100 Best Practices for Sustainable Cities

GLOBE-Net, October 31, 2013 — Over the past 18 months a group of German institutes and industrial, commercial and municipal partners have been collectively investigating technological and organizational challenges to making cities clean, efficient and healthy places to live.

On-site analyses of sustainable urban solutions in six major cities (including Singapore, Berlin, and New York) led to the identification and evaluation of 100 best practices for sustainable urban development.

With a belief that cities are central to a sustainable future and that innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration are crucial for success, the results were used to develop a tool that can be used to measure sustainability in other cities around the world. Future work involves developing integrated solutions and helping cities build strong alliances with industry in order to maximize sustainability while minimizing the negative consequences of fundamental transformation.

[stextbox id=”custom” float=”true” width=”300″ bcolor=”adc1c1″ bgcolor=”adc1c1″ image=”null”]Transformative change is required to achieve sustainable communities and collaboration is the first step.[/stextbox] A recent study compared Canadian companies to others around the world and found that Canada leads in capturing the cost reductions from sustainability initiatives, but lags behind in collaboration.

Sustainable Cities Canada tries to bring divergent groups together by creating an open online space where dialogue can take place. By providing first-hand information on sustainability and infrastructure issues facing this country, it aims to stimulate discussion.

Organizations working broadly in the same direction include the Transition Towns movement and the BC Government’s municipal incentive program. Transition Towns groups are active in sustainability initiatives in many communities around the province such as Nelson and Powell River. At the same time, the Climate Action Revenue Incentive Program (CARIP) provides grants to municipalities for committing to work towards sustainability targets and documenting their progress.

GLOBE-Net: Reprinted with permission from PICS Climate News Scan produced by PICS and ISIS (UBC Sauder School of Business) 30 October 2013

Building Resilient Cities is a major theme to be discussed at GLOBE 2014, the next in the celebrated GLOBE Series of Conferences and Trade Fairs on the business of the environment taking place in Vancouver Canada, March 26-28, 2014. Reserve your place now. Check here for more details.