Toronto Becomes First City To Mandate Green Roofs. Summer is just around the corner, and for those who live in big cities, that means spring warmth will soon give way to searing heat. Green roofs can help regulate city temperatures, giving people, and the electrical grid, a much needed break. Toronto is the first city in North America with a bylaw that requires roofs to be green. And we're not talking about paint. A green roof, also known as a living roof, uses various hardy plants to create a barrier between the sun's rays and the tiles or shingles of the roof.
The plants love the sun, and the building (and its inhabitants) enjoy more comfortable indoor temperatures as a result. Toronto's new legislation will require all residential, commercial and institutional buildings over 2,000 square meters to have between 20 and 60 percent living roofs. Although it's been in place since early 2010, the bylaw will apply to new industrial development as of April 30, 2012. But lower utility bills aren't the only benefit of planting a living roof.
SDG Index | SDG Index and Dashboard | SDG Index & Dashboards | A Global Report. Solar Towns | Department of the Environment and Energy. Latest news 2015-16 Solar Towns Programme (Round 2) successful applicants announced On 31 January 2016 Minister for the Environment announced the outcomes of the 2015-16 Solar Towns Programme (Round 2). 17 applications were successful under the round with a total value of $294,709 (GST exclusive). 2015-16 Solar Towns Programme (Round 2) - successful projects 2015-16 Solar Towns Programme (Round 3) now closed Find out more - applications have now closed About the Solar Towns Programme The Solar Towns Programme was established as part of the Australian Government’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as described within the “Clean Air” component of its “Plan for a Cleaner Environment”.
Funding of $2.1 million (GST exclusive) is provided for the programme to support community organisations who wish to install a renewable energy system (solar photovoltaic panels or a solar hot water system only) on an existing building that provides support to the local community. Local gabe village, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea Photo. Local gabe village, Port Moresby Port Moresby is the capital and was named after Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby. Another major center is Lae, the second largest city situated at the mouth of the Markham River. SOURCE: Courtesy of Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion Authority, used with permission. To submit a photo for inclusion in this web site, please send e-mail for instructions. NOTE: The information regarding Papua New Guinea on this page is re-published from Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion Authority. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Papua New Guinea information contained here.
All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Papua New Guinea should be addressed to Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion Authority. - Please bookmark this page (add it to your favorites) About Papua New Guinea | UNDP in Papua New Guinea. INF8 Making%20cities%20inclusive,%20safe,%20resilient%20and%20sustainable. Sustainable Cities: Challenges and Opportunities in Japan. Thought leaders from across Japan’s energy sector gathered in Tokyo last week to discuss the role energy will play in adapting the country’s cities to a challenging environment of aging and declining population and increasing dependence on foreign sources for food and fuel.
Tokyo-Yokohama, the world’s largest urban concentration, is already in many ways in the vanguard of the future of urban centers. What happens in this mega city is being watched closely across the planet for ideas to emulate or avoid. (Read more about the event here, and see video perspectives from the participants here.) Japan as a whole has demonstrated extraordinary determination and resilience to conserve energy after shutting down its nuclear facilities in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, but everyone in the country knows more needs to be done for long-term energy security. Cities have many issues. The choices and decisions made by Tokyo will receive global attention. Fourth Session: Mobility. What Do We Need to Build Sustainable Cities? Every so often, I find it important to reset and to re-envision what a successful future looks like. This article seeks to take a step back and revisit the fundamentals of what the building of a sustainable city requires.
The footprint of cities is a heavy contributor to the un-sustainability of life on the planet; each city takes much more than its total land area to support the population that lives, works, and plays there. It’s a mind boggling fact that over half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and this number will increase to about two thirds of the world’s population by 2050. That means that today, 3.9 billion people are living in cities, and that number will continue to rise exponentially. Tokyo, Japan is today’s most populous city, with 38 million dwellers; followed by Delhi, India with a population of 25 million people and expected to grow to 36 million by 2030. In the U.S., 81% of our population of 320 million live in urban areas or suburbs as of this year. 8 Overarching Urban Systems That Make a City Sustainable. Because cities are so complex - as complex, you might say, as a living organism - sustainable cities are much more difficult to achieve than green buildings or environmentally friendly cars.
