Freiburg is known as an ecocity. The newly built neighbourhoods of Vauban and Rieselfeld were developed and built according to the idea of sustainability. The citizens of Freiburg are known in Germany for their love of cycling and recycling.

This past December, as climate talks in Copenhagen commenced, I sat in talks in Istanbul listening to local government representatives, building professionals and academics discuss concrete actions that can and have been taken to reduce greenhouse gases in cities around the world. The 8th annual Ecocity World Summit posed a compelling alternative to the fights and frustrations that mired the climate talks of Copenhagen in conflict. Cities represent about 75% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and the birth of the “eoocity” concept a few decades ago may have marked the beginning of our most tangible solution yet. From recycling, wastewater treatment and green building to smart urban planning, public transit and renewable energy generation, ecocity plans and ideas have emerged with a list of seemingly “no-brainer” action items to pursue.

While in theory, the “ecocity” may seem like a very straightforward concept, in practice the challenges prove tough to transcend. The urban and suburban sprawl that plagues regions in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand may seem like an almost insurmountable barrier to reducing carbon emissions. However, in Istanbul, a city of 13 million and growing, sprawl is compounded by the fact that much of the development is unplanned. This is also true for other mega-cities like Rio de Janeiro where families often add stories to their own homes, creating unsound structures that may collapse during natural disasters. Such unplanned settlements also make it difficult to create underground tunnels for a metro system, as there may be no record of where gas and electricity lines run underground. Traffic and a lack of environmental practices like wastewater treatment are also a major issue for such megacities.

Historical considerations also present challenges, as the rich cultural heritage of ancient cities demands a certain authenticity of design. Moreover, as cities like Istanbul go to dig tunnels for eco-features like an underground metro, they may discover archeological treasures that force them to stop digging.

In modern cities of intense density like Hong Kong, Tei Pei, and Singapore, a lack of space to erect renewable power generation and urban farming operations create challenges to meeting energy and food demands without importing food and energy. In many developing nations, a lack of laws to regulate pollution and a lack of enforcement for existing environmental laws also create little incentive to move towards renewable energy. Some regions lack the resources to produce renewable energy, forcing them to make a decision between a local energy economy and a clean energy economy.

Approaches to creating an ecocity to solve these problems vary. According to Elizabeth Rapoport of the University College of London, there are three main categories of ecocities. Ecovillages, such as Cerro Gordo in the U.S. are small pastoral communities. Masterplanned ecocities such as Tianjin, China and Masdar, Abu Dabi, are new cities that incorporate ecological principles from day one. Models in already retrofitted ecocities like Curitiba, Brazil and Freiburg, Germany have the greatest potential to transform the already developed world, where builders and planners will have to make improvements on the existing infrastructure and building stock. Taking lessons from other more advanced cities will be an important step in the process if cities want to avoid reinventing the wheel. Conversely, avoiding some of the mistakes that more established cities have made will be crucial for nascent cities in the developing world.

The term “ecocity,” like other trendy terms including “green” and “sustainable” will likely be the subject of abuse over the coming years and decades. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution for the cities of the world, the sooner the international community comes together to define an ecocity that really does live up to the name, the more clear direction and success cities will have in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and pollution while improving the quality of life for their residents. Hopefully the local governments involved in redesigning our cities can learn to work together more effectively than did the participants in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, that’s a low bar.

Vancouver is already known for savvy city planning.

Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson recently announced an ambitious 10-year plan to make Vancouver the world’s greenest city by 2020.  Robertson presented the plan to the “Gaining Ground-Resilient Cities” conference at the Vancouver Convention Center. Robertson says that Vancouver is still far too reliant on cars and on food from far away, and that every day, the city produces too much waste and consumes too much energy and water.

