- collaboration

Inter-School Collaboration for Conservation Quantification (Finalist.)

epetersiel — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:57:34 +0000

Contestant organization:

The Leo Baeck Day School / Robbins Hebrew Academy

Venture partners:

The Leo Baeck Day SchoolRobbins Hebrew AcademyZerofootprint

Describe your venture:

The purpose of the Inter-School Conservation Quantification Collaboration effort is to empower Grade 8 students and teachers to understand the direct impact that their actions to reduce energy consumption will have. This would inspire further exploration in high school and post-secondary school.Innovative AspectUnlike the current Toronto and Ontario Eco-Schools program, (http://www.ontarioecoschools.org) which groups schools using qualified measurements into bronze, silver, gold and platinum rankings, we plan to establish quantitative measurements and ways to properly normalize them, so we can compare schools and see the quantitative impacts that various energy conservation efforts have.We want those measurable energy consumption reduction actions to be developed by the Grade 8 students themselves once they understand the overall reality of climate change, what the causes are, and have an understanding of the baseline consumption measurements of their own school, in the context of the community they live in.Efforts to develop quantitative measurements will be done on a collaborative between participating schools in the 416. Instead of travelling between schools, we would use current social media and web technology to enable collaboration within a school and between schools and between experts both local and remote. We will then expand the collaborative effort to include schools in the 905 region. From there, we would take the effort international and partner with schools outside Canada.We would also like to work with existing groups such as the Learning for a Sustainable Future and the Kortright Centre of the Toronto Regional Conservation Authority to identify best practices to establish energy consumption baselines and energy consumption reduction exercises which can quantified, and used between schools in the 416, 416 & 905 and 416 & schools in other countries.How it will help TorontoSuccess will help the current eco-schools effort evolve, and establish a collaborative approach to identifying measurable solutions for energy consumption reduction. This effort would have local, national and international implications as we bring the experience of crowdsourcing solutions to energy consumption reduction to a younger demographicSteps to be takenUnderstanding the Current ProblemWe will leverage volunteers from the Climate Reality Project to help establish the overall context of what is driving the need to reduce energy consumption.http://www.climatereality.ca/Establishing the External BaselineCountry --> Province --> City --> SchoolThe external base line is the measurement of actual consumption of energy resources, electricity, natural gas and water. This will be done for each participating school.We will be able to show the students the starting point at various levels, using CO2 equivalent emission numbers.At the national and provincial level, we will use the national and provincial inventory numbers documented by Environment Canada in May 2011. http://unfccc.int/files/national_reports/annex_i_ghg_inventories/national_inventories_submissions/application/zip/can-2011-nir-16may.zip At the GTA Level we will use The Living City Report Card 2011 – An assessment of the environmental health of the Greater Toronto Area, published in March 2011 by Greening Greater Toronto, an initiative of CivicAction. http://www.thelivingcity.org/lcrc4/ Quantifiable Consumption Reduction Exercises We will look at the current thoughts of the Inconvenient Youth to identify potential projects which would resonate with Grade 8 level studentshttp://www.inconvenientyouth.org/ We intend to work with the Learning for a Sustainable Future team to leverage quantifiable energy consumption reduction exercises which they have already documented from around the world. We hope to establish a set of actions which can be done within schools, between schools in the same city / region, and between schools in different countries (Pams of LSF has indicated a willingness to connect to this effort - October 3 comment) http://www.lsf-lst.ca/ We intend to work with the Kortright Center of the Toronto Regional Conservation Authority, to identify specific experiences they have in quantifying energy consumption reduction exercises, and to leverage other experiences from other resources in their international network (Darryl Gray of Kortright has indicated a willingness to connect to this effort - October 4 comment) http://www.kortright.org/

Emissions reduction potential:

The emission reduction potential will be dependent on the exercises we choose to use and measured against the baseline we establishImpact to be measured against current baseline consumption (Initial set of ideas)

Lighting within the school
Reduction of controllable plugloads
Setback levels for heating and cooling (occupied vs unoccupied)
Energy generation

Impact to be measured once external baseline established (Initial set of ideas)

Creative approaches to carpooling (Reducing distance, number of cars, public transit etc)
Community Sustainable Agriculture (For consumption in school or for foodbanks)

We are looking to the ClimateSpark SVC community to identify additional energy conservation exercises whose impact can be quantified, to add to the list above.

