How big is your ecological footprint?
Let’s imagine a Vancouver family of four. They live in a typical three-bedroom house on a typical lot, 33 by 122 feet. Their neighbours are similar families, living in similar houses. Their kids walk to school nearby, one parent commutes downtown, and the other works across the city. They are busy in the evenings and on weekends with soccer practice, piano lessons, and shopping trips, or maybe just renting a movie.
Now, imagine that this family had to survive on what their 33 by 122 foot property could provide. - They could grow some of their food, but not all of it.
- They might be lucky enough to have a well, assuming the water was fit to drink.
- But where would they get the wood for their piano, the material for their clothes, gas for their car, or plastic for the DVD player?
- And where would they put their garbage?
 The answer is, of course, that this Vancouver family can’t supply themselves completely. They need someone else’s land to grow their food, and more land for roads to deliver that food to the grocery store. Still more land is needed for the wood that built their home, and the natural gas that fuels their furnace.
Not only that, but they need land for trees to help clean the air that is polluted by their car, and enough land for a healthy ecosystem where microbes in the earth and water can break down their waste products.
Vancouver’s existing footprint.
Until recently, there was enough land on earth to supply all of us with what we used, and to absorb the waste that we created. This was partly because there used to be far fewer people on the earth, and partly because the developed nations formed only a small portion of the world’s population. But no longer. The developing world is rapidly adopting Western lifestyles.
In fact, if everyone in the world right now used resources and produced waste at the rate that Vancouverites do, we would need four planets to support us!
This is the idea of the ecological footprint: how much land is required to support the way we live. It’s a world-famous concept developed by Dr. William Rees, a professor right here in Vancouver, at UBC.
Our Vancouver family uses land outside their city lot: in China for their goods, in Mexico and California for their vegetables, in Alberta for gasoline and beef. We don’t notice how far our own ecological footprint reaches, or may not find it a big deal. But for the planet, it is a big deal. We don’t have four earths – we have one. It is clear that we can’t continue to live beyond the planet’s ability to provide.
Vancouver has done such a good job at growing in a way that makes the city an enjoyable place to live, that more and more people want to come here. This will help Vancouver thrive and become even more vibrant. However, Vancouver is falling behind in environmental performance. While we may perform well by North American standards, we still have one of the largest ecological footprints on the planet. But by acting now, we have the opportunity to protect Vancouver’s future livability. Shrinking our ecological footprint with EcoDensity and EcoStructure.
The City of Vancouver’s EcoDensity initiative is being launched to start a public dialogue about how we can reduce our ecological footprint. That’s the Eco part of EcoDensity. The Density part of EcoDensity is because the right kind of density can be one of our best tools to help lower our ecological footprint.
EcoDensity can:
- make walking, transit and cycling easier for more people;
- take advantage of existing infrastructure;
- allow for new green systems that reduce and better use energy, water and materials;
- introduce urban agriculture to reduce “food miles” (the distance it takes to get food to our homes); and
- create more complete communities by having housing diversity within walking distance of shops and services, and accessible to transit.
EcoDensity will build on the many years of work the City has undertaken in the downtown core, and with neighbourhoods through CityPlan and Community Visions .
In fact, this initiative could help us transform ideas we’ve already heard in community meetings into action.
EcoDensity can’t happen without EcoStructure.
To move towards an ecological footprint of one earth, we need more than just density. We need the right infrastructure in place: that is, the right EcoStructure. EcoStructure is the range of services and amenities that support environmentally friendly, higher density living – EcoDensity. There are three main categories of EcoStructure:
- transportation,
- community amenities, and
- green systems
The first two categories are discussed in this document in their own sections: Getting around: Transportation, and Enjoying life: Amenities. The third category, green systems, includes a wide range of environmentally smart practices that appear throughout this booklet, with the section Things we use: Where do they come from and where do they go? focussing specifically on green systems.
All three types of EcoStructure have a big impact on the size of our ecological footprint, especially in terms of how we move people and goods, build and operate buildings, and grow and distribute food. Long term livability and housing affordability.
We have a housing market that is expensive and does not meet the needs of many Vancouverites. Rental vacancy rates are below one per cent (well below the three per cent rate needed to ensure there is enough choice for different people). Housing prices are unaffordable to many people – on the east side, a typical house costs over half a million dollars, and on the west side, twice as much.
We need to strive for a future Vancouver that is both greener and more affordable at the same time.
We’re looking in the right direction.
Vancouverites can be proud that we’ve made some progress to contain our ecological footprint, while making Vancouver very livable. Vancouver has grown very rapidly, but we’ve absorbed much of this growth by developing mixed income and inclusive communities where lots of people live close together within walking distance of schools, grocery stores, shops, services and transit. We’ve reclaimed much of the waterfront for public access, and have built new parks right downtown, with more to come.
We need to do more.
How do you think we can grow as a city and reduce our ecological footprint at the same time? What would greener, more densely built housing look like in Vancouver? What kind of EcoStructure can best support it? This EcoDensity website offers some ideas, but we need to know how the people of Vancouver want to grow.
Tell us your ideas. Go to the Get Involved section of this website and register, fill out the survey and become a Network Champion. There are other ways to get in touch with us. For more information about opportunities to get involved, contact us at ecodensity@vancouver.ca or phone 604-873-7707.
More information about EcoDensity:
Download the full EcoDensity Primer document.
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Glossary of ecodensity