For example, it’s not enough to have sustainable buildings in your city if they are all really far apart and everyone has to drive long distances to get around -- that would be like eating a salad followed by fried chicken. Simply stated, one strategy on it’s own is simply not enough to make an entire city sustainable, rather what's needed is a series of strategies. According to author Timothy Beatley in his book Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities, there are eight overarching systems that need to work together to make a city sustainable.
Learn more about them after the jump. 1: Sustainable land use planning and urban form 2: Innovative housing strategies Housing in dense, walkable neighborhoods, typically in mixed-use environments, is one example of a sustainable housing strategy. Sustainability Programs. An eco-city. Our achievements We practice what we preach. After more than fifteen years of working to become one of the world’s most sustainable cities, our organisation became carbon neutral in 2012. We built Council House 2, Australia’s first 6 Star Green Star new office design in 2006. In 2014 Library at The Dock was completed through a unique partnership between Lend Lease, City of Melbourne and Places Victoria. We are also working hard to reduce our emissions impact through financing of up to $30m from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Long-term community goal What we'll aim for: an eco-city. We'll track progress in terms of: municipal emissions: tonnes of greenhouse pollution (CO2 – e) per resident and per worker in the municipality.
The Council's four-year outcomes. Earth Overshoot Day. In 8 Months, Humanity Exhausts Earth's Budget for the Year August 20 is Earth Overshoot Day 2013, marking the date when humanity exhausted nature’s budget for the year. We are now operating in overdraft. For the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Just as a bank statement tracks income against expenditures, Global Footprint Network measures humanity’s demand for and supply of natural resources and ecological services.
And the data is sobering. Global Footprint Network estimates that in approximately eight months, we demand more renewable resources and C02 sequestration than what the planet can provide for an entire year. In 1993, Earth Overshoot Day—the approximate date our resource consumption for a given year exceeds the planet’s ability to replenish—fell on October 21. The Cost of Ecological Overspending Methodology and Projections Click here for the 2013 press release. Are the world’s megacities too big? Are the world’s megacities becoming a sprawling, overfed, and uncontrollable mass that needs to be restrained for the good of society and the environment? This column suggests that policies aimed at reducing the dispersion in city sizes will hardly improve the wellbeing of the people who live there. If anything, in some developing countries, such as China, large cities may actually be too small. The trend in urbanisation is continuing unabated across the globe.
According to the UN, by 2025 close to 5 billion people will live in urbanised areas. But the debate is not so much about whether people should move to cities or stay in the countryside. Following this argument, if New York is bigger than Williamsport, it must be better in terms of efficiency, amenities, or governance. But how much better, if at all, would life become? In recent research (Desmet and Rossi-Hansberg 2010), we propose answers to these questions. Au, C-C and JV Henderson (2006), “Are Chinese Cities Too Small?” Grants and funding | Department of the Environment and Energy, Australian Government. Big Energy Question: How Do We Make Cities Sustainable? He world's cities occupy 4 percent of the Earth's land area, yet they are home to more than half of the world's people.
By 2030, that percentage will swell to 60 percent. Indeed, the United Nations projects that cities will absorb most of the world's population increase between now and 2050—more than two billion people—with the vast majority of urban expansion taking place in the developing world. (See related quiz: "What You Don't Know About Cities and Energy. ") Growing urbanization can be a plus for the environment, because people who live in dense cities drive less, their living spaces use less energy, and they require fewer resources. In your view, what is the most important thing we can do to make cities more livable and sustainable in their use of energy? How to Build a Sustainable City. Can Technology Make Green, Sustainable Cities? What is at the heart of a sustainable city? If you look at this ranking, which considers Vancouver, San Francisco, Oslo, Curitiba, and Copenhagen, as the most sustainable cities in the world, it appears that lots of green technology is key.
Vancouver is heavy with renewable energy including lots of hydropower and it has the lowest per capita carbon footprint on the continent. San Francisco has great air quality, waste management and commuting options. Oslo is literally green, with two-thirds of its area covered with trees. They also have great bike and car-sharing options and its city-wide district heating system uses 80 percent renewable fuels. Curitiba is famous for its mass-transit system. They have also substantial green space, and have a very successful recycling program. Of course, this begs the question of whether a green city is a smart city and whether either of these is a great city. He calls these three stages EV-ready, EV-willing and EV-able. And H.V. Making cities sustainable with urban agriculture. Even in remote places such as Irkutsk in Siberia with its very short growing season, I have seen people cultivate an great variety of vegetables, including cucumbers and tomatoes, in well insulated greenhouses, both for home supply as well as for sale in We need to find efficient and environmentally enhancing ways of feeding ourselves.
