Sustainability : In The News

The Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) has released its list of organizations who have made the finals for this year's "Hottest Innovation Companies" awards. CIX--an annual conference celebrating Canada's innovation economy--will take place on December 7th at the MaRS Centre in Toronto. As reported by Media Caster, 11 Toronto companies made the prestigious list.

"CIX, taking place December 7th at the MaRS Centre in Toronto, ON, provides a platform for these companies to showcase their great Canadian innovation while catalyzing strategic relationships and transactions across this dynamic sector."

"Congratulations to all our nominees for showing the best that Canada has to offer the world," said Rick Nathan, Co-Chair of the Canadian Innovation Exchange. "These companies truly reflect what Canadian business innovation means," added Robert Montgomery, Co-Chair of the Canadian Innovation Exchange."

"Finalists will make live presentations in front of leaders of major corporations, entrepreneurs and investors. Winners in each category will be announced at the Canadian Innovation Exchange on December 7, 2010 at the MaRS Discovery Centre, Toronto."

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original source Media Caster

Fast Company writes on Toronto's " doubly virtuous" 60 Richmond East Housing Co-operative, both a housing project for relocated hotel and restaurant workers and a urban mini-ecosystem where residents can grow their own produce. Designed by Teeple Architects for Toronto Community Housing, the 11-story, 85-unit complex was completed in March of 2010.

"Only in squeaky-clean Toronto could you find a housing development that's doubly virtuous, like this one. Designed by Teeple Architects, it houses hotel and restaurant workers relocated from another housing project. But the building is also designed to provide produce for a restaurant, so that the residents can make a living close to home."

"The architects collaborated with the city and a local labor union to create this award-winning structure. Teeple took inspiration from the residents' professions, installing a training kitchen on the ground floor and a sixth floor vegetable garden to supply it. Storm runoff from the roof irrigates the garden while composted waste from the kitchen fertilizes it. Teeple calls this self-sufficient mini-ecosystem "urban permaculture."

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original source Fast Company

As reported by ClickGreen UK, Toronto has joined New York and London in signing up to a unique carbon reporting scheme. The initiative, organized by global non-for-profit "The Carbon Disclosure Project" (CDP), provides a system for cities worldwide to report on their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related strategies.

"CDP Cities, in partnership with the C40 and the Clinton Climate initiative (CCI), has asked the largest cities in the world committed to tackling climate change – the 40 member cities and 19 affiliate member cities of the C40 – to voluntarily measure and report to CDP so the cities can proactively manage risks, reduce carbon and further adopt strategies that safeguard the future of cities."

"London, Toronto and New York have already agreed to report their carbon emissions data to CDP."

"Cities play an essential and leading role in accelerating solutions to climate change and C40 cities are already making a massive impact," said David Miller, Mayor of Toronto and chair of C40."

"CDP will provide a reporting platform that allows C40 cities to track their progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and share that critical data with each other and around the globe."

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original source ClickGreen UK

The Toronto Star writes on Bendale Business and Technical Institute, the Scarborough high school that is home Canada's first school-based market garden. Since the installation of garden beds on the high school's campus students have harvested over 1,800 pounds of food, all put to good use in the school's cafeterias and pay-what-you-can community markets.

"This is the cutting edge of edible education. What Bendale has is one step beyond a simple school garden but not quite an urban farm. It's believed to be Canada's first school-based market garden. It proves the educational value of food and all the ways it can be worked into the curriculum. And, if all goes as planned, Bendale will serve as a model for schools across the country."

"There are so many schools that could be turning their lawns into fields of food," says garden co-ordinator Ian Hepburn-Aley, a community food facilitator with FoodShare."

"FoodShare is a non-profit organization that tackles food and hunger issues through grassroots projects. It has helped 26 Toronto schools create food gardens and is working with five more on indoor/outdoor growing projects. Most are modest affairs, cared for by staff, students and parent volunteers. Many languish over the summer."

