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Ecocities Emerging
To support humanity's transition into the Ecozoic Era
| Ecocity Builders
July 2011
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Greetings,
Welcome to the July 2011 edition of Ecocities Emerging, an initiative of Ecocity Builders and the International Ecocity Conference Series.
The city is currently the leading cause of climate changing greenhouse gasses - directly from its day-to-day impact and indirectly from its reach into far flung locations to source raw materials, resources, and energy to supply its needs, or to dispose of its wastes. Cities with the highest ecological footprints are those primarily built for access by the car, which require vast tracts of land and massive consumption of energy to keep them up and running. The other big indicator is wealth, as the residents of wealthier cities consume far more and have large per capita ecological footprints.
We have to be careful, though, not to permanently conflate the two (city form and individual consumption). For example, more energy and land efficient downtown Sydney Australia has an overall higher ecological footprint than its scattered suburbs because wealthier high-consumption lifestyle people live in the city center. Sydney's ecological footprint number therefore tells us little about the influence of a city's form on energy consumption and greenhouse gas production, because individual consumption is also factored into the overall ecological footprint calculations. To learn about both - urban design and urban lifestyle consumption rates - we need to disaggregate those two measures but also address them both head on.
This single issue - how best to build and live - is the issue by which the resulting decisions and actions surrounding it within the next ten to twenty years will likely make the difference between the irreparable dismantling of our biosphere or the further healthy evolution of our civilization. The good sign is that cities are now coming front and center into the discussion around climate change.
Ecocities take seriously their place in the healthy evolution of life on the planet and as such recognize the value of the evolutionary drift toward more well-ordered forms through time. The compact city, town and village of high levels of diversity at close proximity fit this pattern that governs complex living ecologies and living organisms. Applied to the built environment, this means sprawl is the antithesis of the evident healthy pattern, scattering cities into a flat (two-dimensional) form of enormous size of generally uniform uses. The ecocity is much more compact (three-dimensional), complex and well ordered. One could call the city of cars and massive use of land and energy "counter-evolutionary" and the ecocity "co-evolutionary."
The ecocity solution is the smaller footprint, energy efficient, resilient and livable city - with ecocitizens living there. These topics and more will be addressed at the upcoming Ecocity World Summit 2011 convening next month in Montreal, Canada. We hope to see many of you there.
Sincerely, 
Kirstin Miller for Ecocity Builders
Ecocity Builders
339 15th Street, Suite 208
Oakland CA 94612 USA
www.ecocitybuilders.org
Keeper of the International Ecocity Conference Series
Ecocity Builders is a non-profit organization dedicated to reshaping cities, towns and villages for long-term health of human and natural systems.
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The Ecozoic Era refers to a vision, first promoted by cosmologist Thomas Berry, of an emerging epoch when humanity lives in a mutually enriching relationship with the larger community of life on Earth.
Will we be able to make the transition in time to retain a biosphere healthy enough to regenerate living systems now under extreme stress? Our role in exploring ecocities is to clarify a vision of cities that can. And then go out and build them. There is no way to be certain we will succeed, but our position is that there's no time to just sit around and wonder about it: now is time for action.
Maybe one day all cities will be ecocities.
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JULY UPDATE
Ecocity World Summit 2011
The 9th International Ecocity Conference convenes August 22-26th in Montreal Canada
Conference Website
REGISTRATION »»» DETAILED PROGRAM »»»
ABOUT MONTREAL 
Montréal is an island in North America - geographically, linguistically, and culturally. The second largest francophone city in the world (after Paris), it is a cosmopolitan, international city, and a UNESCO City of Design. Montréal has a strong sense of place and a rich artistic and cultural pride, and is known for its sustainability policies and neighborhood grassroots initiatives.
Recognized for its culture of partnership and teamwork, Montréal is also known for its environmentally sustainable policies. It is famous, among other things, for hosting the CFCs negotiations which produced the Montreal Protocols and protected the entire planet from the destruction of the ozone layer and acute damage of organic life by UV radiation. 
