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The GreenJobs BC Conference will take place September 21st and 22nd, 2012, at the Coast Plaza Hotel in Vancouver.

The conference will bring together 200-300 British Columbians from across the Labour and Environmental movements, as well business, First Nations, community, government, and other sectors interested in building a strong green economy. Through a combination of panel discussions, educational seminars, and plenary speakers, participants will deepen their understanding of the issues, and be part of mapping out a green jobs plan for the province.

More information on the GreenJobs BC Conference will be posted here as it is ready. In the meantime, save the date and help spread the word.

 Conference Updates:

•  Conference Agenda Now Available

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This presentation will examine the role that postal unions can, and should play to promote environmentally responsible practices and reduce GHG emissions with respect to their own operations and those of the postal administrations.

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Geoff Bickerton – Director fo Research, CUPW - Geoff Bickerton is the Director of Research for CUPW and has held that position since 1977. As Director of Research he is primarily involved in collective bargaining and public policy research in areas including the environment, health and safety, work process and technological change. Geoff has a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and economics from Carleton University, was a labour columnist for Canadian Dimension magazine for 18 years and is currently the Secretary-Treasurer of CUPE Local 1979.

In the 1980s Geoff co-chaired the strategy committee of the Pro-Canada Network and continued as an executive member of the Action Canada Network and the Solidarity Network until 2005. He has also researched, wrote and presented papers at the annual Rutgers University Conferences on Postal and Delivery Economics since 2001. Currently I am on the Committee of Management of Work in a Warming World (W3) based at York University.

Our case study will focus on the collaborative approach used to finance EcoSave through various funding partners, the barriers that were addressed with on-bill financing, and the impact of the program on Nelson’s green economy.

Carmen will talk about the features of EcoSave including the development of a highly accessible program, the innovative public outreach employed to deliver the program to the community, the positive economic impact EcoSave has had on local building suppliers and contractors, and how local residents continue to embrace the program.

Fiona will discuss the progression of EcoSave beyond a pilot program, ways in which municipalities can use community programs to offset corporate emissions, and the lessons learned that could be carried forward in program development.

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Carmen Proctor – EcoSave Coordinator, City of Nelson - Carmen Proctor moved to the Nelson area in 2006, drawn to the abundance of outdoor recreation.  She is currently contracted by the City of Nelson to develop and implement its pilot energy retrofits program, EcoSave for 2012 and 2013.

Carmen has spent over ten years working in the public sector, specializing in property management.  During this time, Carmen had the opportunity to apply her creativity to the development of efficient building management systems.  Aside from experience in building management, it was the skills developed through working with a diversity of people that Carmen has found most valuable in her current role as the EcoSave Coordinator.

Fiona Galbraith - Corporate Climate Action Coordinator, City of Nelson - Fiona Galbraith currently works as a policy analyst, providing consulting services to local governments.  Since 2009, Fiona has been contracted by the City of Nelson to design and implement the Corporate Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan.  She began working in the public sector in 2000 as a policy analyst with the Ontario government.

Since moving to Nelson in 2006, Fiona has been involved in various policy projects at the local government level in the fields of finance, sustainability, climate action, and alternative energy.  In her spare time, Fiona takes advantage of any opportunity to escape into the outdoors as often as possible.

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 Jordan Fisher – Owner & Program Manager, FRESCo - Jordan provides services that help improve energy and water efficiency, working in collaboration with a wide variety of stakeholders. He helps plan and implement upgrades to existing buildings and simplifies the otherwise complex retrofit process. Jordan also provides research and advisory services that assist governments and utilities in the development of programs and policies that help transform the marketplace.

Jordan has extensive experience in renewable energy and conservation, green building, cost consulting, project management, energy/emissions planning, and facilitation. He is currently leading a large energy retrofit program in the City of Vancouver, which includes over 1100 residential and commercial units. Jordan’s diverse experience working with public, private, and non-profit organizations includes energy, emissions, and sustainability planning, and the planning and development of green building and utility projects with several billion dollars in value. Jordan is a founding member of Mayor’s Task Force on Energy and Economic Growth (City of Colwood), member of Pearson College’s Campus Renewal Committee, has been a guest lecturer at Royal Roads University and Simon Fraser University, was co-founder and past Chair of the Vancouver Island branch of the Green Building Council, and is a past Director of the BC Sustainable Energy Association. Jordan has passion and vision for bringing sustainability and conservation into the mainstream and is widely respected for his grounded and business-case driven approach.

