelance journalist and the copy editor of Corporate Knights Magazine in Toronto – cynthia.mcqueen@gmail.com. ]]> http://ourgreenhome.ca/2010/07/09/greenbelt/feed/ 0 http://ourgreenhome.ca/2010/07/08/pedal-power-in-the-city/ http://ourgreenhome.ca/2010/07/08/pedal-power-in-the-city/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:58:15 +0000 Ariel http://ourgreenhome.ca/?p=1337 By Christina Bouchard

You can see it.  You can sense it out on the roads and the trails.  More and more people in Toronto are cycling.  In fact, whether it’s a trip to the grocery store, commuting to work or spending a day on the trails with the family, more people are using bicycles than ever before.

A City of Toronto survey recently found more than half of all adults in Toronto are cyclists .  They may not ride every day, but the majority of people in Toronto who own and use bikes, out-number people who don’t ride at all.

A third of cyclists use their bicycles for practical purposes—for work, school, shopping, and other errands and thirty-six percent of residents in downtown Toronto cycle for practical, day-to-day purposes.

What does this trend mean for the future?  All road users stand to benefit from the increase in cyclists.  In fact, Toronto needs bikes to keep our population moving.  The GTA is the fastest growing region in Ontario, with its population projected to increase by 3.1 million, or 51.7 per cent by 2036.

As Toronto’s population increases, the amount of  road space remains finite.  For this reason, bikes are an important part of Toronto’s overall transportation mix. For distances up to 10 kilometres, cycling is often the fastest mode of transportation from door to door in urban cores .  They park well too—10 bikes can easily fit in the space necessary for one car.

Looking at major urban centres around the world, it is likely this trend will continue. Evidence suggests, when it comes to cycling, there is safety in numbers. While the number of cyclists has increased every year, the number of collisions has not .  The more bike riders using the road, the safer our roads are becoming for pedal-powered people.

The “safety in numbers” trend can be attributed to road-user awareness. Motorists who also ride are more aware of cyclists on the road, expect to share the road with bikes, and are more cautious.

Expanding cycling infrastructure is the most effective means to encourage more cycling.  Toronto’s Bikeway Network has grown from 166 kilometres in 2001 to more than 420 kilometres by 2010. Although 72 per cent of Toronto residents feel that cycling infrastructure has improved, they also want more bikeways. And the growing number of cyclists on the road and trails supports investments in new cycling infrastructure.

If you want to discover Toronto’s Bikeway Network of multi-use trails, dedicated lanes, and suggested routes to plan out a bike ride, you can obtain a free cycling map by calling 311 Toronto, or view the online version at www.toronto.ca/cycling

The arrival of summer, the warm weather, and longer daylight hours certainly mean

spending more time outdoors. Whether you have vacation time ahead or are simply looking for fun-in-the-sun, consider recreational cycling as a greener, healthier, and cheaper activity for your summer escape.

Toronto offers numerous locations to getaway locally, but the best in the city are not always on the mainland, notes Manuel Cappel. As the owner of Cappel Custom Carts, he has been a resident of the bike-exclusive islands since the 1950s, and has been building custom bikes and trailers for more than a decade. Cappel notes that recreational biking is ideal on trails that lead away from the hectic streams of traffic. And the Islands—known for being the largest car-free community in North America—can provide just that.

“Anywhere on the islands is great: there are no vehicles. You have to share the road, but you generally have the whole place to yourself.”

Cappel recommends riders to visit Hanlan’s Point, located on the west side of Centre Island. It has a number of paved trails by the waterfront, and offers bicycle rental services as well as a picturesque park view, including the historic Gibraltar Point Lighthouse along the lakeshore. More than 10 picnic areas provide ample space to rest tired legs and refuel with seasonal treats from local snack bars.

Centre Island’s main boardwalk also makes for a pleasurable sojourn, despite more cycling traffic. The road running 1.5 kilometres from Ward’s Island to Centre Island provides equally beautiful scenery and a bustling, historic bicycle culture.

If leaving the mainland isn’t your preference, downtown Toronto’s Martin Goodman Trail by the waterfront runs 20 kilometres from the Humber River west to the Beaches Park east. Sights along the trail include the wildflower meadows at Humber Bay Park, Exhibition Place, the CN Tower, Toronto Music Gardens, and the Distillery Historic District. Additional information about Toronto’s many bike trails can be found at toronto.ca/parks.

For the more ambitious, explore the lush and pastoral Niagara Wine Trail, nestled between the Niagara Escarpment and Lake Ontario for a tour of 12 award-winning wineries. Wineries along the trail are open year-round for tastings, and registration is not required. Take a look at niagarawinetrail.org for more information about trails and prices.

And, if you’re looking for a beautiful rural ride, the Tour de Greenbelt, with three different route lengths—10 km, 20-30 km, and 40-55 km—is a fresh air festival offering riders a chance to stop and smell the Greenbelt. For more information visit tourdegreenbelt.ca.

Charlotte Yun is a Toronto-based freelance writer and editor.

By Albert Kwon

Renovating your floors can be a quick and cost-effective way to update your home or increase its resale value. While the main factors are usually cost, durability, appearance, and ease of installation sustainability is often overlooked.

Solid hardwood

Pros: Long lasting; Can be re-finished; Greatest added value to resale of home; Can be sourced from sustainable suppliers

Cons: Expensive; Not a simple D-I-Y project; Prone to shrinking and swelling; Caution needed when looking at FSC certification

Solid wood flooring is the more expensive choice for flooring. Depending on the source of the timber, the environmental cost may be even greater; local is better. Despite comparable costs to exotics, choosing North American wood reduces your environmental impact. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label offers consumers assurance the wood comes from a responsibly managed forest.

