REPORT ON

Alexander von Humboldt Cities & Climate Change Network

Symposium on

RESOURCE EFFICIENT CITIES – TECHNOLOGY DRIVING CHANGE

Date: February 22, 2013 Time: 8:30 am to 12:15 pm

Venue: Conference Room, Northern Alberta Business Incubator (NABI), Campbell Centre, 200 Carnegie Drive, St. Albert AB T8N 5A7

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PROGRAM 8:45 am – 9:00 am Welcome – Anshuman Khare

Anshuman Khare welcomed the participants to the Symposium. While updating the gathering on the activities of the Alexander von Humboldt Cities & Climate Change Network in Canada, he highlighted the goals of the Symposium as an effort

• To bring people from not only across the globe together but also engage local communities in discussions regarding how our cities will (should?) look in the future.

• Through this engagement promote an assessment of technologies, emerging practices and innovative approaches in context of regional development goals.

• Facilitate networking and partnerships to work together on complex challenges by pooling knowledge, resources, research capacity in pursuit of new ideas and opportunities.

View presentation >>

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9:00 am – 9:30 am Opening Remarks – Mayor Nolan Crouse, City of St. Albert; Chair Capital Region Board (CRB)

Mayor Nolan Crouse opened the symposium with comments on the challenges faced by the Capital Region Board in addressing issues of today and the future. Among other things, Mayor Crouse touched on transportation, land use and energy saving in the Capital Region. He explained how difficult it was to come up with a regional plan as all municipalities had different needs. He used the example of transportation to explain his point. He talked about the long term impact of decisions made today and wondered what is long term. Was it as short as 30-35 years or as long as 70 to 100 years? While emphasizing measurement as an essential step for informing decision makers and initiating change, he used the example of City of St. Albert in its effort to draw out a roadmap for a future that includes efficient use of resources and sustainability.

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9:30 am – 10:00 am Alan Organschi (Virtual Presentation) Facilitator: Anshuman Khare Topic: Material, Energy, and Urban Form in a Low Carbon Economy

What will cities look like in a low carbon economy? How will they re-form themselves to perform better with fewer impacts? Our built environment—buildings, their infrastructure, and the patterns of behaviour and networks of consumption they engender—can be either a source of enormous waste or an instrument of global environmental health and equilibrium. By accounting for the energy consumed and the carbon emitted in both its construction and its operation, the small city is a potential catalyst for growth and resource conservation, a model for careful management of shared land, energy, and material. The presentation raised many questions about the use of timber in construction of high rises, bridges and other infrastructure projects being envisioned in the USA. The audience were very intrigued by the cost benefit analysis of using timber. (Presentation not available as it is a part of a paper under review)

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10:00 am – 10:30 am Gustavo Arciniegas & Paul Getz (Virtual Presentation) Facilitator: Anshuman Khare Topic: Using a MapTable to support multi-stakeholder communication in transitioning to sustainable energy

The Dutch city of Arnhem wants to be energy-neutral by the year 2050. This will involve a transition from fossil fuels to more sustainable energy sources and a complex long-term process that involves diverse stakeholders. As part of this process, the city of Arnhem organizes meetings with the stakeholders in which they look at map-based information related to energy consumption patterns and together look for possibilities to facilitate the energy transition and allow the city to achieve its longer term objectives. The MapTable, a portable large touch-enabled screen is used extensively to support these meetings. A shared GIS linked to the MapTable is integrated with tools for decision support and scenario planning to facilitate the process of communication, collaboration, forming of alliances and collective decision making to help the city reach long-term goals related to the transition to sustainable energy sources. The audience were very interested in issues related to information sharing and privacy. Questions related to ownership of information were also discussed. View presentation >>

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10:30 am – 10:45 am BREAK

The break offered an opportunity for participants to network and get to know each other.

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10:45 am – 11:15 am David Checkel & Daniel Handford Facilitator: Terry Beckman Topic: Environmental Inventories for Urban Transportation Planning

Urban transportation is a major contributor to air emission inventories of criteria contaminants and GHGs. Urban infrastructure design significantly affects the emissions by changing the travel demand, travel modes and travel efficiency. However, transportation planners have difficulties quantifying the effect of design features on these emissions because micro-simulation models that have sufficient detail to incorporate design features and traffic congestion are typically too detailed for use in large-scale analysis. A simplified modelling approach is presented, which enables timely, cost-effective evaluation of the emissions implications of transportation design choices. Since the research touched on a topic with which everyone in the audience could relate, a very animated discussion took place where the participants tried to brain storm how to address congestion, emissions and improve the efficiency of the transportation system in the Capital Region. View presentation >>

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11:15 am – 12:00 pm Interactive Session Facilitator: Anshuman Khare & Brian Stewart

Topic: Introducing new technologies to Cities! Panel selected from the audience, speakers and guests

The interactive session, facilitated by Brian Stewart and Anshuman Khare, opened with a question to the audience on what they thought was the most relevant technology affecting our lives and cities. The question brought suggestions like technologies in transportation, housing and development of light industrial areas. However, there was a general agreement that there was a pressing need to change behaviour and for that it was essential to understand consumer behaviour. Informing people, informing politicians (decision makers) and informed policies were suggested as starting points for change leading to sustainable society.

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12:00 pm – 12:15 pm Concluding Remarks / Feedback Anshuman Khare

The Symposium ended with a vote of thanks to all participants. The organisers hope to hold the next Symposium in the near future and bring to the audience speakers from other parts of the world who can share their experiences with issues facing modern day cities and in creating a resource efficient and sustainable future.

