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Councillor Colleen Jordan introduced the Environmental
Award and Environmental Stars’ winners as part of the Burnaby Environment
Week, June 1st to June 9th, 2019. Following is the text
of the Councillor’s remarks:
“Each year, the City’s Environmental
Awards program recognizes the achievements of individuals, community groups,
institutions and businesses in the areas of environmental stewardship and
sustainability.
There are six award categories:
Business Stewardship, Communications, Community Stewardship, Green Choices,
Planning and Development, and Youth.
There are also two levels of
recognition. Environmental Awards typically recognize
outstanding environmental achievements of a significant scope over a number
of years. Environmental Stars typically recognize outstanding
environmental achievements but of a smaller scale or on a more individual
level.
This evening the seven (7)
Environmental Star recipients will receive a framed photograph of Burnaby
Lake by Nick Snowdon. The three (3) Environmental Award recipients will
receive a framed photograph of Deer Lake by Anthony Bower. And all of the
recipients will receive a copy of the book ‘Urban Salmon’, signed by the
author, Fernando Lessa, who is also being recognized this evening.
We will begin the presentation with
the Environmental Stars.
The first Environmental Star,
in the category of Business Stewardship, is presented to Hemlock
Printers for their outstanding commitment to environmental
sustainability in their business and business operations.
Hemlock Printers is a
commercial printing company with long standing roots in Burnaby. In 2007,
they received an Environmental Award for business stewardship. Since that
time, they have continued to innovate and implement many new environmental
sustainability programs.
Hemlock Printers employs a third
party organization to measure their carbon emissions, which allows them to
reduce their emissions over time and to purchase carbon credits so that their
Burnaby facilities are carbon neutral. They have also developed a program
that gives customers an option for their print jobs to be carbon neutral by
purchasing carbon credits that support environmental restoration initiatives
around the world.
To further reduce their carbon
emissions, Hemlock has recently joined FortisBC’s Renewable Natural Gas
Leaders Program and has converted all of their overhead lighting in their
Burnaby manufacturing facility to LED lighting.
Lastly, with regards to sustainable
transportation, Hemlock recently installed three charging stations for
electric vehicles at their Burnaby facility and provides a financial
incentive to their staff to purchase hybrid or fully electric vehicles.
On behalf of Hemlock Printers, I ask
Amanda Chor to come forward and accept the Environmental Star
for Business Stewardship.
The second Environmental
Star, in the category of Business Stewardship, is presented to BC
Bee Supply for their support of urban beekeeping in our community.
Ten years ago, the City amended its
Zoning Bylaw to allow for urban beekeeping in single family residential
zones, in part because of growing public acceptance of the many benefits of
honeybees in our community, whether for pollination and biodiversity, locally
produced honey or for education and awareness.
BC Bee Supply is a store in Burnaby
Heights that provides equipment, education and related services for backyard
and commercial beekeepers. The owners of the store live in Burnaby and keep
beehives in their backyard.
Interest in urban beekeeping in
Burnaby continues to grow. BC Bee Supply plays an important role in
supporting this growth and educating the public about bees and pollinators.
The store regularly offers courses so that new beekeepers learn proper methods
for responsible beekeeping.
I ask Winston and Nina Wong
from BC Bee Supply to come forward and accept the Environmental Star for
Business Stewardship.
The third Environmental Star,
in the category of Communications, is presented to Fernando Lessa
for creating the urban salmon project.
Since arriving in BC from Brazil in
2016, Fernando Lessa has created the Urban Salmon Project, which first
involved capturing images of salmon in their habitat using underwater photography
and has now culminated in a new image book, ‘Urban Salmon’, a copy
of which is being given to all of the recipients here this evening.
Some of the first images he captured
were of salmon in Burnaby waterways, such as the Brunette River, Stoney Creek
and Byrne Creek. These were the images displayed in the reception earlier
this evening. Fernando has also graciously donated many of these images to
some of the Streamkeeper groups and to City staff for use at stewardship
events to support public education and awareness. Staff has observed
firsthand how the images help strengthen the public’s connection to the
environment and our local waterways.
I ask Fernando Lessa to
come forward and accept the Environmental Star for Communications.
The fourth Environmental
Star, in the category of Community Stewardship, is presented to Roger
Dyer of the Stoney Creek Environment Committee for his
long standing involvement in the stewardship of Stoney Creek.
