CHALLENGE: Unsustainable urban expansion OPPORTUNITY: Comprehensive planning
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ore than half the world’s population currently lives in cities; by the middle of this century, that figure could hit 75 percent. Cities are responsible for two-thirds of human energy use and 70 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions, consume vast quantities of water, and produce enormous amounts of waste—all on just 2 percent of the world’s surface area. How we design, build and live in our cities will have an outsized impact on the planet’s future. But many cities appear blind to this, lumbering forward on outdated building codes, leaking infrastructure and archaic, car-centered layouts. And then there’s Vancouver. Through its Greenest City 2020 initiative, the Canadian metropolis has developed a 10-point plan to tackle everything from jobs and investment
emitted from sewage pipes, and at first the city’s engineer balked. “I said, ‘Here’s the business card of an engineer in Switzerland, where they’ve been doing this for years,’” Cadman recalls. “So he called the guy.” The technology, which involves wrapping sewage pipe with a coil that collects the heat, debuted at the Olympics and now supplies 70 percent of the annual energy demand in Southeast False Creek, the neighborhood that encompasses the village. The program, known as a Neighborhood Energy Utility, has already lowered local greenhouse emissions from buildings by 74 percent (surpassing expectations of a 62 percent average annual reduction). Elsewhere in the city, sustainable development is taking shape. Vancouver updated its mass transit to accommodate bicycles and built urban bike lanes that are physically separate from
HOW WE DESIGN, BUILD AND LIVE IN OUR CITIES WILL HAVE AN OUTSIZED IMPACT ON THE PLANET’S FUTURE. to buildings, transportation, waste and even food—all to emerge as the world’s most sustainable city. A decade ago Vancouver vowed to meet Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas emission standards citywide, and to exceed them by 20 percent within the government. Later, city leaders decided to reduce emissions 80 percent by 2050. And then they asked a radical question: “If we want to be the greenest city in the world, what do we need to do?” recalls David Cadman, a former Vancouver city council member who helped conceive the green blueprint and is now president of ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability. Borrowing ideas and technology from cities the world over, Vancouver began designing itself a smart future. Cadman proposed heating the Vancouver Olympic Village by tapping waste heat
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the streets. Today, residents make 40 percent of their trips in the city on foot, bike or public transportation (the goal is two-thirds of all trips by 2040). To help conserve water, the city now requires water meters on all new residential water services. And Vancouver has adopted the greenest building code in North America. Every city is unique, of course, and not everything that works in Vancouver makes sense elsewhere. As a city already lauded for its quality of life, Vancouver could afford to set strict policies for developers. But the central ideas behind Greenest City are replicable in a broad sense: The way forward is a combination of creativity, smart policy and will. Vancouver’s efforts show that cities can thrive (the greater region of 2.3 million people is growing at 5 percent per year) while using fewer, not more, resources.