Corp Comm Connects

 

Vaughan makes some progress on its sustainability goals

YorkRegion.com
Nov. 14, 2014
By Adam Martin-Robbins

The city’s five-year plan aimed at making the community more environmentally sustainable and reducing its ecological footprint is nearing its end. And while there’s been success in some areas, there’s still work to be done in other areas, says Chris Wolnik, Vaughan’s manager of environmental sustainability.

“We’ve been walking down this path for a long time. So if you’re walking down the same path, and it’s a good path, you’re finally going to see some (positive) results, and I think we have been showing that,” he says

The city implemented its community sustainability and environmental master plan, dubbed Green Directions, back in 2010.

It includes 85 so-called action items aimed at such things as cutting back energy consumption, generating less waste and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, among other things.

To find out whether or not those actions are effective, the city began tracking two-dozen indicators ranging from energy use to climate change, urban-forest cover to bike paths and cultural events to community engagement.

“Of the 24 indicators, six are really positive, 12 are kind of neutral and five or six are doing not as well as we hoped they would, but they’re not far off of trending the right way, too,” Wolnik says.

The six really positive indicators include:

That latter statistic is among Wolnik’s favourites to talk about.

“Those are (businesses and organizations) within Vaughan that are saying, ‘Yes, we take the environment seriously. We want to have a reduced environmental footprint,’” he says. “That’s a big commitment, but if they can make that commitment on a corporate level, then maybe other businesses will be willing to take a bigger step with respect to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions or energy usage or environmental footprint in general.”

While the city has done well in a half-dozen areas, it’s lagging a bit in others, including the amount of trash being kept out of landfill sites.

It’s an issue citywide where the amount slipped from 69 per cent to 66 per cent, between 2011 and 2013, as well as at city-owned facilities, says Wolnik.

“We’re trying to work with the region on trying to tackle that,” he says. “We could do a better job of what we’re doing at some of our city facilities. We’re coming up with a waste audit in 2015 to help put in some actions that will help address that on the facilities side.”

Wolnik added that it’s also going to require getting the community involved.

“It’s a public education thing, as well, because we need public support in terms of (addressing) those waste diversion numbers,” he says. “We’ve got to get the community more engaged and for the people who use these facilities, we need to make sure we provide the necessary resources to be able to achieve waste diversion in some of those facilities. We’re trying to do a better job of that, for sure.”

To date, 98 per cent of the 85 action items in Green Directions have been initiated, and 16 of those have been successfully completed.

Of the remaining action items, 67 are ongoing while two have yet to be initiated, but those will be launched next year.

As for next steps, Wolnik says, his department is looking to begin work on the second instalment of Green Directions with an eye to improving in areas that are lagging.

“We’re nearing the end of this first iteration of Green Directions and now we’re trying to think of beyond what can we do to work on the indicators that we need some help with in our next iteration, which we hope to do in 2015, if council supports that,” he said. “We’re obviously going to go to the community and ask what are some of your ideas?”

To find out more, visit vaughan.ca/environment.