Its goals are:

• Setting up a low-carbon economic development zone to attract investment for advancing renewable energy, energy-efficient and low-carbon technologies, with the object of creating 20,000 new green jobs.
• Making all new construction in the city carbon-neutral and improving efficiency of existing buildings by 20% by 2020.
• Encouraging greater green mobility by having more than 50% of residents walking, cycling or using public transit to move around the city. (According to Robertson, green travel now comprises 37% of trips).
• Reducing the amount of solid waste per capita that goes to landfills or is incinerated by 40%.
• Maintaining the highest international standards for drinking water but reducing the per-capita consumption of water by 33%.
• Achieving the cleanest air of any major city in the world.
• Becoming a global leader in urban food systems and reducing the carbon footprint of food production by 33%. Robertson wishes to take advantage of the Agricultural Land Reserve surrounding the city.
• Giving every citizen easy access to nature by providing “incomparable access to green spaces” by expanding “the world’s most spectacular urban forest in Stanley park” so that by 2020 every person would live within a five-minute walk of a park, beach or greenway. Another 150,000 trees will be planted in the city within the next 10 years.
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 33% from 2007 levels.  (According to Robertson, Vancouver currently produces less than five tons per capita – only a few European cities beat that).
• Reducing the ecological footprint of Vancouver by 33% on the way to realizing the “one-planet footprint.” Robertson said the city now has a “four-planet” level of consumption and waste, and the goal is to reduce this footprint from seven hectares to 1.8 hectares per person.

To date, many city planner look to Vancouver as an example of the best practices in urban development.  Apparently, they are just getting started.

The Union of Concerned Scientists 2030 Blueprint asserts that consumers and businesses in every region of the U.S. save billions of dollars under the Blueprint.

The Union of Concerned Scientists recently released The Climate 2030 Blueprint which analyzes the economic and technological feasibility of meeting targets for reducing global warming emissions in the U.S., with a cap set at 26% below 2005 levels by 2020, and 56% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Blueprint suggests that deep emissions cuts can be achieved while saving U.S. consumers and businesses $465 billion in 2030.

Meeting this cap means the United States would limit total emissions to 180,000 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2eq) from 2000 to 2030.   To reach the 2020 and 2030 carbon reduction targets, the Blueprint proposes a comprehensive policy approach (the “Blueprint policies”) that combines an economy-wide cap-and-trade program with complementary policies. This approach finds cost-effective ways to reduce fossil fuel emissions throughout the U.S. economy — including industry, buildings, electricity, and transportation — and to store carbon through agricultural activities and forestry.

The analysis relies primarily on a modified version of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Modeling System, supplemented with an analysis of the impact of greater energy efficiency in industry and buildings by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.   In addition, they worked with researchers at the University of Tennessee to analyze the potential for crops and residues to provide biomass energy.

The analysis argues that the technologies and policies pursued under the Blueprint produce dramatic changes in energy use and cuts in carbon emissions as well as strong economic growth.

A Short Guide to Setting Up a City-Scale Retrofit Program

Green For All and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) have just released A Short Guide to Setting Up a City-Scale Retrofit Program (pdf, 308 KB), a guide to designing and implementing energy efficiency retrofitting programs on a citywide scale. The organizations aim to make these retrofits available to more households and to provide good, entry-level jobs with career tracks that are accessible to low-income communities and communities of color.

While current retrofitting programs have overwhelming economic and environmental benefits, many are unavailable to low-income individuals and many current retrofitting programs only create low-wage, short-term jobs.

The guide is a tool for local organizations, business leaders, entrepreneurs, elected officials and others to promote energy efficiency in their communities while providing pathways into sustainable careers in construction and green building. It outlines all of the important aspects of such a program, including policies, labor standards, community coalitions and long-term funding options.

More about the guide on Green For All’s website.

Second Chance offers buildings and people a new life.

Second Chance, an organization in Baltimore, MD is aptly named for their faith in second chances for both buildings and people. Second Chance works with local and regional architects, builders and contractors to find old buildings that are facing demolition.  Using public and private funds, they rescue wood, metal, marble, plaster, stone and other architectural pieces and give those items new life while diverting them from the landfill.

Training low-income residents of Baltimore in a wide array of skills – including carpentry and craftsmanship – Second Chance creates local jobs and teaches their workers to safely deconstruct a building without damaging its historic elements. These skilled workers make a living wage with benefits for themselves and their families.

Second Chance provides flavor for the increasingly homogenous housing stock that dominates today’s tract housing communities. Architectural elements can have new life as something completely different from their originally intended use.  Some old doors can become a room divider and an old section of fence, a headboard for a bed. Second Chance epitomizes the Green Collar Jobs movement that is taking hold across the U.S., strengthening local job markets and helping to alleviate environmental woes.

Second Chance also has a training program in Philadelphia, PA, and Washington, DC.