What's Your Big Green Idea?

At the Sustainable Engineers Association Conference on Jan 15th, I challenged students to provide their big green ideas. What can the Provincial government be doing to be greener?Below are the responses. I've since put them on dotmocracy sheets and asked some of my colleagues if they agree. View the results of voting HERE.

• Light rail in the median – should be more widespread (already beingplanned on Hwy 407); we should catch up; in between densely populated urban areas it would be a huge energy saver and also immune to congestion
• Driver education interms of awareness of cyclists and how to treat them on the roads
• Promotion of warm mix asphalt
• Smaller buses onthe road, especially on lesspopulated routes and off-peak hours; smaller buses are more than enough for these applications and are more efficient
• DVP bicycle tram (light rail) with major pick-up points (Salma Saad)
• Major bike arteries, with private and tax deductible funding (Salma Saad)
• Wider bicycle lanes on all major roads, like in Beijing, China
• Single fare system between cities/regions. It is too expensive to commute downtown when you need to buy multiple passes (Radhika Sagar)
• Piezoelectric type panels for electricity generation
• Eliminate HOV lanes; they are not a way of saving the environment and a wasted lane when cars sit and idle
• Increase cost of driving by charging road tolls; Implement a car tax a la Denmark
• Solar cells on top of cars to power them or contribute to some of its power. In parking lots it can be plugged in to a system and the owner can get a cut of the electricity made off the parked car. Rest goes to owner of land. (Armin Hamta)
• Wind generation along sides of busy highways; storing energy (heat) from busy highways that surrounding communities can tap in to.
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Hot Yam

I ate at Hot Yam yesterday. Run by student volunteers at the University of Toronto, it's a mostly local, mostly organic, and entirely vegan lunch for only $4. Not only is it healthy food to nourish you, it tastes amazing. It could just be the best deal in town. Available only on Thursdays from 12-2pm at the International Student Centre (33 St. George St.). Check out some recipes here.

Sustainable Engineers Association 2011 Conference

On January 29th, 2011 I attended the 1st Annual Sustainable Engineers Association (SEA) Conference.

I was really impressed with this student organization at the University of Toronto, which was only formed last May. Students are driving the change; they are are asking better questions about sustainability, are bridging disciplinary boundaries, and are playing a larger role in creating a world that will subsist for generations to come.

Jean-Francois Bergoum from IBM said that innovation and environment are related: you can’t deal with either without running into the other. IBM has set a priority to use its technology to make the world greener. The more information you have, the better decisions you can make. Many of the world’s problems are information problems. Check out the Smarter Cities Challenge.

Graeme Stewart talked about urban building renewal. Toronto is a city of towers, and the biggest challenge of sustainability in North America is how to make the suburbs work. Sustainability is about how we consume. Eco-refurbishment of the city’s 2000 concrete towers built between 1945-1980 can reduce their collective environmental footprint by 60%. You also have to look at neighbourhoods as a whole. Zoning is a human-made problem. The simplest thing you can do for sustainability and livability in a neighbourhood is to add a fruit stand.

Jane Huang from Zenn motor company gave an overview of the future of electric cars. Electric cars provide high efficiency, no emissions, low operating costs, and low noise pollution -- the future looks bright. Tesla Roadster, 2011 Chevy Volt, 2011 Nissan Leaf, 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV, and BYD e6 are already generating a lot of buzz.

Trish Yee from Steamwhistle Brewery showed that going green makes a great business case. The Good Beer Folks have incredible corporate culture and vision. Their green intiatives include:

• all natural ingredients
• green bottles, green planet: 33% more glass means minimum 45 refills per bottle vs 12-15 refills for industry brown bottle
• painted label eliminates contaminants from paper, dye, glue, saves water and energy
• bio-cups made of corn resin, fully biogradeable and compostable
• 100% on green electricity (Bullfrog power), premium $25,000/year
• cleaner fuel for cleaner air, smart car/minis/hybrids, truck fleet use biofuel made from soya and recycled restaurant oil
• keeping cool: water drawn from below lake to cool plant
• energy efficient equipment
• energy efficient lighting
• waste diversion
• clean air commute

I also had the honour of presenting and talked about how "sustainability superheroes" at the Ministry of Transportation are building momentum for a greener organization. I'll share some of the ideas from the audience in a future posting.

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