Here are a additional few examples of what makes Montréal a green city: the implementation of BIXI, the new public bike system, the development of an environmental technologies and services cluster, the creation and operation of a sustainable practices network as well as the adoption of a leading pedestrian bill of rights. Montreal is also characterized by an abundance of grassroots initiatives in its neighborhoods, such as green roofs, green alleys, seasonal public markets, collective gardens and proposals for the development of healthy transportation networks. |
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Ecocity Insights
by Jennie Moore,
Director, Sustainable Development and Environmental Stewardship, British Columbia Institute of Technology
BCIT School of Construction and the Environment Values IEFS
The BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology) School of Construction and the Environment has stepped forward as the lead sponsor for the development of the International Ecocity Framework Standards (IEFS). "This initiative aligns with our School's concern for the natural environment, the built environment and the relationship between them" says Rod Goy, Acting Dean.1
An important role of the IEFS is driving innovation and improvements in performance measurement and management. According to researchers at the University of Westminster, some eighty cities and towns world-wide have pledged to become "eco-cities."2 However, there is enormous diversity in both the intent and manifestation of these initiatives, including the level of performance these initiatives achieve once they are built.
It is this concern with accountability for performance, meaning the ability to achieve ecocity objectives for reducing human impact on the earth while simultaneously advancing socially just and livable human habitats that drives the development of the IEFS. Led by Ecocity Builders with input from various ecocity activists and academics from around the world, the IEFS "seeks to describe both the conditions for an ecologically healthy and restorative human presence on earth as well as a practical methodology for assessing and guiding the journey through the lens of the ecocity."3
1. BCIT School of Construction and the Environment (http://www.bcit.ca/construction)
2. Joss, S. 2010. Eco-Cities - A Global Survey 2009. Part A: Eco-City Profiles. (http://www.westminster.ac.uk/schools/humanities/politics-and-international-relations/eco-cities/publications)
3. Ecocity Builders. 2011. The International Ecocity Framework and Standards. (http://www.ecocitybuilders.org/what-we-do/ecocity-standards/)
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BRT vs Rails
-- and Bikes Freeways Before Freeways for Cars
By Richard Register
First freeway - for bicycles not cars. Made of wood, and built in 1900 it preceded the first freeway for cars by 40 years, laying out part of the route of the later Pasadena Freeway, the first car freeway. Wikipedia image.
Corresponding recently with Shin-pei Tsay of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, some interesting transportation issues came up, first around Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) vs. rails, then a little known factoid that freeways - elevated even! - were first for bicycles and only forty years later for cars. (I'm proud to relate I drew pictures of elevated bicycle freeways 20 years before I knew they had once existed - the virtues of ignorance in providing opportunity for creative thinking!) BRT Said Shin-pei, "I question the idea that light rail is the best transit fit with ecocities - the fixed guideways are expensive. With buses improving in emissions and the low cost of implementation, what do you think about BRT as a transition system technology?" I replied that I'd visited and taken tours on Curitiba, Brazil's BRT system on two different trips to the city. That's where we had our Fourth International Ecocity Conference in 2000. The basic idea is to have a fixed system that stays fixed so the development land use pattern and transportation can grow up together and compound each others' convenience for the most people along with multiple efficiencies. I first heard this idea when I was hired to organize an Earth Day 1973 conference at San Diego State University and an exhibition at a local shopping center. The set of two linked events and displays were sponsored by the San Diego Ecology Centre and had the single name "Energy Coming and Going - Earth Day 1973." The regional Comprehensive Planning Organization (CPO), a government established regional agency, provided one of the three dozen exhibits and reading their materials and talking with their representatives I learned they emphasized that a public transit system should not only go where the people live and work, that is, serve higher density areas for far greater efficiency and energy and land conservation, more convenient headways and so on, but also that the system should be rigid, not "flexible." After hearing for years of the virtues of flexible transportation systems, dominated by cars and the high value of extreme mobility, here I was hearing the opposite. Said they, busses can follow cars around the sprawl cars create, but when they do they don't work well at all, running far from full and requiring subsidies car drivers resent and blame on transit in general, not the compromised bus system that's trying to play catch up to cars. Meticulous analysis at CPO was conclusive: the flexible system was the system that gives us sprawl, land and energy squandering, much higher fatalities and injuries on the transportation system and higher total cost per person for physical access to the range of offerings of the city. In the case of Curitiba and its world's first real BRT system, higher density corridors along the transit routes were fixed not by rail but by firm and lasting city design, general plan and zoning code. The idea is to hold to the density that's associated with transit and make sure it doesn't spread out into sprawl. With permanence (never easy) that kind of BRT would be cheaper and probably would be in other ways as good as rails on similar routes. Read On |
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Car Free Journey
By Steve Atlas
By now, you are probably sweltering in the summer heat. If you are like me, and love the water, you want to enjoy a weekend or vacation at the beach. But the cost of gas is so high that you wonder if you can find a beach to enjoy without driving.