The Stoney Creek Environment
Committee is an environmental stewardship group that Roger Dyer has
volunteered with for over 15 years. During this time, Roger’s enthusiasm and
expertise have focused on monitoring fish within the watershed and
undertaking invertebrate surveys, or ‘bug surveys’ as they are sometimes
known. Fish monitoring involves not only counting the number of salmon that
spawn in the fall but also trapping fish throughout the year to understand
how various species use the watershed during different life stages.
Invertebrate sampling measures the
diversity of bugs in the creek, which is an indicator for water quality and
overall health. This data is provided to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and
they note that Roger’s record keeping and professionalism is exemplary. His
dedication to these duties has resulted in a consistent and accurate
historical record for Stoney Creek.
I ask Roger Dyer to
come forward and accept the Environmental Star for Community Stewardship.
The fifth Environmental Star,
in the category of Green Choices, is presented to Embark
Sustainability for creating the Food Rescue Program to enhance food
security and reduce food waste at Simon Fraser University.
Embark Sustainability is a
student-led organization at SFU that aims to empower the next generation of
student sustainability leaders. In collaboration with Nesters Market, they
created the Food Rescue Program, in which student volunteers collect healthy
and edible but imperfect produce from Nesters Market that do not meet
supermarket selling criteria and would otherwise go to waste. These fruits
and vegetables are then redistributed on the Simon Fraser University campus.
Since the program began in 2016, over 7,000 kilograms of food has been
redistributed and over 7,300 people have visited the food stall. Produce is
available for free or by a modest donation.
The Food Rescue Program raises
awareness of food waste as an environmental issue and is part of an Embark
initiative to create dialogue on sustainable and equitable food systems.
I ask the following people to come
forward and accept the Environmental Star for Green Choices: On behalf of
Embark Sustainability, Ruth Elizabeth Briggs, Programs Manager,
Priscilla Lam, Chair of the Board of Directors, and Sumara
Stroshein, Food Systems Change Coordinator. And on behalf of Nesters
Market, Eric Olson, Store Manager.
The sixth Environmental Star,
in the category of Youth, is presented to University Highlands
Elementary Green Team for their efforts to create environmental
awareness and affect positive change at their school and in their
community.
Staff at University Highlands
Elementary formed a Green Team in 2017. Their first initiative was
re-imagining the school’s waste and recycling systems and learning about
waste reduction through ‘litter-less’ lunches. The Green Team has
collaborated with Simon Fraser University to create signage and bins to sort
recycling, compostable materials and landfill materials in alignment with
SFU’s zero waste programs and then had student volunteers teach the other
students how to use the bins properly.
More recently, the Grade 4 and 5
students this year are building on the past work of the Green Team by
focusing on the recycling of markers, plastic bags and batteries. The
students have created classroom presentations for their fellow students to
encourage positive actions in these areas
On behalf of University Highlands
Elementary Green Team, I ask Kristina Carley, teacher, and Mark
Harding, Principal, along with seven student members of the Green Team:
Mary Burley, Scarlett Ching, Zidan
Kim-Varachia, Cameron Payne, Sophia Kresic,
and Broden Eklof to come forward and accept the Environmental
Star for Youth.
The last Environmental Star,
in the category of Youth, is presented to the Burnaby Youth Sustainability
Network, commonly known as the BYSN. The BYSN is a student-led
organization in School District 41 that strives to create networks among
Burnaby high school students for education and awareness of environmental
issues and sustainability. Each year a new group of students become the
leaders of the BYSN.
For this past school year, the BYSN
hosted monthly workshops at different Burnaby schools that explored
environmental issues such as the impacts of palm oil and the potential
impacts of microfibers and plastics on the environment. They also organized
the bi-annual Do It Green Conference. The theme this year was
micro-plastics. The conference was held in early April and was attended by
over 200 Burnaby high school students.
On behalf of the BYSN, I ask the
co-chairs of the Burnaby Youth Sustainability Network for 2019, Jessica
Moh and Azzam Haq, to come forward and accept the Environmental
Star for Youth.
That concludes the presentation of
the Environmental Stars. Next are the Environmental Award recipients.