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Barb Matfin - Care Aid & Cook, 100 Mile Health Centre and the Chair & Chief Shop Steward, HEU local - Barb lives in Lone Butte, her family homesteaded in the area since 1929, and has deep roots in the community. Currently, she is a Care Aid and Cook at the 100 Mile Health Centre and the Chair and Chief Shop Steward for her HEU local, but considers her real job to be as a community activist, volunteer, environmentalist, gardener, and part time spinner and knitter. She first got involved with the union because cleaning chemicals were making her sick, and she needed to get the problem fixed!

She is also a founding board member and secretary of the Horse Lake Community Farm cooperative and a member of CEEDS, Community Enhancement and Economic Development Society. She is active in the local cross country ski club as a coach and has noticed firsthand the effects of global warming. She was also a 4H leader in horticulture and in swine (not everyone can say they were a Swine Leader!) and lives with her husband, 3 socially active young adult children and one lonely dog all while building their dream home.

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• the Electrical Joint Training Committee’s ‘add-on’ certification for qualified electrical journeypersons in new technologies such as solar and wind power.
• how the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT)’s construction school incorporates sustainability concepts, new technologies, and eco-friendly materials into their apprenticeship training curricula.
• GeoExchange BC will discusses the newly established Geothermal Technician apprenticeship program and certification.

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Collectively, One Earth, Strathcona Business Improvement Association (BIA), Light House Sustainable Building Centre and Recycling Alternative bring a broad and varied scope of experience to the table, in areas including inclusive green jobs, eco-industrial land use and development, collaborative green enterprise zones, global to local opportunities for economic development in the ‘blue to green’ collar movement.

Our presentation will focus on 4 local stories and the experience each of our organizations has working collaboratively with local groups to create inclusive and sustainable community models that fortify local, green economic development, while creating innovations for closed loop resource recovery and industrial systems.

1. Tracy Casavant will profile how striving for sustainable buildings and developments, especially industrial and business parks,  creates direct and indirect green jobs.
2.  Joji Kumagai will share the Strathcona BIA’s most recent project to create a Resource Park, which will centralize the waste management of the area and engage the community in local, closed loop job opportunities.
3. Louise Schwarz will talk about the work Recycling Alternative is doing with other local organizations to realize Vancouver’s first Green Hub, a co-location model for recycling businesses to collaborate operationally, maximize closed loop recovery and create inclusive employment, through skills development and training in this emerging green sector.
4. Drawing on examples from around the world of the intersection between labour and the environment, Emmanuel Prinet will highlight opportunities for sustainable, local jobs and economic development as blue meets green in the growing green economy.

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Presenter Biographies

Tracy Casavant is the Executive Director of Light House Sustainable Building Centre.  With more than 15 years experience, including establishing and running her own consulting firm for ten years, Tracy Casavant brings a unique soft and hard skill set of training and experience to Light House’s projects, blending backgrounds in chemical engineering and environmental studies. Tracy is one of North America’s leading experts on sustainable industrial / employment lands and infrastructure development, and has been responsible for dozens of eco-industrial projects nationally and internationally.  She teaches the Industrial Ecology course in BCIT’s Environmental Engineering program; has previously been a sessional lecturer at SFU; and has supervised graduate students at UBC, Dalhousie, and Royal Roads. She has been invited to speak on various business, community, and sustainability topics across Canada and internationally in countries such as Korea, China, Taiwan, Mexico, and Turkey. Light House Sustainable Building Centre is dedicated to catalysing sustainability in the built environment, from buildings to communities.

Joji Kumagai is the Executive Director of the Strathcona Business Improvement Association.  Joji is a second-generation Japanese Canadian. He has been the Executive Director of the Strathcona Business Improvement Association (SBIA) since 2010. One of the core mandates of the SBIA is its Green Zone Initiative, an initiative to create a community of businesses working to reduce environmental impacts through resource efficiency and collaboration. Joji majored in ecology and toxicology at Simon Fraser University and is currently working on his accounting designation. He has a keen interest in the role business plays in a more environmentally sustainable world.