The team:

The Leo Baeck Day School / Robbins Hebrew Academy – providing access to Grade 8 students and Staff, as well as committed parents and alumni

Zerofootprint – providing access to visualization software which will allow normalized comparisons of energy consumption data

http://www.zerofootprint.net/

Climate Reality Project - Canada – Canadian volunteers, some in the GTA, ready to present in person and through video, the basics of climate change at a Grade 8 level

Learning for a Sustainable Future (added October 3) – providing access to a consolidated set of exercises and workshops which can be used to prioritize and select Grade 8 appropriate exercises.http://www.lsf-lst.ca/Kortright Centre (added October 4) – providing access to hands on experiences of solutions they have already deployed in Vaughan Ontario, as well as experiences they have documented for other Conservation Centers around the worldhttp://www.kortright.org/

Seeking collaborators:

Yes

Potential collaborators should contact :

Eric Petersiel - [email protected], Claire Sumerlus - [email protected]

How will you ensure your project is self supporting within five years?:

The use of volunteers within the schools and the quantified energy consumption reduction costs will make the deployment self sufficient, once the start-up costs of the project have been paid for.

Tags:

quantification

collaboration

benchmark

How did you hear about ClimateSpark?:

Word of mouth

Sustainability un-University + GreenPIVOT

Derek Chaves — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:50:46 +0000

Contestant organization:

4PLY Creative Collective

Venture partners:

TBDThe project is highly compatible with a variety of stakeholder types from Professional Associations such as the Ontario Association of Architects, to Community Colleges, and Educational Urban Think Tanks such as the Canadian Urban Institute. We are very open to establishing meaningful partnerships with worthy and dedicated collaborators

Describe your venture:

Sustainability un-University is fueled by the belief that the expertise and resources required to meet carbon reduction goals already exist within our community; the gap that we see results from an inability to connect knowledge seekers with knowledge holders in a way that facilitates meaningful learning. This project fills this gap with an affordable, convenient, simple, learner-oriented online platform that empowers teachers and students. It blends the rigour of the ivory tower with DIY entrepreneurialism, while acting as a springboard for discussion, advocacy, and innovation. (see GreenPIVOT below)IntroductionToronto and Ontario in general, possesses tremendous expertise within the Universities and Colleges, as well as within the various professions that shape the biggest contributors to climate change: transportation, building + construction, food production, and energy production. What is also apparent to me is that there is great willingness to share knowledge. What we lack is the teaching and learning infrastructure.Sustainability Un-University is more than a website, rather it is a learning commons that provides knowledge and skill leaders with the resources and a venue to provide self-paced courses that take full advantage of the late media age – videos, images, diagrams, online tests, discussion forums, slides, etc. Each instructor is to have their own course portal where the content is housed, and will receive a proportion of the course fees as royalties. Students who enroll will pay fees that are more flexible, and substantially lower than if the courses were taken from a college or university and arguably more effectively geared to meet market demands.Instructors could be anyone from an expert green home builder educating first home buyers on renovation strategies that will make the greatest impact in reducing energy consumption, to an expert in organic urban farming who wants to structure a course around summer food production in suburban plots. The field is wide open for submissions, but educators must apply and be vetted by a selection panel pulled from our community of experts.Rigour is maintained via two methods: 1) an application process that pulls on Professional volunteers within the professions and academia who can assess the merit of the instructors work. 2) A positively oriented teacher rating system that allows users to rate courses that are exceptionally well taught, referenced, applicable, etc.In summary, why is this project so significant? Quite simply Reach. Delivering education in this manner has the power to reach many at a relatively low cost.Summary of Innovative Advantage:Empowers teachers and students to be more effective agents of change through knowledge transfer and exchange of skill.Extends reach of knowledge - provides inexpensive access to educationFosters community among knowledge seekers, can be linked to social and business networking sitesProvides opportunities for skilled and knowledgeable people to become knowledge providers. (An open knowledge delivery system with a local slant)Infinite possibilities for courses - not shackled to a specific institution, has low overhead and is open to experts based on their demonstrated abilities.The business model is highly scaleable with low operating costs, and designed to be self perpetuating

Emissions reduction potential:

Infinite potential for GHG reduction. This project takes a different approach from many of the other submissions in that it is not a singular solution. Rather it acts as an engine or amplifier. It has the capacity to spawn an infinite number of personal or corporate level changes.It can be viewed such: 1 learner takes a food course and begins to grow their own food in their backyard efficiently and sustainably. That person is now making 5 less trips to the grocery store for fresh produce, while also lowering the demand for such products that require considerable fossil fuel consumption to grow and to transport at the same time. Let’s say a reduction in 10 car trips. Multiply this by the number of people who can take a course at any given time (no actual limit because of method of delivery) let’s say 100, and multiply this by the number of courses offered (theoretically unlimited) let’s say say 50. That’s 10x100x50. That’s 50 000 car trips. This is a rough estimate, but the power of the concept is clear.Moreover, when compared to traditional methods of transferring skill-based knowledge, it requires very little built infrastructure or physical resources to function. It does not require a classroom, learners can use products that they already own (computers), there are no textbooks, and nobody commutes.Without selling the concept short by restricting the benefits to only a few examples, a small sample of possibilities follow:

Increased solar panel installation (reduced emissions from energy production)
Modified consumer behaviour that results from better understanding
Local food production (reduced demand for industrial/petroleum based food production)
Green roofs (Increased carbon sequestration)
Energy Conservation in business (Electricity + heating loads) via education about best practices for office managers, facility managers, small busines owners etc (reduced energy consumption)

The team:

TBD

Seeking collaborators:

Yes

Potential collaborators should contact :

[email protected]

How will you ensure your project is self supporting within five years?:

This project is scaleable once it is established, because its operating costs are low. Even having just one instructor and 5 students will make the site viable. Instructors receive compensation in the form of royalties from enrollment. Their income increases as a function of their enrolment and depends on providing excellent content. Most of the funding will be needed to design and build the site, but this can be kept very low by using mostly off the shelf and open source web products. Otherwise, the model is simple, it provides easy access to expertise and compensates contributors. The cost of hosting the service can be kept very low by using scalable cloud-based services.Bonus: Future Vision for GrowthGreenPIVOT is a second (expansionary) phase of the site; it is a match-up service between micro-capital (small or large investors interested in supporting green ideas), and the expertise required to make it happen (knowledge holders) within a platform for generating ideas. It would constitute a dating service for marrying ideas to capacity and to capital; one that leverages an established community of knowledge leaders and engaged learners.A note on MarketingThe most appropriate marketing for this site would be a kind of un-marketing. Marketing that results from partnering and from producing a product that is genuinely helpful and desirable. This begins by prototyping early and reaching out early. Since the people who provide content to the site benefit financially from the site, and many will have networks, they must act as marketing partners by bringing their networks with them. Accordingly, the first stage of this process will involve recruiting knowledge providers (people) and advocacy/educational bodies that have their own networks to participate in the process and create content for the site. These groups (largely NGO’s) are networked and have many of their own followers. There may be a need to use some form of social media based marketing to grow the site at different points but that is hard to gauge from where we stand, and I will do more homework on it in the meantime.

Tags:

How did you hear about ClimateSpark?:

The Centre for Social Innovation

Race to Reduce - The Smart Energy Office Challenge

RaceToReduce — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:03:04 +0000

Contestant organization:

CivicAction, Greening Greater Toronto

Venture partners:

BOMA TorontoCanada Green Building CouncilCity of TorontoEnbridge Gas DistributionEnerlife ConsultingHalsall AssociatesPartners in Project GreenREALpacToronto Hydro

Describe your venture:

The Race to Reduce smart energy office challenge is an innovative project that challenges the Toronto region’s office building landlords and tenants to publicly commit to work together to collectively reduce energy use by at least 10 per cent over four years. This friendly corporate challenge is unique in that it encourages measureable energy reductions through the collaborative efforts of those that are often seen as competitors, and provides the platform and tools to do so.THE ISSUE:Office buildings account for nearly 20 per cent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 37 per cent of the electricity use and 17 per cent of the natural gas use in the Toronto region. There is a well documented “efficiency gap” between the optimal investments in cost-effective energy efficiency and the low levels of investment that are actually occurring. Barriers to broader adoption of office building energy efficiency include:

Difficulty in acquiring data to build business cases
Ineffective communication between tenants and building owners
Lack of an equitable measurement standard for energy performance
Lack of broader education about energy efficiency

The Race to Reduce addresses these barriers by encouraging action and innovation in terms of energy reduction while building cooperation between all participants. By establishing a very public platform for sharing best practices and successes, the Race to Reduce serves as a catalyst for facilitating dialogue and encouraging collective energy reduction. This collaborative framework is one that will benefit individual participants and serve as a model for others to follow.Why office buildings?We saw office buildings’ substantive use of energy and their negative impact on the environment as an opportunity to affect positive change. We also saw that this issue was not yet being addressed by other organizations. Lastly, we felt CivicAction’s collaborative model would be very effective in breaking down some of the communication barriers that were slowing down energy reduction progress in this building sector.For the short-term we will to continue to focus on office space to ensure we meet our Race to Reduce energy reduction target, and more importantly, reach a critical mass of participants, thereby accelerating a sector-wide adoption of collaborative landlord/tenant energy reduction solutions. In the mid to long term, there is interest amongst our Leadership Council to expand the program and the apply the lessons we’ve learned to other building sectors.Why energy?In order to keep the challenge simple, measurable and manageable, the Race to Reduce is focusing on energy reductions in the short term. In future years, we may broaden the focus to include waste, water, transportation, etc. While the focus is on energy for now, we recognize that many organizations are tackling a broader green agenda, and those efforts will be recognized through our Action & Innovation awards. HOW IT WORKS:Target: A clear target to reduce participating building energy use by 10 per cent by 2014. The collective nature of the target recognizes that participants at different stages of their energy reduction plans will see varying results from their initiatives.Anyone can participate: All landlords and tenants in office buildings of any age, size or use in the Toronto region are eligible to participate.Partnership: To maximize the results of their efforts, landlords and tenants within a building are encouraged to work together to coordinate initiatives, share successes, and motivate each other.Energy reduction tactics: The Race to Reduce provides a framework for participants, but does not prescribe tactics. We have set a common energy reduction goal that participants can rally around, a unique platform for landlord/tenant conversation, and the tools and resources to help support their energy reduction initiatives. The development of specific energy reduction tactics is left up to the landlords and tenants. This ensures the tactics meet the unique needs of each landlord/tenant relationship and the building they occupy. It also ensures that the landlord/tenants take ownership, and become responsible for own their energy reduction initiatives.Resources: A wide selection of resources are available to building teams, including:

Landlord and Tenant Race Kits
Thousands of environmental best practice case studies
Greening Our Workplaces building workshops
A "Tool Box" of financial incentive programs, benchmarking and auditing tools, financing options, work sessions and more are in development and will soon be available to participants.

Measurement: The Race to Reduce uses REALpac’s Energy Benchmarking Survey to measure and track building energy performance. Data normalization allows buildings to compare year-over-year progress against themselves, the entire portfolio, and even across the country.Metrics for success: Metrics will include # of buildings, # of tenants, % floor space, and of course % energy reduction. Awards: Each November, the Race to Reduce will publicly recognize remarkable efforts and outcomes by participants, including participation, action & innovation, and building performance. BENEFITS:Benefits to tenants: Reducing energy use will save money, and can also improve productivity. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate leadership with stakeholders and the public, and to engage employees and improve the work environment, leading to improved employee satisfaction and helping to recruit and retain top talent.Benefits to landlords: In addition to the savings in energy costs, developing a strong partnership with tenants is key to maximizing energy efficiency and reduction initiatives. Improvements to building structure, atmosphere and operations will help attract and retain tenants. RESULTS TO DATE:Since its launch in May 2011, 23 landlords and 77 tenants have signed up 93 buildings, representing 48.4 million square feet of office space. That’s over 23 per cent of the total office space across the region!

Emissions reduction potential:

With the current participation of 48.4 million square feet (over 23% of the region’s office space), a 10% energy reduction over four years would result in a decrease of over 28,500 tonnes of GHGs annually, which is the equivalent of taking over 20,000 cars off the road.We continue to see excitement for the program, and expect participation to grow. If all 207 million square feet of Toronto region office space joined the Race to Reduce, a 10% energy reduction over four years would result in a decrease of over 122,000 tonnes of GHGs annually, which is the equivalent of taking over 87,000 cars off the road forever.

