Vol4 MeasuringCityResilience. Why Incumbents Fail – And What That Means for Sustainability. What If London Were a National Park City? Join or die: How utilities are coping with 100% renewable energy goals | Utility Dive. On June 6, 2017, Santa Barbara, Calif., became the 30th U.S. city committed to getting 100% of its power from renewable energy. Just six months later, on Nov. 29, Truckee, Calif., became the 50th city to make the pledge. More 100% commitments are in the works. Over 150 Republican and Democratic Mayors have endorsed the objective. The United States Conference of Mayors in June approved a resolution reaffirming its support of the Paris Climate Agreement and of policies to grow renewables and cut emissions.
Recently, former President Barack Obama applauded the 45-plus Mayors who signed the just-released Chicago Climate Charter endorsing the Paris agreement. The pact called for specific policies and actions to reduce emissions, including using more renewables. This growing momentum is driven by two key factors, according to Jodie Van Horn, Executive Director of Ready for 100, a division of the Sierra Club pushing 100% renewables. Success stories “We have to address climate change,” he added. Look at the big picture, avoid groupthink, remember history. The Transformation of Sustainable Development | GreenBiz. Sustainable development is being transformed. Since its foundation as a set of philosophical principles and values, sustainable development has evolved to a more specific and significant set of applications that is redefining business models, changing the scope of policy initiatives, transforming governance and expanding the voices of global citizens.
Tweetmeme_url = ' From the compliance and “command and control” decision making of previous generations, the growing imperative of sustainable development has given rise to a more dynamic and interactive process at global, regional and local levels. Business and civil society leaders, with increasing support from selected governments, strategic and sophisticated specialists, investors and innovators, are guiding the process. -- Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary General February 5, 2009 Changing Priorities From Assertion to Accountability and Transparency. Resilience isn't the new sustainability — it's a whole new market | GreenBiz. I would have made a hopeless librarian.
My desks, both at home and in the office, look as if Genghis Khan’s troops have just passed through. But I know where to find stuff. Happily, too, my brain constantly snaps new organizational frameworks over the wider world, imposing order on apparent chaos. For example, I recently was playing around with yet another A-to-Z of terms used to describe the evolving stretch agenda for business, from Abundance through to Zeroing. Working through the alphabet, there proved to be many contenders for the R slot, but I’d be tempted to drape that mantle around the shoulders of resilience. This is a term I recall hearing for the first time, at least in the context of climate, in a conversation high above Lake Geneva outside the headquarters of the World Economic Forum.
This was back in 2006 or 2007 — and a major consultancy firm was insisting that resilience was set to be "the new sustainability. " Rethinking resilience Visualization will be crucial. What integrated sustainability really means | GreenBiz. For more than 20 years, I've been among those promoting a more integrated approach to sustainability. It's not just about the environment and resources, I keep reminding people. It's about systems: understanding their interconnections, the viability of their long-term trends, their limits. And sustainable development is about changing systems — for the better.
In my books, articles, training courses, even my songs, I've hit that message over and over for decades. I invented the "Sustainability Compass" to try to make the links between nature, economy, society and human well-being simpler and more intuitive. But lately, I've realized that I don't have to work so hard at broadcasting this message. Preaching to the choir My work as a consultant allows me the opportunity to talk with senior officials and executives, in many places around the world. 1. 2. 3. Those are real quotes from real people, but the signs go well beyond personal anecdotes. How to set the stage for transformation. Business and government must collaborate on resilience | GreenBiz. Following the impact of Superstorm Sandy in October 2012, the concept of resilience and its relationship to sustainability has been attracting a great deal of attention on the part of policy makers, business executives and community leaders.
There are many interpretations of resilience in fields as diverse as medicine, ecology, engineering, urban affairs, finance and supply-chain management. From a systems perspective, resilience has been defined as the “capacity for a system to survive, adapt, and flourish in the face of turbulent change and uncertainty.” For communities and corporations, resilience implies preparedness and agility. At a national scale, resilience is closely linked with the security and sustainability of critical resources, including water, energy, food and minerals, and many valuable services that we receive from the environment. In practice, sustainability is both a goal and process.
Businesses are already responding to resilience. Resilience.io - integrated tools and collaboration for financing and decision making for resilience. On the antifragility of cities and of their buildings | City, Territory and Architecture | Full Text. Let us make a brief detour on the concept of “smartness” from the perspective of antifragility, all the more befitting since the concept has of late become rather fashionable in the debates on urban planning and design. As one can gather from the ending of the previous quote from Taleb, there is one important difference between antifragility and smartness: something can be antifragile without being smart, without intentionality, also “by chance”.