This month, I want to spotlight a little-known beach outside of Charleston, South Carolina: The Isle of Palms.
The Isle of Palms is an island near the Mount Pleasant section of Charleston. It's easy to spend a few days here, soaking in the sun and swimming in the warm ocean. This family-oriented beach is very expansive with great sand, a chance to watch the dolphins, pick up sea shells, walk along the beach, and-if you get up early enough-watch the sun rise over the nearby fishing pier.
Read On
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We partner with local community groups and organizations to initiate and build demonstration projects pieces of the ecocity and are consultants to projects both locally and globally.
www.ecocitybuilders.org
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"The problem is the present design of cities only a few stories high, stretching outward in unwieldy sprawl for miles. As a result of their sprawl, they literally transform the earth, turn farms into parking lots and waste enormous amounts of time and energy transporting people, goods and services over their expanses. My solution is urban implosion rather than explosion."
-Paolo Soleri
www.arcosanti.org |
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ECOCITY WORLD SUMMIT 2011
August 22-26, 2011
Palais des congrès de Montréal, Canada
Hosted by Urban Ecology Montréal, Ecocity World Summit 2011 will build on work of past International Ecocity Conferences while adding new conference themes, participatory methods, and projects that will last beyond the life of the conference. Detailed conference content and design will be developed in collaboration with local and international partners, making sure that the particular urban ecological expertise of Montréal is highlighted.
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Ecocity World Summit 2011 addresses climate change and the city
Cities must be part of the solution to climate change: up to 70% of GHG's are generated in cities, home to more than 50% of the world's population. An ecocity will address climate change by meeting the challenges of urban sprawl, mass transit, waste reduction and treatment, as well as building standards, materials and design. Ecocities will also become more flexible and resilient to adapt to the threats and increased risks to infrastructure resulting from climate change. Sessions in this theme area will focus on how climate change challenges can best be addressed by ecocities. The sub-themes are: combining mitigation and adaptive strategies to address climate change; housing, urban design and climate change; economics of climate change in cities: impacts and opportunities. This theme will be of particular interest to those who provide technologies which reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in cities and help the transition away from fossil fuels and toward the best of the renewables.
Link to EWS 2011 conference website
Sessions on Ecocities and Climate Change Include:
Rio+20 & Ecocities
Rio+20 will celebrate 20 Years of sustainable development since Rio. Agenda 21 recognized the importance of local authorities by having Local Authorities as one of the 9 official major groups established as well as by inviting each community to formulate its own Local Agenda 21. The Rio+20 conference board (known as the Bureau) has called on all entities to submit inputs by November 1, 2011 for the outcome document of the June 2012 Rio+20 Conference. This panel will present how preparations are progressing and the type of inputs that are sought and how to submit them.
The panel will be opened by Brice Lalonde, one of the two executive coordinators named by the UN Secretary General, followed by ICLEI Secretary General, Konrad Otto-Zimmermann.
The WBCSD will be presenting their vision 2050 and the role of business in sustainably managing the cities of the future. A prominent mayor will then present a concrete example.
Presenter: Chantal Line Carpentier, Ph.D
Sustainable Development Officer &
Major Groups Programme Coordinator
UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Division for Sustainable Development
International Ecocity Standards ---
A Framework for Integrated Sustainability
Currently there are no accepted standards or widely agreed upon definitions for the term ecocity or its conditions. This lack of specificity in terminology, along with accompanying benchmarks and measureable standards, is a major deficiency in advancing the design and planning of cities to be more sustainable.
In response to this challenge, Ecocity Builders and a team of collaborators initiated a project in 2010 to create a framework and guidelines that can help cities move along a path to sustainability in measureable and systemic ways. The International Ecocity Framework and Standards (IEFS) will allow city officials and other community members to analyze and evaluate their city in an integrated framework that supports systemic thinking and solutions.
Designed for a wide range of users, the Ecocity Framework will chart a city's steps forward - from existing conditions to "threshold" Ecocity status and beyond. The framework will help people see how their city is doing on a range of important measures, charted from "Unhealthy" through multiple levels of "Greener City" and "Ecocity".