"What sets Bendale apart is its funding and its scale. The high school, on Midland Avenue north of Lawrence, experimented with two of FoodShare's small "Footprint Gardens." Then it was chosen to pilot a large-scale garden through an 11-month, $65,000 Ontario Community Go Green Fund grant, awarded to projects that reduce greenhouse gas omissions."

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original source Toronto Star

As reported by the CBC Toronto's bike-sharing program, known as Bixi, has officially signed up its 1,000th member. The City of Toronto had earlier pledged to support the program if Bixi could collect 1,000 membership pledges before this November. Now that the membership goal has been met the City will commit a $4.8-million startup loan for the bike-share program.

"When the program launches in May 2011, bikes will be available from 80 locations south of Bloor Street between Spadina Avenue and Jarvis Street. A resident or visitor will be able to use one of the bikes for a fee of $78 a year, $28 per month or $5 per day."

"Toronto will guarantee a $4.8-million startup loan for Bixi and has to dig up $600,000 in sponsorship deals. But the city is not directly funding the program. But the city is not directly funding the program. Public Bike System Company runs a similar Bixi program in Montreal, which has about 5,000 bikes parked at about 400 stations across the city."

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original source CBC

Route planning on Goolge Maps has recently become easier (and more fun) for Torontonians who navigate the city by transit. As reported by Torontoist a TTC function has finally been added to the popular internet trip planner.

"The addition of TTC to Google Maps fills in a substantial void in transit directions, as the service is already provided for GO Transit, York Region Transit, and the Hamilton Street Railway. Also, it joins the TTC's list of notable achievements in customer information in the past year, including a new mobile site, text-based next streetcar arrivals, and more next vehicle displays at subway stations."

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original source Torontoist

As reported by Blog TO, St. George and Harbord has recently become the first Toronto intersection to host bike boxes. Bike boxes--lines painted on the road marking a spot for cyclists to pull out in front of stopped traffic--were added to the City of Toronto Bike Plan in order to make turning on bike safer and easier.

"For those unfamiliar with bike boxes, they basically enable cyclists to pull out in front of stopped traffic so as to make turns more safely. They're particularly effective when turning left, but by giving cyclists a head start (intersections with bike boxes also feature no-right-on-red signs), they also help to diminish the chance of a cyclist being swiped when turning right. Cyclists might be a bit nervous the first time they try out a left hand turn in traffic, but by getting oneself visible, the endeavour is far safer. Just make sure to avoid oncoming traffic. Obviously!"

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original source Blog TO

The Evergreen Brick Works, one of Toronto's most anticipated development projects, has officially opened to the public. For the past eight years Evergreen, an environmental non-for-profit, has been working diligently to transform 16.5-hectares of the Don River flood plain into a lively and sustainable public space. The Brick Works--which now houses, among other amenities, a museum, a year-round camp, and a food market--has already been hailed by the Globe & Mail as "cultural beacon for Torontonians and tourists alike" and by the National Geographic as one of the "world's best geo-tourism destinations".

"In many ways, [the Evergreen Brick Works's] arrival – a definitive argument for a better conserved, more sustainable Toronto – could not be more timely, coming only weeks before a municipal election that many regard as a referendum on the shape of the city's future."

"In the course of a single day, depending on the season, visitors will be able to hike, fish, scale a 27-metre climbing tower, ice skate, study trees and plants, tend a garden, fix or ride a bicycle, study art, attend a lecture on urban issues, walk the Beltline (it starts right there), dine on Brad Long's family-oriented meals, explore for fossils, watch deer, picnic, and more."

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original source Globe & Mail

The Toronto Star writes on restaurant green roofs, the growing trend in Toronto's culinary scene. Featuring four celebrated Toronto restaurants -- Beast, Parts and Labour, Vertical and Weezie's -- the article looks at the challenges and the joys of growing your own food. An excerpt on Beast's green roof:

"Beast, 96 Tecumseth St."

"Growers: Rachelle and Scott Vivian, spouses and co-chefs, formerly of Church Street's Wine Bar."

