Conference Wrapup-Feb-5-2007

From Common Energy UVic

Draft - These are straight rough notes from the Wrap-Up session

Contents 1 Business & the Economy: 2 Food: 3 Energy: 4 Transportation: 5 Miscellaneous: 6 Buildings, Infrastructure, and Ecology: 7 Civic Engagement and Governance:: 8 Next Steps

[edit] Business & the Economy:

• Education for students:
  • Teach green business in commerce & environmental studies programs.
  • Coop: pull together faculty and students and create green business plans as research projects for credit.
• UVic can lead investment in green technologies.
• Link groups already working on climate stuff to make bigger network.
• UVic can lead green business innovation and provide info for geen business leaders.
  • Using purchasing power for influence.

[edit] Food:

• 2 groups: consumption & supply.
• Consumption:
  • How do we work with consumption on campus?
    • Educate students & change policies to allow local sustainable food to be implemented into UVic food system.
    • How do we get students excited about food? One-off events to get a following.
    • Composting & waste
• Supply: mind-map.
  • Directions to go in: 5 main themes:
    • Land (preservation of existing agricultural land, using unused spaces for food production, CJBI lands - 30.7 acres of previously agricultural land): What can we do with it? Having agricultural land on campus is about producing ppl who understand food issues, not just about producing food).
    • Local farmers - how can support them?
    • Provincial network (e.g. of sustainability activists).
    • Education
    • Policy (e.g. purchasing policy)
• Plug: UVic law conference on March 14-15 evenings: Food & Law
• Legalities

[edit] Energy:

• Measure before manage: need to really understand energy usage first in UVic & region: 1st step comprehensive review of energy usage.
• Competition between buildings with awards e.g. dinner parties, reduced rate gym passes.
• Inter-university competition preying on university egos.
• Solutions:
  • Reductions scenarios: what do 30%, 50%, 80% reductions scenarios actually look like? Comprehensive modelling process of what that would actually look like.
• Carbon trade market - start at UVIc? Create an alternative currency. Simulate a carbon market for different buildings for educational purposes.
• Industrial partners - giving them more access to research avenues at UVic.
  • Getting ethanol for solid waste - there is a businesswoman who has $ for it, but no way to get the research done.
• Impact of academics through airplane travel? Globally 30% of emissions come from airplane travel. The minute you get in a plane your green footprint goes out the window.
  • 1st step of measuring would pick this up. May be way more important than changing bus transportation system.
• How do you know the carbon offsets you're buying are real? The best ones are gold standard - run by international organization.
• "Shaming people" for their air travel footprints? (Minute-taker interjects: might not be a good idea to shame the people we're trying to collaborate with.)

[edit] Transportation:

• Bike transportation: more accessible bike lanes, bike travel more attractive. No car routes. Police donate stolen bikes. Pushing university to provide funding for Spokes.
• Light rail: transit priority corridor starting at Herald to Western communities and Sidney - bus priority will change to light rail. Pushing for something along McKenzie and linking it to the other route. Once you get over initial costs, light rail safer, easier to operate, as long as you have the density to support it (& we think we do have that density along McKenzie).
• Improvements to transit systems:
  • Get more people on buses.
  • Integrating bikes & buses.
• Low status image of buses: associated with low income. Lots of people "too good" for buses. How do we change the image and make buses cool? How do you make it competitive with cars?
• Governments currently flush with cash and environment forefront on the agenda, so this is a prime time to push for infrastructure changes.
  • Letters to editor.
  • Attend all-candidates meetings.
  • Take all opportunities to speak to media.
  • Attend all public forums.
• Cruise ship industry: big polluters. Inc. 400% in last ? years in Victoria - head tax to compensate for environmental impact, use money to fund transit reform.
• transitwiki.ca: information hub. Can find all info in one place.
• Wiki training groups!!

[edit] Miscellaneous:

• Knowledgebase plug.
• Key job for working groups to build KnowledgeBase.