This panel session will introduce the IEFS work to date -- including conceptual development and research, expert evaluation and input, and the current phase of piloting the approach in several diverse cities around the world.
Panelists: Kirstin Miller, Executive Director, Ecocity Builders: Jennie Moore, Director, Sustainable Development and Environmental Stewardship, BCIT School of Construction and the Environment; Dr. William Rees, Professor, School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia (UBC); Ray Tomalty, Ph.D, Principal, Smart Cities Research Services & Adjunct Professor School of Urban Planning, McGill University.
The IEFS would like to thank its sponsors, including our lead partner, British Columbia Institute of Technology School of Construction and the Environment, Columbia Foundation, Helen and William Mazer Foundation, HealthBridge Canada and Novatek.
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News
C40 and ICLEI to Establish Global Standard on Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Cities
Sao Paulo, Brazil: The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, announced today at the C40 Cities Mayors Summit in Sao Paulo that the two organizations will establish a global standard for accounting and reporting community-scale greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that can be used across multiple platforms. This common approach will help local governments to accelerate their emission reduction activities whilst meeting the needs of climate financing, national monitoring and reporting requirements. The standard will be released in time for UNFCCC COP 17 in November (Durban, South Africa).
The standard, once developed, will result in consistent, robust and comparable city inventories. It will also allow for accurate monitoring of progress against emissions targets, facilitate robust climate action planning, and provide standard guidance as local governments pursue environmental review, inventory certification and other relevant policy making processes in their day-to-day operations.
The World Bank Group - in partnership with UN-HABITAT, UNEP, OECD - supports the establishment of this international standard.
"Cities of all sizes play an important role in combating the impact of climate change. Establishing a single global standard for reporting greenhouse gas emissions will empower local governments to accelerate their actions and access funding for mitigation and adaptation projects," said C40 Chair, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. "This will enable new efficiencies and create a level playing field for comparing emissions across cities around the world."
The C40 and ICLEI are two of the leading organizations driving climate change action at a local level, and together represent over 1,200 megacities, towns and counties around the world. Currently, there are a number of different standards available for these local governments to measure and report community-scale GHG emissions, and many have resorted to establishing their own methodologies. Different bodies measuring emissions in different ways -- while vying for localities to adhere to one standard over another -- causes inconsistencies in reporting and lessens their ability to act.
"Accounting, reporting and managing local emissions are among the priority responsibilities of local governments"said David Cadman, Councillor of Vancouver and President of ICLEI. "In the past 20 years, local climate action leveraged global efforts on climate change. Through their ambitious commitments, cities are once again moving the World and partnership between ICLEI and C40 will pave the way for measurable, reportable, verifiable local climate action."
About C40 Cities The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) is an organization of large and engaged cities from around the world committed to implementing meaningful and sustainable climate-related actions locally that will help address climate change globally. To learn more about the work of C40 cities, please visit http://www.c40cities.org/ About ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability More than 1200 local governments and their associations, representing over 440 million people in 70 countries, constitute ICLEI's membership. ICLEI is a global associationof local governments and municipal organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development. As a movement, ICLEI runs the world's largest climate program of cities that links local action to national goals and internationally agreed targets. ICLEI provides information, delivers training, organizes conferences, facilitates networking and city-to-city exchanges, carries out research and pilot projects, and offers technical services and consultancy. www.iclei.org |
Ecocity Builders Thanks the Following
 We'd like to sincerely thank the following businesses for their recent support for our local projects and programs. A very big thank you to Ali Shamsi and Graham Goddard with Cleartech Solutions, a technology consulting company providing Information Technology (IT) and Audio/Video (AV) services to the Bay Area. Cleartech Solutions has provided pro bono IT assistance to our office during our technology upgrade project, with hardware funded by a donation from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation. We'd also like to thank David Cody with the Urban Permaculture Institute, Sanjay with Bay View Greenwaste, Bea Davis with East Bay Nursery and Pilar Reber with Sunnyside Organic Seedlings for supporting the Village Bottoms Farm project in West Oakland, a partnership project with Black Dot Artists, Inc. |
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Principal Features of an Ecocity
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A SAMPLING OF ECOCITY WORLD SUMMIT 2011 SPONSORS
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PRINCIPAL SPONSOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL ECOCITY FRAMEWORK AND STANDARDS
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