Case Study: Vancouver, British Columbia

The Metro Vancouver area includes Vancouver, British Columbia (B.C.) and its neighboring municipalities. Although this urban region is home to over half of B.C.’s population, it makes up less than 4% of the province’s land mass. The City of Vancouver’s civic government has incorporated numerous environmental initiatives and used its regional influence to become the world’s greenest city by 2020. To make real environmental progress on important issues like, like air quality, Vancouver has taken an interdisciplinary approach to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by incorporating urban planning, transportation engineering, and waste management. To remain accountable the progress is reported in the form of reports titled Vancouver’s Greenest City 2020 Action Plan (2016-2017 Implementation Update).

Vancouver requires greater energy efficiency in housing construction and applicable new apartments built in the downtown core, aiming to connect to the existing steam energy grid. The city connects clean air ideas on housing and transportation by encouraging density along rapid transit corridors. Further transportation efforts have reduced vehicle trips per person by 32%, in part, through expansion of the Skytrain light-rail transit system. This effort is coupled with an increase of the bike lane network to 311 kms, many of which are separated from vehicle traffic for cyclist safety.

The City of Vancouver has made its fleet more fuel efficient by procuring electric or hybrid cars to conduct city business. In the field of waste reduction, additional GHG reductions include an improved bio-methane capture system at the city-owned landfill, which reportedly captures 74% of the gas produced. The city continues to close this loop by moving to natural gas equipment, such as garbage trucks that can then use this for fuel. Further, regional regulations now require all residential and commercial organic food and plant waste to be separated from the garbage stream for composting. The project results have been astounding, and since 2007 the citizens of Vancouver now send 27% less waste to the landfill or incinerator. The environmental benefits of composting organic material come from a significantly reducing the transportation of materials to a local processor, and eliminating the production of methane gas, which is 25 times more harmful than the Carbon Dioxide used in composting.

Even though Vancouver continues to grow as a city, it is nearly halfway to reaching its goal to reduce GHG emissions by 33% of 2007 levels. These achievements are despite the Conservative Party withdrawing Canada from its Kyoto Protocol obligations in 2012. The steps Vancouver has taken are politically difficult and financially costly to implement, however, highlight the impact of the determined citizens can make.

Source: Vancouver’s Greenest City 2020 Action Plan (2016-2017 Implementation Update)