If you’re on the hunt for places to get a free cup of coffee and a serving of sustainability, don’t miss the monthly Sustainability Breakfasts hosted by Metro Vancouver and Vancity. Held downtown, they offer updates about all sorts of sustainability topics, a chance to learn who is doing what (and ask questions) and an opportunity to put in your own one-minute update if you wish.
Past topics have included regional food strategy, zero waste in retail, trends in eco-labelling and, of course, a consistent dose of what’s going on within the regional government’s jurisdictional areas.
It’s not a formal curriculum, but it’s where sustainability is at – you learn from people who are figuring it out in real time as they move forward.
An example was the most recent breakfast session, focused on the new Seymour-Capilano water filtration plant.
The world’s largest UV-treated water disinfection facility, the plant has significantly reduced the amount of chlorine required to produce clean drinking water by more effectively filtering organic material from it through non-chemical means. But that’s just part of the plant’s sustainability story. Here are a few tidbits I gleaned, that could be applicable to any business sustainability challenge.
Work on the Seymour-Capilano plant was really launched in 1994, when the board of the Greater Vancouver Water District passed a resolution to minimize the amount chemical treatment required for municipal water. That set the bar, and allowed for innovation and exploring outside the box.
The plant was built in the midst of second-growth forest – habitat to both wildlife and human hikers, bikers and nature lovers. As one speaker, retired engineer Peter Thompson, commented, “Twelve years ago projects were built and inserted on communities. Now, they’re built in collaboration with communities.”
He should know; he served on the still-running community monitoring advisory committee, a group of residents who were involved step by step in the planning and decision-making about the plant.
As a result, he chuckled as he caught himself referring to “we” as he described the plant’s development – so real was the sense of ownership and involvement.
That’s from a starting point where people were up in arms about the idea of a major infrastructure project going into their backyards. Thompson pointed out that an independent facilitator, transparent sharing of information, plenty of listening and trust-building on both sides had led to collaborative outcomes and an ability to move ahead; not to mention citizen advocates willing to speak up for the regional government’s work at a community breakfast meeting.
This idea was floated by Mark Ferguson, another speaker. The division manager for water and wastewater treatment engineering, Ferguson said the site was originally slated to be cleared with “no respect for what was there.”
Slowed by community concerns, the team studied flora and fauna, including First Nations’ historic usages. The plant’s location was shifted to accommodate a local pond, and members of the public were invited to come prior to construction and salvage hundreds of native plants for use in other green spaces and gardens.
Through input from knowledgeable community members, the site was designed to retain large woody debris, protecting frogs, which, in turn, keep the place clear of mosquitoes.
“If your projects don’t have a community handprint, they’ll be doomed to failure,” Ferguson said. Even for companies that don’t build mega-developments, it’s an idea worth remembering.
Ferguson also spoke about the green building features of the plant itself – a LEED gold facility. An intriguing fact is that all the concrete used in the building was manufactured on site. That saved as many as 100,000 truck trips and cut carbon emissions substantially.
The project used a concrete formulation that replaces a portion of the cement with fly ash, a byproduct of coal-fired power plants (environmentally friendly because it recycles industrial byproducts and reduces cement, a high-emissions input).
Ferguson commented that some structural engineers thought they were crazy to try this, “but sustainability is about pushing the limits.”
He also noted that this innovative bit of building technology is already more accepted than it was a few years ago, when it was “out on the edge.” Sustainability solutions are catching on fast.
If you’re interested in catching the Metro Vancouver breakfasts (next one is June 1), click on the Outreach tab at www.metrovancouver.org. It’s a great way to soak up some state-of-the-art sustainability. And get a free muffin, too.