[edit] Buildings, Infrastructure, and Ecology:

• How can UVic become an intergenerational community with people from all different age groups? Foster a sense of collective responsibilities.
• Water: sprinklers don't turn off when it rains, which is silly, and also water cement. Something about collecting water somehow.
• Green roofs: retrofitting buildings so the roofs can support greenery on top.
• How can we make UVic adopt policy that all buildings be built Leed Gold? Make popular option for others by setting example. Reduce cost.
• Triple bottom line. Health as a selling point: buildings that are healthier to work in create more academic outputs (better marks etc.) Health a useful way to sell programs.
  • 2 useful intersections with food: 1. Rooftop gardens instead of green roofs so we can produce food while we're at it. 2. Food picked locally is more nutrient-rich b/c not transported.
• Replace monoculture grass with native grass.
• Have UVic as a statement to the public. We're all part of a living ecosystem. Symbolism.
• Generating electricity from waste from buildings.
• Art 2000: Canada recognized as having a lot of expertise in building. Art2000 software used for Energuide for Houses program.
• Plug: student last semester at environmental law clinic worked on project getting municipalities to invest upfront in LSD (LLC?) program. Can we use capital to give resident's capital to put solar panels on roof? It's lawful and within rights of city to do that. Heat hot water for free at home. Don't have to pay all cost upfront b/c municipality put capital towards. (Didn't quite get this one. Can someone fill in the details?)
• Green something program: getting sustainable energy/technology installed in houses. Big scale integration with BC hydro and local suppliers. Had positive interest from BC hydro.
• Get students involved with university. Hands-on experience.
• Grad class gifts directed toward retrofits.
• Waterloo: wat greens(???) (Brandy, can you fill this one in? I didn't quite hear.) OSF endowment fund: for environmental studies students' projects.

[edit] Civic Engagement and Governance::

• Missing students - how do we get them?
  • Bring it to the students: class talks.
  • Go to student events like sports games.
  • Get a student elected to municipality. (??)
• Competition between municipalities.
• Influencing CRD: read letters out loud at council meetings.
  • Oak Bay municipality climate change task force tabled. Coming up at Oak Bay Municipal Council meeting Feb 12th at 7:30. CRD thing, so people from all different municipalities can attend. At Oak Bay Municipal Hall.
  • Municipalities and CRD have processes. Need to request form, fill out, and make sure received before can read letter at meeting. Make sure you understand the due process of your local hall.
• Triple Bottom Line: financial, social, environmental. We're missing one: quadruple bottom line? Spiritual bottom line? Increasing efficiency & tweaking system won't get us there. Change of consciousness needed, and usually has spiritual component.
• VanCity, dockside green, get a campaign going here, get a bunch of signatures, and get a site. Physical demonstration site. *Research agenda tied into other universities and groups.

[edit] Next Steps

Jamie:

• Working groups.
• Reach out to broader student, faculty, and regional partner community.
• More context & specificity: Kinsale, Ireland: 20 students tasked with creating a plan to wean town off fossil fuels. Instead of making it abstract & academic, went out and worked with community leaders (business, religious etc.) using whole series of public engagements. At the end, because of this engagement, project was useful and accurate, and public consultation process created political support.
• Start charting meaningful pathways to climate-friendly future.
• We have much more expertise and a larger community than Kinsale. Enormous land base and economic engine. Integrated strategy: research & operational capacities brought together. Today just preliminary stage.
• Hope many sign up for working groups. 4 ways to engage: 1. general participant going to weekly meetings 2. operational level: communicator, coodinator, & writer. Can be more than one per group (but at least 1). Communicator: lots of classroom speaking, go out and get ppl you need. Coordinator: logistics. Writers: turns working group product into coherent larger document - Beyond Climate Neutral Plan.

Naomi:

• Feel free to stay and keep talking.

Jill:

• Thank you everyone.