A thousand and one green initiatives Zeweed takes you to Vancouver today, as Canada’s most westerly city is also a metropolis at the cutting edge of urban sustainability. This successful ecological transition is the result of the “Greenest City 2020 Action Plan”, a winning bet launched 6 years ago by former mayor Gregor Patterson. Let’s discover Vancouver(t), “North America’s greenest city”.
You only have to play a game like the famous city simulator SimCity™ to understand the complexity of urban territories. Between transportation, construction and waste management, it’s extremely complex to combine improved living conditions for residents with ecology. Yet this is the feat achieved by the City of Vancouver and its former mayor, Gregor Robertson, thanks to a plan that spanned his 10-year term from 2008 to 2018.
The first step for the mayor behind the “Greenest City 2020 Action Plan” was to reduce the city’s carbon footprint. To achieve this, a building heating system that re-uses wastewater was set up in the city’s Olympic Village, community gardens were created and a large number of additional public transport services were introduced. These include an additional metro line and a fleet of electric buses.
Of course, to give these initiatives even the slightest chance of success, they need the support of the general public and businesses.
As luck would have it, popular support for his new measures was immediate, which isn’t all that surprising when you consider the city’s ecological history. Indeed, it was here that Greenpeace was founded by 14 anti-nuclear environmental activists in 1971.
Since the reforms began in 2008, the amount of waste has fallen by more than 25%, thanks to a collective composting system, available to all, which feeds the community gardens mentioned above. The municipality’s goal is to achieve zero waste by 2040.
Thanks to the new infrastructure, more than half the population now uses public transport, and most young hipsters cycle (with an average of 3,100 cyclists in the city center every day).
Nearly 10 percent of the population uses the 275 km of bike paths every day, which are renowned for their safety; Radio Canada even calls them “the most popular bike paths in North America” in this article.
Finally, because it’s impossible to plan every trip for public transport, 2,000 charging points have been set up for electric cars.
A good way to improve air quality by adapting to individual needs.
The objectives set by Gregor Robertson for 2020 have been largely achieved, but this is not going to stop, despite the change in the city’s management.
The current mayor, Kennedy Stewart, is clearly heading in the same direction. The former parliamentarian (who, incidentally, resigned from that post to become mayor) is known for his progressive, environmentalist stance. Despite his clearly left-leaning stance – his other priorities are poor housing and strengthening support for public workers – he is the first “non-party” independent candidate to be elected to this position in the City of Vancouver.
Much of his credibility stems from his radical opposition to the Continental “Kinder Morgan” pipeline project, which was authorized at the federal level but would have decimated Canadian mountains and native lands.
