by Jennie Moore, Director of Sustainable Development, British Columbia Institute of Technology-School of Construction and the Environment
Update on Vancouver’s Second IEFS Workshop
The City of Vancouver is an early partner city to the development of the International Ecocity Framework and Standards (IEFS). On February 9th, 2012, BCIT hosted a workshop led by Ecocity Builders to assess progress to date in the IEFS development and explore next steps. Workshop participants included representatives from the City of Vancouver and many other local government and provincial government agencies, the construction industry, and non-government organizations.
The workshop built on the outcomes of a previous workshop held in Vancouver in 2010. At that time, the original concept of the IEFS was introduced and participants worked on establishing the fifteen conditions that now comprise the standards. Participants also identified the need to develop a guiding framework.
Workshop Participants
At this year’s workshop, participants reviewed the progress made to date, including the first attempt by City of Vancouver staff, in 2011, to assess their City’s performance using the IEFS. Important data gaps in the areas of soil fertility and food growing capacity were identified; however, City staff reported that the IEFS can be used to assess the City’s performance. Moving forward from that review, the workshop participants re-iterated the importance of metrics to both guide and inform performance.
Workshop participants broke into five table groups to further explore:
- Ecocity mapping
- Bio-geophysical conditions (City within its bioregion)
- Bio-geophysical conditions (City and the environment)
- Socio-cultural conditions and Eco-citizenship
- Assessment metrics
The IEFS workshop proceedings are available here.
British Columbia Institute of Technology-School of Construction and the Environment
is Lead Sponsor of the International Ecocity Framework and Standards Initiative