"What they grow: Tomatoes, chili peppers, strawberries, edible calendula and nasturtium flowers, herbs and "corn by accident," said Rachelle. Planted on a whim, the cornstalks quickly shot up, and now the plants are flowering. The duo don't think they'll actually get cobs — but then again, they might."

"Challenges: Raccoons. One ate an entire plant of chili peppers. "I don't feel sorry for him," said Scott, "but I kind of do. Those things were spicy." Cucumbers and coriander just wouldn't grow, despite their best efforts."

"Joys: "Not having to go into the walk-in and open up a bag of herbs," said Scott. "That's definitely the most satisfying part."

"What they grow: Hard-to-find heirloom varieties of tomatoes, eggplant, hot peppers, peas, beans, and Swiss chard. Shehata is particularly proud of the more than 40 varieties of heirloom lettuce."

"How he grows it: McAuley trawls construction sites for leftover wood hoarding, which he builds into bins. The upcycled greenhouse is entirely made from found and salvaged windows and doors."

"Challenges: "This year we went full tilt and failed," said Shehata. "Which is fine." Blasting heat wilted many of the plants, a problem exacerbated by a spongy soil mixture that didn't allow fledgling plants to properly root."

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original source Toronto Star

The Energy Report interviews Vikas Ranja, co-founder and Managing Director of Toronto-based research firm, Ubika Research. In the interview Ranja discusses the importance and promise of the cleantech market segment that has a "whole range of technology that will enable humankind to basically conduct life in ways that are more eco-friendly and sustainable." An excerpt from the interview:

"TER: Are you noticing any trends in the [cleantech] market segment?"

"VR: Yes, absolutely. A couple of years ago when you talked about cleantech, the discussion mostly centered on alternative energy with a focus on wind, solar and, to a certain extent, geothermal companies. But in the last three years or so, there's been an acknowledgment that cleantech is much more than renewable power generation. This move toward a broader classification is a really big change."

"Another big change would be the growth of a whole set of companies that focus on very basic problems, for example, methods of providing clean drinking water to the vast majority of the global population, and more efficient technologies for waste management, especially in developing countries."

"We are seeing a growing acceptance of clean technologies in these areas, and you can see increased participation among the governments, especially in the developed world. Governments are actively supporting this sector through various programs and some subsidies."

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original source Energy Report

The Globe & Mail looks at the "greening" of Canada's largest cities; municipal governments across the country continue to take bold steps to create cleaner more sustainable urban environments. In Toronto this has meant, among other initiatives, an increase in green architecture and more downtown bike lanes.

"Concerns about the environment have topped opinion polls for the last five to 10 years, says Pascoal Gomes, a spokesman for Montreal's Urban Ecology Centre."

"But in ever-increasing numbers, people — and cities — are acting on those concerns."

"I think people are waking up to the fact that while we might still be OK, our children and grandchildren might not be," said Beate Bowron, a consultant with the Canadian Institute of Planners."

"...Some buildings in Toronto are being built without any parking whatsoever. There's a building on University Avenue, a condo development, that's being built with no parking. That's fairly radical," she said."

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original source Globe & Mail

By the end of next month Toronto will be home to North America's greenest hostel. As reported by the Globe & Mail (and by Yonge Street back in February), Kensington Market's Planet Traveller is on schedule to complete an impressive $160,000 green renovation. The focal point of the project will be its underground geothermal heating-and-cooling system: eight loops of geothermal piping drilled into an adjacent street that will serve almost all of the hostel's energy needs.

"When the doors to North America's greenest hostel opens next month at 357 College St., the most exciting feature won't be anywhere inside, but instead 115 metres below ground in the adjacent alleyway. That's where the glycol liquid in eight geothermal loops will turn the corner and start heading back above ground to heat or cool the hostel."

"Once you get three metres underground, the earth stays a constant 10 degrees Celsius all year. This is a source of relative heat in the winter and cold in the summer. The system exploits the temperature discrepancy by using small amounts of electricity to pump glycol through the underground pipes and collect that heat or cold. Heat exchangers inside the hostel pull the heat or cold from the glycol and send as much as is needed into the rooms."

