North Van environment leaders honoured with Living City Award

City of North Vancouver council honoured local green warriors with its annual Living City Award. The award recognizes individuals, schools, community groups and businesses that have demonstrated outstanding leadership in environmental sustainability.

Two local non-profits and five North Vancouver citizens received the award for being the stewards of the environment.

Christine Miller and Luci Cadman were honoured for their tireless work to educate residents about attractants that reduce human-bear conflict in the North Shore. In their respective roles as Executive Director and Education Coordinator with the North Shore Black Bear Society, Miller and Cadman canvasses high conflict areas and responds to inquiries from residents through a hotline and email. They also provide bear and wildlife education to residents at City events, to children and youth through school presentations, and to newcomers to Canada through visits to MOSAIC.

North Shore Community Garden Society was honoured for fostering a sense of community at the six community gardens it runs and manages in the City and the District of North Vancouver. The Society encourages members to grow organic produce and share the abundance with neighbours and the food bank. The gardens are showpieces in the community as greenspace for residents to enjoy and learn about urban agriculture.

The owners of a 1912 craftsman bungalow in Grand Boulevard, David Roberts, Kathy Fung and Matt Dowds, also received the Living City Award. The trio pursued significant energy efficiency and green building upgrades to their home while preserving its heritage history.

North Vancouver builder, Matt Dowds of Dowds Homes, used advanced buildings techniques and achieved a Passive House Plus certification for high energy efficiency and generation. Green building techniques were also used to repurpose old growth fir from the heritage structure and integrate water conservation features in the garden and driveway design.

Sustainable Produce Urban Delivery (SPUD) was also honoured by the City of North Vancouver for reducing and reusing packaging in their grocery orders to residents across B.C., including many in the City of North Vancouver.

Groceries are delivered in reusable bins with reusable freezer jackets and cold packs, and minimal single-use packaging. SPUD recently piloted a reusable takeout container program where plastic containers were given to members to use for takeout food orders, and returned to SPUD with the reusable grocery bins to be washed before being given back to members to use again.

The plastic containers used in the program were made from 50 per cent recycled plastic as a lower-impact alternative to virgin plastic containers. SPUD is now expanding the program to all members and hopes to inspire other food delivery services to transition to a circular economy model for packaging.