Re-Imagining Cities & Waste

Attaining carbon neutrality will have a profound impact on how we design communities and deal with waste. On Wednesday, Jan. 27th, from 11 am to noon, meet a number of pioneers who are creating innovative solutions to carbon neutrality and ways to change restrictive regulations.

Kim Fowler will describe how a number of developments in various communities achieve the highest standards for green buildings in terms of low carbon energy; water conservation and producing local foods. She will demonstrate how community engagement including Indigenous peoples is critical to the success of these projects.

Larry Gardner and Elaine Klimke will describe how the Regional Districts of Nanaimo and the Capital Region in Victoria are pursuing different paths to zero waste. Nanaimo is committed to a 90% diversion of waste and is devising innovative fees which encourage waste haulers to divert waste from the Landfill. The Capital Regional District does not have a formal plan for zero waste and uses tipping fees to encourage dumping waste in landfills. Elaine Klimke will demonstrate how community engagement will be critical to switching to a zero waste future.

Gene Miller will share how it's possible to have affordable sustainable homes as a new form of compact living with high energy efficiency, low transportation and reduced waste generation.  

Award-winning author and poet, Fiona Tinwei Lam, will share her creative approach to educating the public about plastic waste and reduction. 

Speaker Profiles

Kim Fowler has 30 years experience working as a sustainability planner for local government. She specializes in innovative design projects such as Dockside Green located in Victoria’s Inner Harbour; a unique development application process in Port Coquitlam in the Greater Vancouver Area based on economic; environmental and social factors and implementing a Waterfront Plan for the Town of Ladysmith on Vancouver Island in collaboration with the Stz’uminus First Nation. 

Larry Gardner is the Manager for Solid Waste Services for the Regional District of Nanaimo. The Regional District is one of the first jurisdictions in Canada to embrace zero waste with a formal goal of diverting 90% of waste from the landfill by 2027. Larry has over 30 years experience in the solid waste industry including working for the BC Ministry of Environment regulating landfills and industrial waste. He is pioneering an innovative financing model which encourages waste haulers to divert waste from the landfill replacing traditional tipping fees which can encourage waste dumping.

Elaine Klimke is the President of the Mount Work Coalition, a not-for-profit society dedicated to the environmental stewardship of the Mount Work region of Greater Victoria where the Hartland Landfill is located. Elaine has appreciated nature all her life and is dedicated to protecting nature for future generations. She supports zero waste initiatives and development of energy from waste technologies to avoid expanding the landfill and the loss of 73 acres of trees and critical wildlife habitat.

Fiona Tinwei Lam’s work appears in more than thirty-five anthologies, including The Best Canadian Poetry in English (both 2010 and 2020) and Forcefield: 77 Women Poets of BC. Her award-winning poetry videos have screened at festivals locally and internationally. She teaches at Simon Fraser University’s Continuing Studies. 

Lam's third collection of poetry Odes & Laments, celebrates the overlooked wonder and beauty in the everyday, while lamenting harm to our ecosystems. She won The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Prize and was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award. Lam lives in Vancouver on the unceded, ancestral territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tseil Waututh.

Gene Miller is a real estate development consultant who has devoted his professional career to innovative design to promote environmentally and socially advanced projects. He initiated Gaining Ground Urban Sustainability conferences in the 2000's and writes for various publications on urban sustainability. He is now a practitioner proposing a multi unit housing development called Affordable Sustainable Homes as a new form of compact living with high energy efficiency; low transportation and waste generation at below market prices.  

Don’t miss this exciting series and notifications of the video replays. Be sure to sign up for free here.

Re-Imagining Our Future Season 3 Launch

Season 3 of Creative Solutions for a New World launched January 13th, 2021 with policy experts, Bob Sandford and Jon O’Riordan, uncovering the systemic challenges to reach carbon neutrality and a review of national and local policies currently being considered in Canada and BC with the call for stronger and more immediate action; leading US political analyst, Mace Rosenstein, illuminating how the new administration in the US will tackle carbon neutrality and its global implications; Charlene George, a member of the t’Sou-ke peoples and a cultural guide, sharing how we can better balance our relationship with each other, Western and Indigenous knowledge systems, and ways of knowing; Kathy Code of the Ecoforestry Institute Society demonstrating how a shift to nature-based approaches to managing our forests, agriculture and soils will not only increase carbon storage, but generate more jobs than current industrial based practices; and 15 year-old climate activist, Grace Sinats, providing an insightful preview of how youth can make a huge difference in charting the road forward to carbon neutrality.

Click here to see the questions that were not answered during the live webinar.

Call for a Moratorium on Old Growth Logging in British Columbia

In 2020, Creatively United and Climate and the Arts called for a new Forest Framework in British Columbia recommending ecosystem based forest management. 

The current Provincial Government has committed to implementing key recommendations from a commissioned report titled A New Future for Old Forests.

The key recommendation is to declare the conservation and management of ecosystem health and biodiversity of British Columbia’s forests as an overarching priority and enact legislation that legally establishes this priority for all sectors. 

Our partner the Ecoforest Institute Society has sent a letter to Premier Horgan (250-387-1715, premier@gov.bc.ca) and Minister Conroy of Forest Land and Natural Resources (250-387-6240, FLNR.minister@gov.bc.ca) calling for a moratorium on all old growth logging until a full consultation with indigenous peoples and other interests is completed on implementing this and other recommendations.

We support this letter and ask you to contact the Premier and Minister Conroy to demonstrate your agreement for a moratorium.

About Creatively United & Our Community Partners

The Creatively United for the Planet Society is a registered non-profit society. Since 2012, we have brought together more than 10,000 people from throughout the region who care about happy, healthy, and resilient communities. We have done so through eight zero-waste sustainability showcases, numerous community events and educational talks, collaborative partnerships, a video series, and the CreativelyUnited.org free community information network, resource and solutions sharing hub. 

The Gail O'Riordan Climate and the Arts Legacy Fund, supported by The Victoria Foundation, is dedicated to changing human consciousness towards global environmental change by combining science with the creativity of the performing arts.

The Ecoforestry Institute Society (EIS) is a registered non-profit, charitable society comprised of a volunteer Board and a strong core of community volunteers. They are dedicated to the principles and practices of ecoforestry – demonstrating that we can harvest trees and plants from the forest while maintaining healthy and integrated ecological systems.

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