"The hostel is hoping to attract young visitors from overseas looking for a cheap doss and a communal living scene. Dorms will be $30 a night and rooms will go for $70. Utility bills should follow close on the heels of the first guests, but with expected savings of up to $2,000 a month, the owners expect to have the investment paid off within eight years. After that, it's green gravy. By that time, a geothermal drilling rig might be a more common sight in Toronto. Mr. Rand had to go through 14 city departments to get permits for the pipe installation, but the city has since set up a task force to streamline geothermal development in city-owned alleyways and parkland."

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original source Globe & Mail

As reported by Science Daily, a team of University of Toronto scientists have discovered how to substantially reduce the cost of solar energy. The breakthrough could mean a proliferation of the already inexpensive technology.

"The researchers have invented a solar panel that uses inexpensive nickel in the place of gold, One of the most promising technologies for making inexpensive but reasonably efficient solar photovoltaic cells just got much cheaper. Scientists at the University of Toronto in Canada have shown that inexpensive nickel can work just as well as gold for one of the critical electrical contacts that gather the electrical current produced by their colloidal quantum dot solar cells."

"The change to nickel can reduce the cell's already low material costs by 40 to 80 percent, says Lukasz Brzozowski, the director of the Photovoltaics Research Program in Professor Ted Sargent's group. They present their research in the July 12, 2010 issue of Applied Physics Letters, which is published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP)."

"Quantum dots are nanoscale bits of a semiconductor material that are created using low-cost, high-throughput chemical reactions in liquid solutions. Since their properties vary according to their size, quantum dots can be made to match the illumination spectrum. Half of all sunlight, for example, is in the infrared wavelengths, most of which cannot be collected by silicon-based solar cells. Sargent's group has pioneered the design and development of quantum dot solar cells that gather both visible and infrared light. They have reached a power-conversion efficiency as high as 5 percent and aim to improve that to 10 percent before commercialization."

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original source Science Daily

The Huffington Post interviews Debbie Baxter, VP of Corporate Sustainability for the Toronto-based company LoyaltyOne. Baxter has spearheaded a number of green initiatives at LoyaltyOne--a company that advises business on customer loyalty prgorams--earning her two green awards in the past year. An excerpt from the interview:

"Tell me about some of LoyaltyOne's sustainability initiatives."

"We have a passionate environmentalist as leader (Bryan Pearson, President and CEO), and that makes all the difference. But much of what we do begins in a grassroots way: people suggest and we respond. All the things you might imagine, like a recycling program that diverts up to 90 percent of all waste, and an environmental fair to help people learn about the issues and green products and services.

We've partnered with local transit authorities so that employees can take public transit to work -- and when our people told us that meetings in the middle of the day meant they still had to drive downtown, we struck a deal with a local autoshare company, and now team members drive around in branded Smart cars. Plus, by the end of this year, 85 percent of our staff will be working in LEED certified spaces (LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council). Our Mississauga-based Customer Care Centre is a LEED gold building. And the solar system on its roof is the largest of its kind in Canada."

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original source Huffington Post

The Toronto Star writes on Keep Leaf, a Toronto company that designs stylish eco-friendly products. Founded by Torontonian Jaswinder Salh, Keep Leaf sells a range of green products but is best known for its reusable bags, currently sold at more than 50 stores across Ontario.

"Salh launched Keep Leaf with two products. The Shopper is a polyester reusable shopping bag, which conveniently folds up into a small pouch. It comes in a variety of solid colours from navy to pink and retails for $6.95."

"The Produce Bag, used for storing fruits, vegetables and bulk items, comes in mesh and solid weave fabrics, two different sizes and either polyester or cotton. A set of four cotton produce bags costs $16.95."

"Early on, Salh turned to her contacts in the retail and fashion industry for feedback, which helped shaped the brand. She ensured Keep Leaf products had streamlined packaging and stylish display options. "In order for consumers to choose reusable over the convenience of disposable, the reusable product must entice with more than just its green credentials," Salh says."

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original source Toronto Star