Michael Boulger of Nadurra Wood Corporation suggests asking flooring stores if they have FSC Chain of Custody (COC) certification. This means that the store purchases from FSC certified forests and suppliers. Worth noting: FSC Mixed Sources label indicates the supplier buys and sells FSC products, but not every single product is made with FSC certified wood.

Salvaged or Re-claimed

Pros:   Environmentally friendly; Embedded character and history

Cons: Can be expensive; Blemishes may be undesirable

Wood suppliers and flooring specialty stores will often carry salvaged or re-claimed wood. This type of wood can come from old buildings, timber cleared for land development, and even discarded wood products that are re-manufactured. Many people find the marks and blemishes part of the charm of salvaged wood.

Engineered-wood

Pros: Less expensive than solid hardwood for material and installation costs; Dimensionally stable; Can be refinished (but not as often as solid hardwood)

Cons: Adhesives can off gas volatile organic compounds (VOC); Commonly certified with FSC Mixed Source which may mean there is no certified wood in the product

This is a durable and inexpensive option since it is made from plies of low grade wood while the top layer is a veneer of higher quality wood. The glues used to bond the layers together may contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which off-gas into the atmosphere.

Like solid wood, the source of the top layer and core layers is important to consider. FSC Mixed Sources certification is common with engineered flooring which may mean that none of the wood comes from sustainable sources.

Laminates

Pros: Least inexpensive in material and installation costs; Long lasting

Cons: Medium-density fibreboard for core layers may contain formaldehyde; Adhesives in manufacture and installation may contain VOCs; Cannot be refinished

Laminate flooring is the best compromise between price and long life. Environmentally however, it is the most questionable. The core layers of laminates are typically made of medium or high-density fibreboard (MDF or HDF) which may contain formaldehyde. Another concern is the use of melamine plastic resin or aluminum oxide which increases the durability of the top or wear layer.

Bamboo

Pros: Bamboo matures quickly (3 to 9 years as opposed to 120 for oak); Can be as hard as oak, depending on how its made; Inexpensive in material cost and possibly installation costs

Cons: Comes from China so transportation impacts are a concern; Adhesives in manufacture may contain VOCs

Bamboo is another affordable and durable flooring option. It’s touted as harder than oak but that depends on how it’s manufactured. Carbonization forms the bamboo under high pressure steam but weakens the bamboo. Strand woven bamboo is stronger but may have formaldehyde or VOC in the adhesives.

Bamboo’s main advantage over wood is that it takes about three to nine years for the grass to mature while oak can take 120 years. Almost all bamboo comes from China so the environmental impact of transportation is a consideration.

Some alternatives are cork, palm wood, coconut timber, or cocowood.

Albert Kwon is an industrial designer with a passion for sustainability.

As I stood on a rickety old platform ready to embark on the longest zip line in the Arenal region, one that would propel me above the forest canopy at a speed of 60 miles per hour, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would make it to the other side. I was attached to a single steel cable 315 feet above the ground with three carabiners and a harness—my eyes half shut. I had come to see the lush rainforest from a bird’s eye view, yet could not summon the courage to look down. It wasn’t until the guide screamed to me, “Are you ready?” That is when I knew, I had no other choice but to jump, we had come too far to turn back. We were in Costa Rica.

Photo Credit: Celeste Cassel de Camps

Comprised of active volcanoes, a rich costal ecosystem, lush jungle flora, and an abundance of exotic animals, Costa Rica is as close to paradise as you can imagine. It is home to approximately six per cent of the world’s biodiversity, but only covers 0.3 per cent of the earth’s surface. There are more types of butterflies in Costa Rica than in all of Africa, over 1,500 types of orchids, and more bird species than in the U.S. and Canada combined. It is no wonder over two million visitors arrive each year.

However, Costa Rica was not always a tropical paradise. In fact, the nation was previously considered a world leader in deforestation. Between 1950 and 1990, over half of the forests were destroyed. Vast stretches of rainforest were burned to create cattle pasture and fruit plantations, owned by multinational corporations and the wealthy. This left much of the land in environmental ruin and caused the near extinction of the squirrel monkey, Mono Tiki.

Photo Credit: Celeste Cassel de Camps

Over the years Costa Rica has transformed its track record of deforestation into one of conservation. Today over one quarter of its land is set aside as protected land. The Monte Verde eco-lodge has enabled tourists to visit the cloud forest with minimal impact and efforts have been put towards the protection of the Leather Back Turtles’ nesting grounds.

None the less Costa Rica continues to face obstacles: an increasing number of foreign owned mega resorts, a steadily rising number of tourists and a lack of industry regulation. This allows any business, regardless of practice, to endow itself with the eco-friendly title.

As a traveller to Costa Rica you have the choice to go above and beyond the old adage, “take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints.” Play your part, do your research before go, ask questions while you are there, and make a conscious choice as to where you travel, spend, eat, sleep, and tour. Most importantly, keep your eyes open because it is the things we cannot see that have the greatest environmental impact.

Photo Credit: Celeste Cassel de Camps

5 great places to stay:

• Many’s House, Ballena, Puntarenas, www.manyshouse.com
• Casa Blanca, Tamarindo, Guanacaste, sydandlynne@shaw.ca
• Hotel La Mansion Inn, Lake Arenal, www.lamansionarenal.com
• Villa Manuel Antoni, Quepos www.villamanuelantonio.com
• Bosque del Tolomuco, above San Isidro de General www.bosquedeltolomuco.com

Tara Anderson is a yoga teacher, traveler and the owner of Creative Spirit Yoga.