The document discusses reimagining neighborhoods to be more sustainable. It covers topics like the characteristics of sustainable neighborhoods, including social well-being, governance, transportation, green spaces, local economy, density, services, and diversity. The presentation provides information on making neighborhoods more vibrant and livable through compact design, mixed uses, accessibility, and engaging the community.

1. Re-imagining our
neighbourhoods
John Purkis & Karen Miller
John Purkis, Senior Advisor Senior Manager,
Ottawa, Ontario
Sustainable Communities
AREF Thought Leaders Series,2010
May 18-19, Wednesday October 19th, 2011
© 2011 The Natural Step

2. Agenda
1. Introduction
2. The Natural Step
3. Sustainability
4. Characteristics of sustainable neighbourhoods
5. Lunch and table discussions
6. Table summaries
© 2011 The Natural Step

3. The Natural Step: who are we?
• Accelerating change in organizations
and communities
– Define sustainability
– Embed and integrate sustainability
– Collaborate to get there
• Supporting individual leadership
– Courses and workshops
– Toolkits, resources and best practices
– Peer to peer learning exchange
• Supporting emerging leaders
© 2011 The Natural Step

4. Who have we worked with?
Williams Lake:
Imagine Our Future
© 2011 The Natural Step

5. What makes us different?
We’re working with organizations behind the scenes to
help build leadership capacity and success stories. We
help organizations in three main ways:
1. We help organizations DEFINE sustainability.
2. we help organizations EMBED and INTEGRATE
sustainability into their strategy, operations, products,
services, governance, culture and stakeholder engagement.
3. we help teams, groups, departments and stakeholders
collaborate.
© 2011 The Natural Step

6. Exceeding the capacity of one earth
© 2011 The Natural Step

7. Unsustainability
© 2011 The Natural Step

8. Why Sustainable Neighbourhoods?
© 2011 The Natural Step

9. Why Sustainable Neighbourhoods?
As the population continues to expand, consumption of
land grows exponentially—currently, three times the rate
of population growth. At this breathtaking pace, two-thirds
of the development on the ground in 2050 will be built
between now and then.
The way we grow—especially how and where we grow—
will have a profound effect on our planet and on us.
Source: US Green Building Council LEED ND
© 2011 The Natural Step

10. Challenges: Current and Future
© 2011 The Natural Step

11. Current challenges survey quotes
• lack of community spaces and
events
• crumbling infrastructure with a
significant replacement cost
• traffic going through neighbourhoods
makes safety an issue when it
comes to increased walking and
biking.
• incentives encourage that kind of
development, including cookie cutter
houses, uniform streets, and often
single-use functions, not mixed use.
© 2011 The Natural Step

12. Current Reality
© 2011 The Natural Step

13. Water Use
• Canadians
– Use an average of
390L/day of water in
buildings
– Largest per-capital users
of water in the world
• Buildings
– Use only 3% of clean,
treated water for drinking!
© 2011 The Natural Step

14. Impact of Buildings on the Environment
Buildings are responsible for:
• 33 percent of all secondary energy used
• 35 percent of greenhouse gases emitted
• 50 percent of natural resources consumed
• 12 percent of non-industrial water used
• 25 percent of landfill waste generated
• 10 percent of airborne particulates produced
© 2011 The Natural Step

15. Construction Waste
•Construction waste makes up
about 25% of solid waste in our
landfills. More waste means more
landfills means more taxes for you
and me.
•The average home built in
Canada generates 8,000 lb of
waste.
© 2011 The Natural Step

16. Tax Revenue
© 2011 The Natural Step

17. Job Creation by Transportation Mode
© 2011 The Natural Step

18. LEED for Neighbourhood
Development
© 2011 The Natural Step

19. Characteristics of Sustainable
Neighbourhoods
© 2011 The Natural Step

20. What makes a neighbourhood vibrant and livable?
What are the key characteristics that you think are
important?
© 2011 The Natural Step

21. 1. Social well being – creating a
feeling of belonging
According to Paul Born from the Tamarack
Institute there are three principles for what makes
for a successful community in neighbourhoods:
• The first is know each other. We need to know our
neighbours as a very first pre-condition to creating great
places to live. Too often we don’t know or trust our
neighbours.
• The second principle is that we need to take care of
each other. There are many ways of doing that, such as
Neighbourhood Watch, block parents, babysitting
programs, car pooling, etc.
• And the third thing is working together to do
something for the public good. This gives a shared
sense of purpose and a strong feeling of belonging.
© 2011 The Natural Step

22. How happy are you?
“If you look at what makes people happy income is important,
but human relationships are much more important and we’ve
increasingly allowed our human relationships to deteriorate in
the interest of having more income.” Lord Richard Layard,
London School of Economics.
© 2011 The Natural Step

23. 2. Governance – effective and inclusive
participation, representation and leadership
• residents need to
interact and be involved
in the co-creation of
their neighbourhood.
• Neighbourhood
associations are key
success factor to
facilitate citizen
engagement
© 2011 The Natural Step

24. 3. Active Convenient and Green
Transportation
• walkability
• public transport
services linking
residents to their work
places and services
• transportation system
powered by 100%
renewable energy
• Bicycle network
© 2011 The Natural Step

25. 4. Nature - Thriving Ecosystem
Parks and Green Spaces
• should not be built on sensitive
natural ecosystems (Habitat
exchange)
• places with ample green spaces:
parks, community gardens
• habitat exchange
• no relative impact on natural
systems
© 2011 The Natural Step

