A three year test of the Green Bloc Neighbourhood strategy brought city-level calls to action into realization through individual and community-level consultations, education sessions, and direct action. The pilot project was successful and has since been expanded.
Problems and Purpose
Project Green Bloc was a neighbourhood-level, participatory intervention in sustainable living established in response to the City of Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan. Overseen by a national non-profit and funded by the city, Project Green Bloc attempted to realize the city-level call to action on climate change mitigation and consumption reduction on the individual and community level. In particular, Project Green Bloc focused on measuring the neighborhood’s ecological footprint and using this metric as a catalyst for action. The Riley Park neighbourhood took the initiative, contacting the Evergreen Foundation for support in their plans to take collective action in response to the City's green living action plan. A three year pilot project was designed and Riley Park was selected to take part not only for its residents' enthusiasm but for the neighbourhood's characteristics which, being largely representative of a typical Vancouver city block, would make the project's outcomes and findings potentially replicable and scaleable.
Background History and Context
Project Green Bloc was the “first coordinated ecological footprint measurement in the City of Vancouver”.[1] In 2011, Vancouver City Council approved the Greenest City Action Plan, a comprehensive plan for moving the City toward being carbon neutral, eliminating waste, and fostering healthy ecosystems.[2] Project Green Bloc was in part a reaction to the Greenest City Action Plan. The idea to use public engagement and direct, individual action to achieve city-level climate targets was taken up by the Evergreen Foundation and the City of Vancouver at the insistence of Riley Park residents. After contacting the Evergreen Foundation and the Vancouver Foundation for support and guidance, the Riley Park community was chosen to take part in Project Green Bloc, a neighbourhood-level participatory intervention designed by Evergreen with the support of the City of Vancouver. The pilot project was based on Evergreen's previous work across Canada focusing on community-level public engagement, collaboration, and capacity-building to solve city- and province-wide environmental problems.[3] Project Green Bloc can be placed under a broader movement of local-level actions on sustainability under the umbrella of municipal governments and NGOs. The City of Denver has a similar if not slightly more institutionalized program, but this is not a phenomenon unique to either city.[4]
Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
The Evergreen Foundation, a Canadian non-profit focused on encouraging and facilitating sustainable urban development, organized the pilot project.[5] Funding was provided by the Vancouver Foundation’s Neighborhood Small Grants program, with additional support from other local businesses. While there is no publicly available information about the total cost of the program, its continuation past the pilot stage implies the cost-benefit was deemed acceptable to organizers.
Participant Recruitment and Selection
The idea to use direct public engagement on the community level to reach the city's ambitious climate targets was initiated by the residents of the Riley Park neighborhood. Having heard of the City of Vancouver's Greenest City Action Plan, community members in the Riley Park area decided to take action, soliciting the support of the Evergreen Foundation and the Vancouver Foundation.[6] Residents were able to voluntarily participate in the project, with 20 households signing up for the initial ecological footprint calculation and 18 actually completing the survey over a course of several weeks.[7] The Evergreen Foundation used small prizes to incentivize participation, as participants were entered into a raffle to win meals at local restaurants and gift certificates for local sustainable businesses.
Methods and Tools Used
The public engagement process involved three-hour dialogues where participants engaged in community asset mapping and deliberation on the proposed ideas.
What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation
Dialogues:
The project organizers facilitated three three-hour dialogues intended to help participants collaborate on footprint reduction ideas. Led by Project Green Bloc organizers, participants were introduced to the fundamentals of initiative, conducted a “community asset mapping activity” and brainstormed ideas for potential neighborhood projects.[8] The deliberations were prefaced with educational presentations that were intended to bring participants up to speed with ecological footprint calculations, potential mitigation strategies and methods, as well as what the City of Vancouver currently was undertaking to reduce its impacts. At the second dialogue, ideas were developed and voted on and three projects emerged as the most popular: Street greening, neighborhood renewable energy/energy audits, and a system for material and expertise sharing. At the third dialogue, committees were formed and assigned for each of the three projects.
Community Capacity-Building
The next step was a series of events intent on building community cohesion and developing new skills. Workshops on backyard beekeeping, bicycle repair, and vegan cooking were organized. Two large social events, “Block parties”, were held a year apart (June 2014 and June 2015) with the first drawing 70 participants and the second over 100. These block parties were intended to draw the attention of other community members not directly involved with the project to the Project Green Bloc initiative.
