Partners in Project Green: Reaching New Heights in Sustainable Value Creation

Collage: GTAA Partners in Project Green 2013 & Strategies for The Green Economy

Image Credits: GTAA Partners in Project Green: Partners in Project Green 2013 AGM - Beyond low hanging fruit: reaching new heights in sustainable value creation 

Joel Makower: Strategies for the Green Economy

"A growing number of companies are finding pathways to a more sustainable future. No one tells this story better than Joel Makower, whose Strategies for the Green Economy charts the course for a new era of business, one in which forward-looking companies are creating products and services that aren't just greener, but serve their customers better. This is critical reading for anyone who seeks to understand where tomorrow's economic winners are going."

~ William K. Reilly, founding partner, Aqua International Partners, and former administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Source: Joel Makower: Strategies for the Green Economy

Partners in Project Green to Announce New Strategic Direction at 2013 Annual General Meeting

Partners in Project Green 2013 AGM

Beyond low hanging fruit: reaching new heights in sustainable value creation 

Thursday, June 6, 2013, 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Location: Hilton Garden Inn Toronto Airport - Built Green from the Bottom Up!
Address: 3311 Caroga Drive, Mississauga, ON L4V 1A3

JOIN PARTNERS IN PROJECT GREEN FOR ITS ANNUAL COCKTAIL RECEPTION TO:

Network with fellow business leaders
Launch Partners in Project Green into the future with its new strategic direction
Reach new heights in business excellence

Partners in Project Green invites you to join us as we celebrate the achievements of companies in the Pearson Eco-Business Zone during 2012 and learn about the new direction Partners in Project Green is taking with the completed Strategy Update.

Keynote Address: Joel Makower
Chairman and Executive Editor of GreenBiz Group Inc.
Author, Strategies for the Green Economy

Joel Makower provides insight and inspiration about how companies — and their customers and stakeholders — are shifting their view of how sustainability fits in the business agenda.

Sustainable business has come a long way, from "doing well by doing good" and "doing the right thing" to addressing risk, increasing resilience in a dynamic world, and serving as a platform for innovation. At the same time, a convergence of technologies is enabling companies and industries to accelerate efficiencies while creating new products and services.

For more information, please contact Alexandra Papaiconomou at apapaiconomou@trca.on.ca or by phone at 416-661-6600 ext. 5930.

GTAA Partners in Project Green

About Partners in Project Green
Partners in Project Green is a growing community of businesses working together to green their bottom line by creating an internationally-recognized Eco-Business Zone around Toronto Pearson.  Through new forms of business to business collaboration, Partners in Project Green delivers programming that helps businesses reduce energy and resource costs, uncover new business opportunities, and address everyday operational challenges in a green and cost effective manner. www.partnersinprojectgreen.com


About Joel Makower
For 25 years, Joel has been a well-respected voice on business, the environment, and the bottom line. The Associated Press has called him "The guru of green business practices." In addition to to his role in GreenBiz Group Inc., Joel also serves as a senior strategist for GreenOrder, a sustainability management consultancy, and is co-founder of Clean Edge, a cleantech research firm. He is author of more than a dozen books, including Strategies for the Green Economy. He also writes “Two Steps Forward” (readjoel.com), a popular blog on green business.

Photo: Launching Partners in Project Green

Members of the Partners in Project Green Steering Committee launch Partners in Project Green.

From right to left – Eric Lange (Lange Transportation), Neil Lacheur (Bentall Real Estate), Ernie Springolo (Bayer Inc.), Anne Tennier (Maple Leaf Foods), John Coyne (Unilever), Bob Delaney (MPP Mississauga Streetsville), Fergie Devins (Molson), Maria Augimeri (City of Toronto), John Gerretsen (Ontario Minister of the Environment), Susan Fennell (City of Brampton Mayor), Emil Kolb (Region of Peel Chair), Brian Denney (TRCA), Lloyd McCoomb (GTAA), Carman McClelland (Brampton Board of Trade), Sheldon Leiba (Mississauga Board of Trade), Mark O’Connor (Kuehne and Nagel) and Toby Lennox (GTAA).

Image Credit: Partners in Project Green

links:
wobuilt.com/blog: Gala Salutes Green Innovation and Inspires Consumer Education - Keynote Speaker Raises the Importance of Greening Consumers "in the Home"
Wo-Built attended the annual gala awards ceremony of Partners in Project Green (PPG). This networking organization helps businesses reduce energy and resource costs, uncover new business opportunities, and address everyday operational challenges in a green and cost-effective manner.

wobuilt.com/blog: Carbon Neutral Neighbourhood Project Launch in Toronto

trca.on.ca: Partners in Project Green to Announce New Strategic Direction at 2013 Annual General Meeting
Toronto and Region Conservation for The Living City: New Sustainable Business Leaders Emerge from the Pearson Eco-Business Zone
Media Advisory June 04, 2013

newswire.ca: Media Advisory - Partners in Project Green to Announce New Strategic Direction at 2013 Annual General Meeting

GTAA Partners in Project Green: Partners in Project Green 2013 AGM - Beyond low hanging fruit: reaching new heights in sustainable value creation 

Masdar City – the Sustainable Community

Image Montage by Wo-Built: Masdar City Master Plan & Actual Masdar Institute Building in Masdar City
Images Credit/Source: Masdar - A Mubadala Company: Masdar City Image Downloads

Masdar City – the Sustainable Community is not just for Dreamers anymore.
Sadly, it’s just not for Torontonians yet either.