The first Environmental
Award, in the category of Business Stewardship, is presented to Sustainable
Produce Urban Delivery, more commonly known as SPUD,
for their outstanding achievements in integrating environmental sustainability
into their business and business operations.
SPUD is an online grocery store that
connects shoppers to locally grown and organic food with a home delivery
service. SPUD is a well-established business with customers throughout
Burnaby. In 2018 they opened a new 74,000 square foot warehouse in Burnaby
to serve as their new main distribution centre and head office.
One of SPUD’s goals is to reduce the
amount of kilometres food travels from farm to fork. The number of
kilometres each food item has traveled to get to their warehouse is provided
to their customers so that an informed and environmentally conscious purchase
can be made. In addition to helping customers avoid driving trips to the
grocery store, delivery vehicle routes are optimized to minimize greenhouse
gas emissions, reportedly saving over 429,000 kilograms of emissions last
year.
Purchasing from nearby farms and
food producers is a priority for SPUD. They presently support 464 local
producers and 58 local farms. This information about where food comes from
is communicated to their customers to increase awareness of food systems and
sustainability.
SPUD’s inventory and ordering
technologies are optimized to minimize the risk of food expiring and creating
more waste. Combined with their practice of donating food that is near to
expiration, it is reported that SPUD has the lowest food waste of any grocery
store in Canada at 0.5% and diverted over 558,000 kg of food from landfills
in the last year.
I ask Jason McBurney
and Kate Kerluke of Sustainable Produce Urban Delivery to come
forward and accept the Environmental Award for Business Stewardship.
The second Environmental
Award, in the category of Green Choices, is presented to the Joanne
Borle for her outstanding leadership of the Pine Ridge Housing
Co-operative’s recycling and environmental sustainability committee, which
she co-founded over 25 years ago.
In her 25 years with the committee,
Joanne has worked tirelessly to educate her neighbours about many different
environmental issues, from the use of bear proof food scrap bins to recycling
and proper sorting of materials for landfill and composting. Recently,
Joanne led a fundraising event with the Developmental Disabilities
Association that focused on spring cleaning and repurposing used items,
rather than disposing these items to the garbage. At her direction, new
co-op members receive up to date information about their responsibilities to
recycle and food scrap and about City programs that help residents recycle or
dispose of large items such as appliances or furniture. Her neighbours
recall times in the past when Joanne was the only member of the committee,
yet she always carried on because of a deep belief in environmental
sustainability and the stewardship role we all share.
I ask Joanne Borle to
come forward and accept the Environmental Award in the category of Green
Choices.
The last Environmental Award,
in the category of Planning and Development, is presented to Oxford
Properties for Riverbend Business Park and notable
achievements in environmental remediation, innovative flood protection and
enhancement of waterways, and green buildings.
Oxford Properties acquired lands in
the Big Bend in 2011 with the intent of developing a high quality business
park. At that time, the lands contained a non-operational landfill and
former heavy industrial uses that extended to the edge of the Fraser River
and a nearby waterway, Sturgeon Slough.
Making the lands suitable for
development first required the removal of landfill materials and the
remediation of contaminated soils. Over a four year period, materials
removed and those left in place were managed in accordance with provincial
regulations and compliance permits to create a suitable development site and
reduce the long term pollution risk to nearby waterways.
Development of the lands provided a
significant opportunity to restore the Fraser River and Sturgeon Slough
streamside areas with native trees and shrubs to provide habitat for fish,
birds and animals. However, the development of the lands also required the
construction of a flood protection dyke, which typically is incompatible with
naturalizing the areas next to a stream. Working with City staff and the
Province, Oxford developed an alternative dyke design that set these works
back from the Fraser River and Sturgeon Slough, which allowed the restoration
plan to proceed, covering more than 1,000 metres of ecologically significant
shoreline.
With regards to the buildings
onsite, a combination of green and hard infrastructure is used to treat
runoff from parking lots before it is discharged to the Fraser River. The
buildings constructed to date have achieved a green building certification
and use a variety of technologies to reduce energy use and potable water
consumption.
On behalf of Oxford Properties, I
ask Robert Wheler, Vice President of Development for Oxford
Properties Group, to come forward and accept the Environmental Award for
Planning and Development.
This
concludes the Environmental Awards and Stars presentation for 2019. Thank
you again to all of this year’s recipients for your contributions to our
community and the environment.”
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