26. 5. Economy: a flourishing and
lively local economy
• encourage and foster local businesses and
local entrepreneurship whose activities
contribute to the well-being of social and
ecological systems, as well as encourage
local food.
• All residents of working age have access
to employment at a living wage. All
community members—including youth
and elders, in particular—have access to
meaningful work in their neighbourhood
or community.
© 2011 The Natural Step

27. 6. Density: compact, beautiful
spaces
• compact, beautiful spaces that allow
for social interaction and privacy, and
minimise resource consumption,
while providing access to various
shops and services.
• designed around people, not cars
• balanced with appropriate green
spaces
© 2011 The Natural Step

28. 6. Density: compact, beautiful
spaces
“density is a tool—arguably the most powerful one controlled by a
municipality—to create a more sustainable city while at the same time
helping to preserve agricultural land and the open space beyond its
borders.” Brent Toderian and Mark Holland
© 2011 The Natural Step

29. 7. Services: diverse and local
• a diversity of public, private, community,
and voluntary services accessible to all
residents
• local shops, community and recreational
centers for all ages, entertainment,
cultural opportunities, places to work,
places for recreation, and medical
services
• volunteer services to help take care of
each other are important
• live work play
© 2011 The Natural Step

30. 8. Diversity
• Experts feel strongly that diverse
neighbourhoods are much healthier than
those with one income bracket, family
type, or ethnic group.
• socially cohesive and diverse
communities
© 2011 The Natural Step

31. Tools and Resources
Really Good Outstanding
© 2011 The Natural Step

32. CMHC - Equilibrium Communities 6
Themes
1. Energy: balances energy supply and use to minimize
greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Land Use and Housing: a balanced mix of activities,
housing choices, and commercial, institutional,
recreational and industrial land uses.
3. Transportation: reduces fossil fuel use from personal
vehicle travel and provides opportunities for energy-
efficient and healthy alternatives to personal vehicle use.
4. Water, Wastewater and Stormwater: minimizes the use
and disposal of water and the negative impacts on
watersheds.
5. Natural Environment: protects and enhances/restores
the natural environment.
6. Financial Viability: a marketable community that, through
its design, operation, integration and financing, is
economically viable over the long term.
© 2011 The Natural Step

33. The Living Building Challenge
© 2011 The Natural Step

34. © 2011 The Natural Step

35. Living Building Challenge for
Neighbourhoods
1. Restoring a healthy coexistence with
nature (site)
• limits to growth, habitat exchange, car free
living
2. Creating water independent sites,
buildings and communities
• net-zero water, ecological water flow
3. Relying on current solar income
• net-zero energy
4. Maximizing physical and
psychological health and well being
• civilized environment, healthy Air, biophilia
© 2011 The Natural Step

36. Living Building Challenge for
Neighbourhoods
2. Endorsing products and processes that
are save for all species through time
• red list, embodied carbon footprint, responsible
industry, appropriate sourcing, conservation
and reuse
3. Supporting a just, equitable world
• human scale and human places, democracy
and social justice, rights to nature,
4. Celebrating design that creates
transformative change (beauty)
• beauty and spirit, inspiration and education
© 2011 The Natural Step

37. Table Discussions
“The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”
– Linus Pauling, world-renown scientist and humanitarian
At your tables please discuss the
following question:
• What are your recommended ideas to
move us to more sustainable
neighbourhoods? What are your top
three priorities ?
• Please write your tables top 3 ideas on
the paper provided.
© 2011 The Natural Step

38. Thank you
John Purkis
The Natural Step Canada
http://www.naturalstep.org/en/canada
jpurkis@naturalstep.ca
© 2011 The Natural Step

39. The Landmark Group of Builders
• 5 construction
companies
• Edmonton, Red Deer
and Calgary, Alberta,
Canada
• ~ 200 employees
• Residential housing and
small developments
• Getting into high-rise
© 2011 The Natural Step

40. Key Sustainability Challenges
• We are highly dependent on the degradation of ecologically and
agriculturally productive land through development.
• We are highly dependent on the dispersive use of hydrocarbons as fuel
and raw material.
• We are dependent on an economic and physical system that
systematically converts virgin material into unusable waste in both the
short and long term.
• We are dependent on materials that have toxic effects in the ecosystem
and organisms.
• We support and are dependent on an unsustainable supply chain.
© 2011 The Natural Step

41. Landmark Group of Builders
• Empower People . Enable a sustainable society through research, innovation, charity, advocacy,
education and affordability that provide people with better, more sustainable lives.
• Sustainable Land Use. Develop the built environment to maximize the ecological, agricultural,
economic and social potential of the land.
• Carbon Neutral. The net lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of our products and processes are
zero or negative.
• Non-Toxic. Eliminate all toxic and potentially toxic materials from our products and processes.
• Zero Waste. Eliminate all waste in all its forms. Waste occurs when our use of time, material,
energy, space and capital exceeds that which is necessary to generate value and well being for
our customers, ourselves and our society.
• Closing the Loop. The materials in our communities are recovered and recoverable, recycled and
recyclable or borrowed from nature in such a way that they can be returned to nature without
doing harm.
• Revolutionize Industry. Our business model and supply chain relationships reinforce and
support the drive towards sustainability.
© 2011 The Natural Step

42. Public Awakening…
© 2011 The Natural Step

43. Policy Innovations - How do we raise
the bar?
© 2011 The Natural Step

44. 9 human needs
Subsistence Protection Participation
Idleness –
Affection Understanding
Leisure
Creation Identity Freedom
© 2011 The Natural Step