Louise Schwarz co-founded The Recycling Alternative with business partner Robert Weatherbe in 1989. Today, the company operates 16 trucks and employs 35 staff, providing service to businesses, community events and organizations.  Ahead of the curve, in 2003 Recycling Alternative began running its fleet on recycled biodiesel and has operated Vancouver’s only 100% biodiesel pump for the Vancouver Biodiesel Co-op since that time. In 2009 Recycling Alternative tackled organics and zero waste collection, designing and manufacturing a prototype truck for this multi-stream collection system.  In 2011, Recycling Alternative partnered with Vancouver’s Farmers Market to create Vancouver’s first Food Scraps Drop Spot, a successful collection model for apartment residents that continues to expand.  Louise sits on the boards of the Cultch, Our Social Fabric, BC Biodiesel Association, and the Advisory Councils of Street Youth Job Action and Downtown Community Court.  She received the ‘Woman of Distinction’ award in May 2012 for her work in environment and sustainability.  Louise holds degrees in Political Science and Spanish Literature from UBC, and a Teaching Degree from University of Glasgow.

Emmanuel Prinet is Policy Director of the One Earth Initiative Society a Vancouver-based nonprofit focused on advancing sustainable consumption and production patterns from the local to global scales; he is also Principal of EcoSteppingStones Consulting.  He holds an MSc in planning from the University of British Columbia.  He has spent seven years living in France to work on European and international sustainable consumption and production issues, and has been extensively involved in the UN Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) over the last 12 years; for the years 2010 and 2011, he was an NGO delegate on the official Canadian delegation to the CSD.  Emmanuel was the lead author in the Industry Canada-commissioned “North American Actor & Activity Map on Sustainable Consumption and Production” (2011).  Since 2004, he has co-produced a number of short documentaries as part of a video series called “Sustainability Productions”, which feature the good social and ecological practices of cities in Europe and North America in their efforts to become more sustainable.  He currently sits on the National Advisory Committee that guides the development of a Sustainable Consumption and Production Framework for Canada.

Vanessa Timmer (moderator) is a co-founder and the Executive Director of One Earth. She weaves together sustainability with systems thinking, and believes that envisioning sustainable futures is a powerful draw for social change. Vanessa is also an Associate with the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government focused on innovation and global public goods.  She teaches at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Simon Fraser University, Metro Vancouver and the International Institute for Sustainable Development.  With her sister, Dagmar, Vanessa co-hosts the Metro Vancouver television show, The Sustainable Region.  Timmer is on the Board of the Projecting Change Film Festival and the International Centre of Art for Social Change, and is part of the Creative Team for The Future We Want, a global campaign to create positive and compelling visions of life in a sustainable future.  As the 2011 and 2012 United Nations Environment Programme North American civil society representative, Vanessa spoke in Nairobi about green jobs, green economy and sustainable consumption and production.  She connects the social justice, livelihoods and rights issues to the global environmental challenges.

Shift Urban Cargo Delivery is an innovative service that eliminates truck trips in Vancouver’s downtown core. The enterprise was founded by a group of young people with a passion to create green jobs that provide empowering, meaningful, and just work while addressing environmental challenges.    We offer a delivery service using cargo trikes: big pedal-powered tricycles with a cargo box to transport 1.55 square meters of goods, weighing up to 250kg.

Shift is the first service of its kind in Canada, and we have since inspired a number of other similar start-ups in other cities.  We have established our delivery method as the most appropriate technology for short-haul goods movement in the downtown core, replacing delivery trucks with delivery trikes.

As 2012 is the International Year of Co-ops, our case study will focus on how we have applied the worker co-operative model to launch and grow our innovative social enterprise and create empowering green jobs. There are many differences between conventional enterprises and worker co-ops, and we will elaborate on how Shift has turned this model into a strength that has contributed to our success-to-date. Our case study will highlight Shift’s efforts in community collaboration and our experience in leveraging innovative financing solutions through the worker co-op model.

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