The team:

The Race to Reduce is championed by a leadership council of 50+ senior volunteer leaders. This council is co-chaired by Linda Mantia, Head, Enterprise Services and Chief Procurement Officer, Royal Bank of Canada, and Michael Thornburrow, Senior Vice President, Corporate Real Estate and Sourcing, BMO Financial Group. Members include landlords representing over 40% of the Toronto region’s office building stock, and tenants occupying almost 40 million square feet of office space.The Race to Reduce is supported by a lean team at CivicAction:

Linda Weichel, Vice President, Partnerships
- Linda brings 20 years of experience as a communications consultant at Media Profile, including environmental work with NGOs, the public and private sectors. Her responsibilities at CivicAction include developing and strengthening partner and stakeholder relationships, as well as overseeing CivicAction's environmental initiative, Greening Greater Toronto and its projects, including the Race to Reduce. Drawing on her business leadership, communications expertise and passion for city building, Linda drives a coordinated effort across sectors to improve the Toronto region's environmental performance.
Leslie Domenico, Program Manager
- Leslie is the program lead, and is responsible for strategic development and implementation of the Race. She brings years of communications and marketing experience and strong knowledge of the environmental sector. She was most recently coordinating global activities and communications with The Climate Group and developing marketing and programming for Green Enterprise Ontario.
Tiffany Vong, Project Officer
- Tiffany is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto, with an Honours BA in architectural and urban studies. She is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Race to Reduce program, as well as coordinating the activities of the Race’s multiple stakeholders. Tiffany is also instrumental in the development and implementation of program elements.
Rebecca Geller, Communications and Events Officer

Rebecca handles the Race communications functions, including strategic planning and execution, media relations and event support. Rebecca actively seeks opportunities to highlight program and participant achievements to promote a greener Toronto region. With a background in corporate communications and community investment, she also manages the CivicAction communications portfolio and supports its other initiatives.

Seeking collaborators:

Yes

Potential collaborators should contact :

[email protected]

How will you ensure your project is self supporting within five years?:

The Race to Reduce was intentionally developed as a four-year program. By the end of Year 4 we hope to have engaged the majority of the office building space in the Toronto Region in energy reduction measures and achieved our collective goal of a 10% energy reduction. In doing so we hope to have reached such a critical mass that there is spill over into other building sectors and that implementing energy reduction measures and designing low energy use buildings is woven into the fabric of conducting business.By Year 5 we hope to have made the Race to Reduce (energy) program redundant and to have moved on to another issue area.

Tags:

Inter-School Collaboration for Conservation Quantification

epetersiel — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:57:34 +0000

Contestant organization:

The Leo Baeck Day School / Robbins Hebrew Academy

Venture partners:

The Leo Baeck Day SchoolRobbins Hebrew AcademyZerofootprint

Describe your venture:

Emissions reduction potential:

Lighting within the school
Reduction of controllable plugloads
Setback levels for heating and cooling (occupied vs unoccupied)
Energy generation

Impact to be measured once external baseline established (Initial set of ideas)

Creative approaches to carpooling (Reducing distance, number of cars, public transit etc)
Community Sustainable Agriculture (For consumption in school or for foodbanks)

We are looking to the ClimateSpark SVC community to identify additional energy conservation exercises whose impact can be quantified, to add to the list above.

The team:

The Leo Baeck Day School / Robbins Hebrew Academy – providing access to Grade 8 students and Staff, as well as committed parents and alumni

Zerofootprint – providing access to visualization software which will allow normalized comparisons of energy consumption data

http://www.zerofootprint.net/

Climate Reality Project - Canada – Canadian volunteers, some in the GTA, ready to present in person and through video, the basics of climate change at a Grade 8 level

Seeking collaborators:

Yes

Potential collaborators should contact :

Eric Petersiel - [email protected], Claire Sumerlus - [email protected]

How will you ensure your project is self supporting within five years?:

The use of volunteers within the schools and the quantified energy consumption reduction costs will make the deployment self sufficient, once the start-up costs of the project have been paid for.

Tags:

quantification

collaboration

benchmark

How did you hear about ClimateSpark?:

Word of mouth