Indeed, can an object or a system devoid of intentionality and incapable of design be called smart or intelligent at all? In a sense, the evolution constitutes an example of a behaviour that “works”. But, should we call a thing that works smart, rather than, say, fit? Should the effect of a thing that works be called smart adaptation, rather than simply the survival of the fittest? Let us make a few friendly critical remarks on the concept of smart cities. Then there is the definition by Caragliu et al. (2009): Let us clear the air. Strong Towns. Principles – Circles of Sustainability. The Circles of Social Life approach begins with the proposition that principles for better cities should be grounded in a general framework that concerns the human condition, rather than just a set of proposals that are added together from different current or fashionable concerns.
We begin with the idea that there should be fundamental principles that relate to the basic domains of social life: ecology, economics, politics and culture. Within this proposed framework of four domains it is possible to suggest a very simple set of Principles for Better Cities that are systematically connected but can be readily understood. The following list was drafted through extensive global consultation during the PrepCity process led by the City of Berlin. Forums were held in Buenos Aires (2015), Mexico City (2016) and Berlin (2016).
First-Level Principles Positive ecological sustainability Ecology: Urban settlements should have a deeper and more integrated relationship with nature. America’s First All-Renewable-Energy City. To understand what makes Burlington unlike almost any other city in America when it comes to the power it consumes, it helps to look inside the train that rolls into town every day. The 24 freight cars that pull up to the city’s power plant aren’t packed with Appalachian coal or Canadian fuel oil but wood. Each day 1,800 tons of pine and timber slash, sustainably harvested within a 60-mile radius and ground into wood chips, is fed into the roaring furnaces of the McNeil Generating Station, pumping out nearly half of the city’s electricity needs. Much of the rest of what Burlington’s 42,000 citizens need to keep the lights on comes from a combination of hydroelectric power drawn from a plant it built a half mile up Vermont's Winooski River, four wind turbines on nearby Georgia Mountain and a massive array of solar panels at the airport.
The environmental sustainability revolution has spread to other sectors of civic life. Story Continued Below Tidy it is, and also financially effective. City Energy Project | A Joint Project of NRDC + IMT. Home | What Works Cities - What Works Cities. GREEN MAGIC HOMES - The most beautiful Green Homes ever. Can you imagine living under your garden, your flowers, your trees, in a green vibrant living landscape? All this is can be possible with GREEN MAGIC HOMES technology. These elegant arched structures are made of fiber reinforced polymer modular components which are durable, flexible and waterproof. With endless design possibilities, these structures can be assembled quickly and easily, with minimal cost to create a gracious living environment in harmony with nature.
Green Magic Homes Corp. establishes strategic alliance with Canadian company to offer cutting edge Solar and Wind technology. You can finance your new Green Magic Home with LightStream, a subsidiary of SunTrust Banks Inc. See: LightStream PLANT N.1 - México - In Production Now PLANT N.2 - Spain – In Production Now PLANT N.3 - Spain – In Production Now Coming Soon: PLANT N.4 - Argentina PLANT N.5 - Brazil PLANT N.6 - South Africa PLANT N.7 - Mexico (U.S. We are in the process of approval for Eurocodes. Advocates Say Climate Right for Resilience Ratings | The Bond Buyer.
BOSTON — Climate experts and municipal issuers see the capital markets — investors with more than $70 trillion in assets under management — as valued financing streams for resilience and green projects. Transparent carrot-and-stick bond rating criteria along resiliency lines would help, they say. "Now is the time to be pushing infrastructure projects," South Miami, Fla., Mayor Philip Stoddard, an aquatic scientist, said in an interview.
"By the time sea levels are rising, no one's going to loan us money. " Quirky weather is in the national headlines more frequently. As August began, and just as President Obama unveiled a major climate-change plan, severe flooding hit Tampa, Fla.; wildfires struck Northern California; a tornado touched down in Michigan; and severe thunderstorms knocked out power in parts of southern New England. Regions such as South Florida and the Gulf Coast are notably vulnerable, though not alone. According to the U.S. 100 Resilient Cities. Intelligent Cities - Smart Cities - Innovation Εcosystems. Publications | City Protocol. The City Protocol Task Force is an independent community of global thought leaders and experts who collaborate in Teams to conduct research and development activities in order to develop protocol elements and arrive at City Protocol Agreements.
