Departments > Sustainability

Sustainability

The City of Victoria is committed to making our community sustainable for future generations. In order to achieve this, the department of Sustainability has been created to focus on providing professional expertise on a wide range of social, environmental and economic sustainability issues.

What is Sustainability?

Sustainability is about building a better, more resilient city for future generations. Sustainability is based on four inter-related concepts:

• Social Well-being and Livability: the social and cultural assets of the community that create and celebrate quality of life, and support human health, security, and overall well-being.
• Environmental Integrity: the ability to sustain and renew the health of the natural environment and its ongoing capacity to produce resources necessary to urban life.
• Economic Vitality: the ongoing capacity to generate and renew the skills, finances, and productivity of the community providing the means to support quality of life and realize individual and community aspirations.
• Resiliency: the ongoing ability to keep residents safe, to adapt to change and to plan for an uncertain future.

Municipalities are on the front lines of sustainable community development and the City of Victoria is committed to a triple bottom line approach in all of its programs and buildings, integrating social and environmental values with prudent fiscal management.

The City of Victoria has been a leader in sustainable initiatives over the years. Here are some of our accomplishments to date:

Awards and Recognition

• 2011 Most Sustainable Small City in Canada, according to Corporate Knights, Canada's magazine for clean capitalism.
• 2011 Most Sustainable City Overall in Canada, tied with Vancouver, according to Corporate Knights, Canada's magazine for clean capitalism.
• 2011 FCM Sustainable Community Award - Residential Development Category, for the City Secondary Suites Program - Making Secondary Suites Easier
• 2009 FCM-CH2M HILL Sustainable Community Award - Brownfields category, for the City's Dockside Green Phase I project.
• In 2009, the City received just over $63,000 in incentives from BC Hydro for energy upgrades, which included $20,000 for placing first in its category in the 2007 Turn it Off Challenge! and $43,000 through the Power Smart Product Incentive program.
• In September 2008, the City of Victoria was recognized by the Ethisphere Council, as a 2020 global leader in sustainability.
• 2008 LiveSmart BC Green Cities Award from the Province of BC for demonstrating leading initiatives and partnerships to greener, healthier communities.
• In 2008 Victoria ranked number one of 27 Canadian cities rated in the GreenApple Canada Smart Transportation Ranking on sustainable urban transportation practices.
• 2008 Power Smart Excellence Award for workplace energy conservation.

Sustainable Initiatives

In recent years, the City has led a number of sustainability initiatives for both the community and in corporate operations.

Corporately these include:

• Climate change
• City Hall initiatives
• Green buildings
• Transportation
• Parks
• Food Policy

In the community, initiatives are underway for:

• Homeowners
• Developers
• Businesses

Victoria Sustainability Framework

The Victoria Sustainability Framework is a comprehensive guide to sustainable decision-making and operations over the long-term. Building on existing policy, the framework will identify long-term sustainability goals, priorities for action, and provide measures to help us track progress. Read more...

Climate Action Program

The City of Victoria is committed to both reducing energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to minimize the impacts of a changing climate, while also adapting our community to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Find out more...

Social Sustainability

The Department of Sustainability coordinates and leads efforts to improve and enhance the social and economic health of our community; working to create a City that is safe, vibrant and people-centered.

The Department of Sustainability leads, supports, facilitates and co-ordinates social planning initiatives of the City of Victoria. Current areas of focus are housing, homelessness and harm reduction.

• Harm Reduction
• Homelessness Initiative
• Housing - policy development which advocates for and fosters housing affordability including secondary suites.

Secondary Suites

The City of Victoria has made changes that will make installing a secondary suite even easier for homeowners. One of these changes is a grant program that will offer homeowners a grant equal to 25% of construction costs of new secondary suites, up to a maximum grant of $5000. Council approved this grant program on February 19, 2009 and the official launch date for the program was March 30, 2009. Those considering applying for this grant should note that building permits for secondary suites issued prior to the start of this program will not be eligible for the grant funding.

More information on the City of Victoria's Secondary Suites program...

Financial Sustainability

• Grants

For More Information

City of Victoria
Department of Sustainability
E-mail

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