To go beyond a city-by-city response to the new building challenge, Architecture 2030 has published a ZERO Code for new building construction, which integrates cost-effective energy efficiency standards with on-site and/or off-site renewable energy resulting in Zero-Net-Carbon (ZNC) buildings.

“The ZERO Code is a national and international building energy standard for new building construction that integrates cost-effective energy efficiency standards with on-site and/or off-site renewable energy resulting in zero-net-carbon buildings.” –Architecture 2030

This is a crucial new tool, as nations and cities worldwide face the largest urban growth in history. “While there have been worldwide improvements in building sector energy efficiency, as well as growth in renewable energy generating capacity,” Architecture 2030 noted, “these have not been nearly enough to offset the increase in emissions from new construction. As a result, building sector CO2 emissions have continued to rise by nearly 1% per year since 2010.”

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The first thing to notice in the report is the economic sectors that are growing: green buildings and clean tech. The green building sector has developed deep expertise in building envelope performance, while the city and the province of British Columbia have adopted some of the toughest green building standards in the world. The clean tech sector covers clean-energy production, management and storage; water treatment and management; material efficiency and circular economy; advanced materials development; green agritech; and clean transportation. Province-wide, clean tech companies raised $6 billion in equity investment between 2011 and 2017.

The report notes that “green job growth includes both new and transitional jobs. New jobs come from market expansion and growth, while transitional jobs are existing jobs in traditional sectors that have become green due to changed norms and practices (e.g. construction changes due to greener building codes). On average, 40 percent of growth in green jobs each year may be attributed to new jobs, while 60 percent of growth is due to transitional jobs.”

It also points to some of the fundamentals for urban success in the emerging economy:

• Branding–“Vancouver has a global reputation as a leading clean and green economy”
• Talent — Large numbers of highly educated people who become green-business entrepreneurs and employees and want to live in a sustainable city.

The report has much more information that other cities may find useful for developing strategies and indicators of their standing and progress in the economy that is coming.

The post Going Carbon Free: Vancouver Builds a Green Economy appeared first on Innovation Network for Communities.

Now, with a grant from the Urban Sustainability Directors Network and contributions from Baltimore, Flagstaff, Fort Collins, San Jose, Tacoma, and Washington D.C., USDN has released “Marketing for Action: A Guide to Marketing Fundamentals for Urban Sustainability Offices.”

“Marketing for Action” lays out the marketing fundamentals for  creating and shaping strong environmental behavior-change campaigns using best practices in marketing. It offers a practical how-to, with or without big budgets, for cultivating voluntary action by city residents. It provides real-world examples from U.S. cities leading this practice.

Roya, who headed GreeNYC, the marketing arm of PlaNYC, for five years,has started her own business, Vision Flourish, to work with cities and NGOs to develop successful behavior change strategies.

(Access to USDN’s set of innovation projects)

The post City Marketing Campaigns Can Change Behavior. Here’s How. appeared first on Innovation Network for Communities.

The city had to design the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange (SEEE) from scratch, looking at the experiences of the European Union’s market, which has had its ups and downs, and California’s trading market. It also had to figure out how to operate the market—which happens inside an unremarkable building on Shanghai’s North Zhongshan Road alongside one of the city’s elevated highways. In the quiet office I visited, as many as 60 employees work at computers or leave to visit with companies in the market. On one wall a gigantic computerized board displays trading prices. More real-time trading  information is available through a transaction partner.

Since opening in late 2013, the market has expanded coverage to 310 companies in 26 sectors. More than 50 percent of Shanghai’s carbon emissions are included in the market, explains Guo Jianli, vice director of the Resource Conservation and Environmental Protection Division of  the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission. The city’s industrial sectors account for more than a third of its GDP, and its population has been growing. Through July 2017, Exchange officials report, some 26.8 million tons of carbon-emissions allowances (SHEAs) have been traded at a total cost of more than 400 million yuan (about US$70 million). After a three-year start-up period, the market required companies to obtain emissions allowances annually, most of which is done in the first half of the year. The enterprises report on the previous year’s emissions, which are verified by a third party. The market has also been developing carbon-financing programs with several banks, a spot market for trading, and a forward or futures market.

A critical design element was a decision not to create a price floor or ceiling for the market, says Zang Ao Quan, supervisor of the Exchange’s Trading Department. At one point the trading price went down to 5 yuan, about three-quarters of a US$1. Compared to other carbon markets, the Shanghai price has been relatively low. [California’s price, for instance, has averaged between US$12-14 per ton during the past three years. The price in the European Union market has hovered around US$6 for the past 18 months.] And this of course can diminish the financial motivation of companies in the market to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions to avoid having to purchase allowances.  The overall level of emissions in the market is set by national policy, which aims to peak carbon emissions nationally in 2030, a less aggressive stance than government entities that have established other carbon markets. Shanghai and dozens of other Chinese cities have committed to reach their carbon emissions peak before then. In Shanghai’s case, the goal is to peak by 2025. For the short-term, constraining the growth of energy consumption is the focus of city efforts. 

For several years it has appeared that the Shanghai market might continue to operate in parallel with the national carbon market that China decided to establish. The national market launched in 2017 only covers a few industrial sectors. Considering the complexity and difficulty of establishing a carbon trading market, it seems likely that it will take several years to expand the national market substantially–and that city-based markets will stay in business.

The post Inside a City Carbon Market appeared first on Innovation Network for Communities.

With these words, distinguished historian Frank Trentmann draws his magisterial 2017 book, Empire of Things, to a close. The book’s subtitle, How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First, describes Trentmann’s ambition, which has global scope. He uncovers the historical roots of our modern consumer society, starting in the 1600s, partly by mining an enormous amount of data from an amazing array of sources, and partly by recognizing what came before it. A big shift occurred when wealthy Europeans in cities turned away from an idea that had guided previous generations, Aristotle’s praise for the use of private wealth as, Trentmann says, “a sign of civic virtue and pride in a community governed and defended by like-minded brave, propertied citizens. . . . The admired life was that if the active citizen who increased the splendor and strength of his city by erecting monumental buildings, commanding an army and sponsoring communal feasts and public works. Large-scale consumption was safe—and could be enjoyed—when it occurred in the pursuit of such public ends.”

Citizen-consumers. Consumers as virtuous citizens—taking responsibility for the social and ecological consequences of their consumption. A fantasy, perhaps, but as Trentmann’s project shows, what we feel and think about consumption, and the ways we consume, have not been fixed. They evolved and will continue to evolve.

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