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
While Project Green Bloc did not meet the initial mitigation goal of a 25% reduction in the neighborhood’s ecological footprint, it did achieve a significant 12% decrease over the course of the three years. Furthermore, 45% of participants reported that they “felt more connected to their community” as a result of the project.[9] A factor contributing to this increased connection was a community-wide system for material and expertise sharing. This system was comprised in part by a community bulletin board, and while a participant created an online platform, it received little traffic or use and the participant ultimately withdrew from the initiative as a whole. The participants did however develop a neighborhood email list as well that allowed residents to easily communicate information with the entire community.
The project also saw several other tangible results in the Riley Park neighborhood. The participants developed a street greening plan that established a small park in existing street space. The park included pollinator-attractant garden beds built by residents as well as signs and a street mural that helped tell the story of Project Green Bloc to passersby. One issue was that the paint used to create the mural soon faded due to rainfall and car-traffic.
Additional traffic-calming plans were also introduced among these other legacy projects that would stay in place after Project Green Bloc had ended. Throughout 2015, a small group of residents discussed a handful of ideas for traffic calming that had been proposed in the dialogues. After several community consultations, three potential ideas emerged: laneway greening, traffic circles, and the transformation of one block in to a park/urban farm. The residents then held a design charrette in November of 2015 with 20 residents in attendance, but this proved to be inconclusive, with residents citing the need for further consultations. A subset of these participants then went on to hold further meetings and hoped to engage residents in surrounding neighbourhoods to develop a wider-scale plan encompassing the area between 16th Ave and King Edward, Cambie, and Main. It is unclear whether this larger plan has made significant progress, perhaps indicating a lack of capacity after the pilot Project Green Bloc ended.
The successes of the pilot were not overlooked, however, and the Green Bloc Neighbourhoods program was adopted by the City of Vancouver. As of 2018, seven neighbourhoods have taken part in the program which now recieves funding and support by the City of Vancouver; the local, socially responsible credit union, Vancity; the Sitka Foundation, and Simon Fraser University.[11]
Analysis and Lessons Learned
The project organizers made several recommendations to city officials for future initiatives. One was for streamlining the permitting process to better enable more neighborhoods to initiate projects of their own. Currently, long waiting times and extensive paperwork is forming a barrier against neighbourhood-level initiatives, which tend to rely heavily on volunteer time. The Project Green Bloc organizers also pointed to their ecological footprint calculator as a potential tool for driving broader engagement of individuals and households in other neighbourhoods. The footprint calculator proved to be an effective way to engage individuals and simultaneously unite the neighbourhood in a common goal. Lastly, the organizers also called on the City of Vancouver to invest further in funding and mobilizing of more neighborhood level sustainability projects.
Project Green Bloc earned high praise from former University of British Columbia professor, science broadcaster, and environmental activist David Suzuki, who participated in the first of the three dialogues. He reflected on the project by saying, “Environmentalism is not a specialty or discipline but a way of seeing our place in the biosphere. I can't think of a better way to appreciate that perspective than the kind of local initiative represented by Project Green Bloc. We live in such an interconnected world now that we must reassess our way of life in the context of the collective effects of all of humanity. Congratulations on this initiative that I hope can inspire many more across Canada.”[10]
See Also
References
[1]"Project Green Bloc: Wrap-up Report", last modified 2015, https://www.evergreen.ca/tools-publications/project-green-bloc-final-report/.
[2] "Greenest City Action Plan development", last modified 2016, http://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/greenest-city-action-plan-development.aspx
[3] "Evergreen Foundation", last modified 2016, http://www.participedia.net/en/organizations/evergreen-foundation
[4] "Sustainable Neighborhoods Program", last modified 2015, http://www.sustainableneighborhoodnetwork.org/sustainable-neighborhoods-denver
[5] "Evergreen Foundation", last modified 2016, http://www.participedia.net/en/organizations/evergreen-foundation
[6] "Project Green Bloc", last modified 2015, https://www.facebook.com/projectgreenbloc/
[7] "The Huge Weight", last modified 2013, http://thetyee.ca/Life/2013/10/11/A-Huge-Weight/
[8] "Project Green Bloc: Wrap-up Report", last modified 2015, https://www.evergreen.ca/tools-publications/project-green-bloc-final-report/
[9] "Project Green Bloc: Wrap-up Report", last modified 2015, https://www.evergreen.ca/tools-publications/project-green-bloc-final-report/
[10] "Project Green Bloc", last modified 2016, https://www.evergreen.ca/our-impact/cityworks/city-building/project-green-bloc/ [BROKEN LINK]
Update: similar information can be found at https://www.evergreen.ca/our-projects/green-bloc-neighbourhoods/
[11] "Green Bloc Neighbourhoods," last modified 2018, http://greenbloc.lighterfootprint.ca/
External Links
Project on the Evergreen Foundation Website