Conditions and Limitations City Protocol is committed to providing an open platform for cities and others in order to advance city transformation. All City Protocol content published on this website may be freely copied, used and distributed provided that you give appropriate and clear attribution to the City Protocol Society (and the authors of the content being copied, used or distributed), including a link to the content on our website. You must also disclose whether you have made any abridgment or other changes to the document you have copied, used or distributed. Information Agreements City Anatomy: A Framework to support City Governance, Evaluation and Transformation Task Team: ANCHA Authors: V Guallart, F Giralt. Anatomy Indicators Authors: L. Urban resilience. Ability of a city to function after a crisis Urban resilience has conventionally been defined as the "measurable ability of any urban system, with its inhabitants, to maintain continuity through all shocks and stresses, while positively adapting and transforming towards sustainability".[1] Therefore, a resilient city is one that assesses, plans and acts to prepare for and respond to hazards - natural and human-made, sudden and slow-onset, expected and unexpected.
More recently, there has been an increasing attention to genealogies of urban resilience [8] and the capability of urban systems to adapt to changing conditions.[9][10] This branch of resilience theory builds on a notion of cities as highly complex adaptive systems. The implication of this insight is to move urban planning away from conventional approaches based in geometric plans to an approach informed by network science that involves less interference in the functioning of cities. Sustainable Development Goal 11[edit] Third U.S. City Goes 100% Renewable.
Aspen is one of three U.S. cities to run on 100 percent renewable energy as of today, according to city officials. The Colorado mountain town is best known for its posh ski resorts, but this beautiful town also has established itself as a leader in environmental stewardship. The city had been using about 75 to 80 percent renewable energy until Thursday when it signed a contract with wholesale electric energy provider Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, in order “to achieve this final leg of our goal,” David Hornbacher, utilities and environmental initiatives director, told The Aspen Times.
The goal was proposed 10 years ago as part of the city’s Canary Initiative, which “identifies Aspen and other mountain communities as canaries in the coal mine with respect to their sensitivity to the effects of climate change.” “It was a very forward-thinking goal and truly remarkable achievement,” Hornbacher said. Obama Snaps Epic Selfie With Bear Grylls in Alaska. This Big Texas City Will Soon Be Powered Entirely By Wind And Sun.
GEORGETOWN, TEXAS – There’s a fast-growing city in Texas that also has one of the most progressive energy programs in the country — and it’s not Austin. Located about 30 miles north of the Texas capital in a deeply conservative county, the city of Georgetown will be powered 100 percent by renewable energy within the next couple years. Georgetown’s residents and elected officials made the decision to invest in two large renewable energy projects, one solar and one wind, not because they reduced greenhouse gas emissions or sent a message about the viability of renewable energy — but because it just made sense, according to Mayor Dale Ross. “This was a business decision and it was a no-brainer,” Ross told ThinkProgress from his office along one of the city’s main thoroughfares.
“This is a long-term source of power that creates cost certainty, brings economic development, uses less water, and helps the environment.” CREDIT: ThinkProgress/Patrick Smith CREDIT: ThinkProgress/Ari Phillips. A Town Saves Money with Renewable Energy. Scituate is the first town in Massachusetts to power all of its government services using only renewable energy. All municipal services - including water, sewer, municipal buildings, and streetlights - will soon be powered by the sun and the wind. The town expects to save over $400,000 per year in electricity costs and the best part is that they didn’t have to buy the solar panels or wind turbine. Too good to be true? Here’s the deal.
Private investors purchased and installed the equipment on municipal land, so those companies paid for and own the equipment. First, Use Less Energy The first step in saving money on energy is not to generate your own, but to use less. Next, Generate Energy After improving their efficiency, they hired a consulting firm to do a wind site analysis. Still under construction is a 3 megawatt photovoltaic array, which is being built on a municipal landfill. Images courtesy of the Town of Scituate Use the Grid for “Virtual Storage” Payback Period Not a bad deal! Britain's First Solar Powered Town? Inspiring Story Continues (Video) Go 100% Renewable Energy : City of Aspen - 100% Renewable Power by 2015.
Go 100% Renewable Energy : Welcome. German town goes off the grid. Drake Landing Solar Community. Texas city opts for 100% renewable energy – to save cash, not the planet | Environment. 100 Resilient Cities. 2015 Best-Performing Cities. Go 100% Renewable Energy : Fukushima Prefecture - 100% RE by 2040. Solar Energy (Freiburg, Germany) הבטים כלכלים על עצמאות אנרגטית. Greenest-city-2020-action-plan-2013-2014-implementation-update. Eco-Cities | In Focus - ECOPIA.