By Glen Korstrom
Critics have charged that Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson’s efforts to make Vancouver the greenest city in the world by 2020 are hurting business.
They cite traffic snarl-ups caused by bike lanes and question whether spending $120,000 to send Robertson, Councillor Raymond Louie, staff and representatives from the Vancouver Economic Development Commission to China for the Vancouver Green Business Mission provides the best bang for the buck.
Robertson left for China September 4 along with representatives from 22 businesses in the clean technology, renewable energy and digital media sectors.
“It’s purely digital media and the green sector. I thought that that was narrowly focused,” said Toby Chu, who is CEO of CIBT Education Group (TSX-V:MBA).
“Digital media is a sub-segment of the education industry. I would think the green sector and education sector would make a wider spread.”
Chu said he would like to take part in a trade mission to China along with other business leaders who aim to capitalize on the market for international students.
He pointed to a recent Rosyln Kunin & Associates report that showed Canada attracted $6.5 billion in spending from international students in 2008.
The U.S., U.K. and Australia all attracted more international student spending.
Robertson, however, showed that his efforts to focus on sustainability are starting to bear fruit when he announced September 9 from Shanghai that the city is partnering with IT giant Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO) and Vancouver-based energy management firm Pulse Energy Inc. to manage energy use in city buildings, reduce carbon footprints and increase efficiency in data centres.
The city will deploy a pilot of some Cisco technology combined with Pulse software to monitor and manage energy consumption in several city-owned buildings, including city hall.
These innovations would make Vancouver what Robertson considers to be a “living lab” that showcases eco-friendly efforts and B.C. technologies.
Robertson told Business in Vancouver September 3 that it was not an ideological decision to focus on sustainability over other sectors.
“These are the fastest-growing industries globally right now. Vancouver is world class in these industries. It’s matching Vancouver’s strengths and our incredible talent in these sectors with the market globally, which is growing in leaps and bounds,” he said. “We’re also focusing on tourism and transportation on this trip. We have approved destination status [from China[ so we’re doing an event with Tourism Vancouver at the [Shanghai] Expo,” Robertson said.
Business leaders travelling with Robertson told BIV that they have noticed a radical shift in China’s openness to environmental sustainability initiatives and that now is the time to strike business partnerships in that area.
“For the longest time, China really hasn’t cared about [green building practices],” said Martin Nielsen, who is a principal at the architecture firm Busby Perkins + Will. “What we’re seeing is an absolute sea-change in the past couple of years. We worked in China probably five or six years ago.
We had disappointing results and lack of control over the end product in terms of what was built and [China had] zero interest in sustainable initiatives.”
Nielsen added that he’s now in discussions with a developer who wants to set up a research department and building in Vancouver. Technology and ideas created at that facility would then be put in place in China.
“All the initiatives we could do locally are meaningless if China does not get on board,” Nielsen said. “They understand the severity of the situation and they’re looking for both technology and ideas.”
Representatives from a dozen Canadian bioenergy and forest companies were similarly impressed when they visited Beijing on a trade mission in May.
Demand from 75 Chinese investors for one-on-one meetings exceeded available time. That group returned convinced that as much as $500 million could soon be invested in its industry and that the Canadian Bioenergy Association’s annual conference at Vancouver’s Wall Centre on September 30 and October 1 could be a launch pad for potential deals (see “Bioenergy producers look to soak up Chinese investment” – issue 1084; August 3-9).