Let’s face it, Canadians are safe. We don’t like rocking the boat—at home or abroad—and we certainly don’t make a big deal about being the first, the best, the most, etc. Sure, we may like it when by some fortuitous accident we find ourselves on top or ahead of the curve, but we generally don’t hunger for it like some other places in the world — notaboy our neighbours to the South. And certainly, if Research in Motion (RIM) or Nortel are any indication, we are absolutely terrible at maintaining our technological edge, if ever we do acquire it.

It’s unfortunate that residents of Canada, Torontonians for instance, are nowhere nearer to living in a truly sustainable community. No, that accolade goes to Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates. A project whose mission is:
"To advance renewable energy and sustainable technologies through education, research and development, investment, commercialization and adaptation."
Source: Masdar - A Mubadala Company: About Us

The following Masdar City promotional video says it all.

YouTube.com: Welcome To Masdar City

Masdar City is the world's first sustainable city - it's taking shape in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Uploaded by Hayes Thompson on Jan 18, 2010

A List of Masdar City Values reads like the philosophy of PeapodLife Building EcoSystems & Technology:

1. Agility – The ability to switch from one technology to another but retain a sound footing based on a balance of best value and state of the art know-how.
2. Commercial Viability – To ensure the widespread adoption of any sustainability technologies, they must be made commercially viable. While some environmentalists may be anti-capitalist, we feel rewarding investors for investing in people, planet and profits is a perfectly acceptable strategy for building a better world built on social, environmental, economic values (SEE-V).
3. Sustainability – There is simply no point in embarking on a new system or course of action unless we consider all known factors—and best guesses as to what lies down the road—to ensure it will perform as needed for decades to come.
4. Grounded in Reality – Dreaming is for bedtime, science fiction and video games. Doing is for those able to ground their imagination in the roots of what is achievable today: financially, technologically, socially, environmentally, et al. Deep down we are all dreamers, but the key to being a successful dreamer is remembering Lao Tzu’s wisdom: “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

So do these values translate to Canada? PeapodLife says: absolutely! As for the “vast distances” we have to travel in this country, Masdar is incorporating two ultra-modern, ultra-high-tech approaches to transit, both imported from Europe: Personal Rapid Transit for in-town personalized subterranean transport, and the Superbus (from the Netherlands), for high-speed transport between cities.

YouTube.com: Superbus visits Masdar City

Superbus, a new clean energy public transport vehicle, visited Masdar city in Abu Dhabi.

Uploaded by Masdar VideosChannel on Apr 21, 2011

It’s such a shame that Canada has seven important factors in common with UAE, but not the political will nor entrepreneurial drive to pursue our own version of Masdar.

The seven characteristics Canada and UAE have in common are as follows:

1. Canada and UAE are wealthy countries with oil revenues.
2. Canada and UAE with climatic extremes (cold and hot).
3. Canada and UAE have lots of available development land.
4. Canada and UAE seem to share a fundamental concern for the environment and long-term sustainability.
5. Canada and UAE are in close proximity (and economic relationship) with economic superpowers.
6. Canada and UAE are known around the world as a “land of possibility / opportunity”
7. Canada and UAE are both cosmopolitan nations; active destinations for both tourism and investment.

But whereas UAE is looking to the future and the impending oil crisis—and with a project like Masdar City is moving preemptively to reinvent itself for the new energy economy—what is Canada doing? Attracting direct foreign investment to develop a wealth of as-yet unexploited natural resources. For shame!

Well, we at Wo-Built and PeapodLife won’t stand for it. It may be an uphill battle ahead, but we are ready to bring our vision for sustainable buildings and indoor ecosystems to Canada and the world, and join the likes of Masdar City and others trying to not just dream or talk, but act.

Attila Lendvai
VP of Strategic Development
Wo-Built Inc. - Innovative Design and Build

Building for Sustainability?

Collage by Wo-Built: “Envisioning a Sustainable Rebuild of the World via PeapodLife”
Image Credit: MS Office ClipArt: Building Global Business Metaphor

Top 5 Things You Need for Your Green Building Project 
& the Top 3 Things We Need for Our Planet

Here are the top 5 things to consider when building your new house, addition, extension for sustainability:

• 1. Intelligent green design.
• 2. Strong, efficient, resilient foundation.
• 3. Quality advanced materials.
• 4. Cutting-edge systems and technologies.
• 5. Superior workmanship.

Simple, right? Well, it certainly sounds simple, but execution is everything.  You want to choose an experienced green design & build contractor who shares your values for building a better world. After all, you’ve chosen sustainability on your major home renovation (or new build) for a reason, right?

Yes, you will save money in the long run with a more efficient house, but energy efficiency (and/or renewable power like solar, wind or geothermal) is just the beginning of sustainable construction, be it residential or commercial.

Every authentically green project (i.e. not green washing), is like a healthy cell of the larger organism known as humanity.  Each and every time someone renovates an existing residential or commercial property to be more sustainable, the humanity’s home improves ever so slightly.

That brings us to the top 3 things to consider when renovating the house humanity built: 

• 1. Biomimetic Foundations of Design and Integration into the local/broader Environment.
• 2. Biomimetic Materials, Systems and Technologies.
• 3. Naturally-inspired Cooperation in Workmanship.

Based on the above two lists, it should come as no surprise that Wo-Built’s PeapodLife Building EcoSystems and Technology is the cornerstone of your sustainable building: home or office, new build, addition, kitchen, or renovation.
Add an ecosystem to your world; the world breathes a little easier.

Attila Lendvai
VP of Strategic Development
Wo-Built Inc. - Innovative Design and Build