To this end we need to initiate new processes of 'ecological densification' - making good, well considered use of limited areas of land - to meet increased food demands by increasing numbers of people. In many countries large minorities of people grow food in and around cities. In countries where rural-urban migration is prevalent, many people become urban and peri-urban food producers, on a full or part-time basis.
According to the UNDP, some 800 million people were engaged in urban agriculture worldwide in 1999. Cities such as Havana, Accra, Dar-es-Salaam and Shanghai have been studied extensively. Putting organic wastes to productive use. Making our cities attractive and sustainable. Smart cities: innovation in energy will drive sustainable cities | Guardian Sustainable Business. Cities represent three quarters of energy consumption and 80% of CO2 emissions worldwide, and represent the largest of any environmental policy challenge. Urbanisation is only set to increase, cities house half the world's population today but are set to host three quarters in 2050.
To cope with this continued urban growth we will need to invent new ways to manage cities and make them more effective. The convergence between digital technology and the world of energy, or Energy 3.0, will pave the way for a new ecosystem of services which will enable both a better quality of life and reduced energy consumption. The pathway to more sustainable cities Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the first widely used web browser, famously said that "Software is eating the world".
Network Rail is one of the businesses driving forward innovation. Extending the Internet of Things to create smart cities This requires working on open and non-proprietary standards. Empowering people in smart cities. Sustainable Australia Report 2013. Victorian Government back in the race to be smart energy leader // Energy Efficiency Council. Home - CRC for Low Carbon Living. National Energy Productivity Plan (NEPP) Top Content On 4 December 2015, the Council of Australian Governments Energy Council released the National Energy Productivity Plan (NEPP) and initial Work Plan of measures.
The NEPP provides a framework and an initial economy-wide work plan designed to accelerate action to deliver a 40 per cent improvement in Australia’s energy productivity by 2030. In better coordinating energy efficiency, energy market reform and climate policy, it brings together new and existing measures from across the COAG Energy Council’s work program, as well as from the Commonwealth and industry. The NEPP aims to improve energy productivity by driving: more productive consumer choices, through measures which make consumer energy choices easier, help business compete and provide more efficient incentives; andmore productive energy services, through measures which support innovation, competitive modern markets and consumer protection.
Data Dashboards | SDG Index & Dashboards | A Global Report. SDG Index | SDG Index and Dashboard | SDG Index & Dashboards | A Global Report. Werribee Plains Project | ACF. Sustainable House Day 2016. This Mexico City Building Eats Smog For Lunch. There are plenty of architects these days who are doing their best to design buildings that are energy efficient and utilize green technology. And then there’s Allison Dring and Daniel Schwaag of the Berlin-based firm Elegant Embellishments. For Torre de Especialidades, a hospital with a new tower currently under construction in Mexico City, the duo has developed a tile called proSolve370e, which will cover the façade of the building. The tile’s shape and chemical coating will help neutralize the chemicals present in the city’s smog. Yes, that’s right, this building will literally eat pollution. Dring tells TakePart that Elegant Embellishments was formed in 2006 as a kind of architectural start-up to self-initiate projects that incorporate new and often invisible technologies.
She adds that, “A common thread in our work is the visual articulation of technologies that have the potential to alleviate the ecological impact of cities but often require a reexamination of current practices. Campaign for Good Urban Governance. Inclusive Urban Governance for informal Slum Dwellers. Bill Gates is turning sewage sludge into safe drinking water. Sustainable Design | Girard. Towards African cities without slums. What is universal basic income, and how could it lift millions out of poverty? | Business. The Inclusive City. Sustainable cities depend on empowered citizens.
MIT Students Create A Brick That Could End Pollution From Dirty Brick Kilns. Liveable Cities Blog - Healthy Cities | Sustainability | Regional Development. Green cities - Sustainable Melbourne. How to Design a City for Women. Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) The Power of Micro Urban Structures, Theory of EEPGC - the ... Cities - United Nations Sustainable Development Action 2015. Sustainable Development Goals | Global Compact Network Australia.