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SPEAKERS Nolan Crouse is Mayor of the City of St. Albert, Alberta, Canada. He has been an elected official in the city since 2004 with a prior career in the forest products industry in pulp, paper, lumber, fiberboard and wooden packaging. He has an MBA in Community Economic Development and is a strong advocate for the pillars of sustainability. His interest locally includes the development of initiatives that link together the ecosystems in the City of St. Albert with the demands of the residents. That, combined with diversifying the local economy is important to St. Albert’s future. He also won the prestigious Bates award for top research in the pulp industry. Alan Organschi is principal and partner at Gray Organschi Architecture, a design firm recognized for its innovative conception and implementation of projects that range from the adaptive re-use of damaged buildings and neighborhoods to the development and implementation of low-impact assembly systems for ecologically delicate sites. As a member of the Yale School of Architecture faculty, he coordinates Yale's first-year graduate housing studio that culminates each spring with the student construction of an affordable house in the city of New Haven. He is also a lecturer in building technology and an area coordinator at the graduate school. He has lectured publically on architecture, technology, and sustainable urban renewal. Mr. Organschi’s current research includes prototype development for high-density, high performance wood housing in the U.S., conducted under the auspices of the Hines Research Fund for Advanced Sustainability in Architectural Design. Gustavo Arciniegas received a B.Sc. degree in civil engineering from the Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS), Colombia, in 2000 and the M.Sc. degree in geoinformatics from the University of Twente, ITC faculty, the Netherlands, in 2005. In 2012 he received a Ph.D. in map-based decision support tools for collaborative land use planning from IVM, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His research interests include the integration of GIS and geo-instruments for collaborative spatial decision-making, focusing on sustainable planning. Paul Getz is an advisor on geo information at the Municipality of Arnhem. He holds a M.Sc. degree from Cranfield University (United Kingdom) on land resource management. He has worked with NGO's, private and public partners on GIS-related projects since 1989 in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Netherlands. At present his work focuses mainly on bringing information to the user by integrating geo-information into the processes of the Municipality. David Checkel has a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering (1976) and a Ph.D. in Engineering / Combustion from Cambridge University (1981). He taught Mechanical Engineering at University of Alberta from1981 through 2010 and continues to supervise graduate students. His research interests have focused on energy, fuels and emissions, particularly automotive power trains, alternative fuels, vehicle emissions and life cycle assessment. He has worked extensively with project vehicles including hybrid electric, solar, propane, alcohol, natural gas, bio-diesel, dual fuel and other power train systems. This has led to a strong interest in vehicle simulation and design, in-use testing systems, vehicle emission simulations and the life cycle assessment of energy systems. Dan Handford has B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in automotive vehicle projects, alternative engines and combustion and emissions. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. specializing in vehicle emission modeling as a design tool for transportation engineers.

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FACILITATORS & ORGANISERS Anshuman Khare is a professor in Operations Management at Athabasca University, Canada. He is a MBA and PhD from Allahabad University (India). He is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow. His research focuses on environmental regulation impacts on the automobile industry and its supply chain. He is also a former Monbusho Scholar, having completed a postdoctoral assignment at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, Japan. Anshuman is a sitting member of the St. Albert Economic Development Advisory Committee (SAEDAC), Board Member of the Northern Alberta Business Incubator (NABI) and member of the Steering Committee of Alexander von Humboldt Network for Cities and Climate Change. Terry Beckman is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Athabasca University. He teaches Marketing Management, Global Marketing and International Business Management. Prior to arriving at Athabasca University, he taught at Queen’s University, The Royal Military College of Canada and the University of Victoria. A PhD from Queens University, Terry has an MBA in International Business from the University of Victoria and a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons.) in Marketing from the University of Manitoba. Terry’s background includes over 12 years of industry experience. Included in this are work for IBM Canada Ltd., work as a marketing coordinator for the Canadian High Commission in Malaysia, and as a private consultant engaging in a variety of business feasibility studies and IT contracts. His research interests are primarily in marketing strategy, international business and corporate social responsibility. More specifically, he is interested in corporate branding, identity and reputation, relationship marketing, authenticity and network theories in relation to business-to-business marketing. He has published articles in the Journal of Business Ethics and the European Business Review and a book review in the European Journal of Marketing. Rod Schatz is an Information Systems professional focusing on delivering business value to organizations through the use of systems in unique and creative ways. Rod holds a Master of Science degree in geospatial technologies from the University of Alberta. During his graduate studies he focused on the application of location-allocation studies with geospatial technologies (GIS). Rod has presented over 20 conference presentations dealing with the applied use of geospatial technologies to Municipalities for infrastructure asset management, sustainable development and land management. Brian Stewart is former Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Athabasca University. Brian's role was to provide strategic leadership to the application of Information and communications technology (ICT) to the activities of the University. Brian was charged with identifying and resourcing appropriate technologies to improve administrative effectiveness and efficiency; to assist the academic community's use of ICT to develop programs which improve students' learning and success; and to facilitate the research and development of world class e-learning initiatives. Brian serves on the Board of the Northern Alberta Business Incubator (NABI).

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EVENT SUPPORTERS / SPONSORS Alexander von Humboldt Network for Cities and Climate Change is a Network of researchers and practitioners established in 2010 by the alumni of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to inform scientific and policy discourses, promote research and innovations based on exchange and cooperation among members. Humboldt Foundation Liaison Office in Canada (HFLOC) is a joint venture of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and University of Alberta. This partnership was launched in February 2007 and aims to facilitate collaboration between Canada and Germany. Through this partnership, the Humboldt Foundation Liaison Office in Canada will serve as a coordinating center for the promotion of the Foundation's programs in Canada in collaboration with the Humboldt Association of Canada. The German-Canadian Centre for Innovation and Research (GCCIR) is a bilateral initiative for the development of German-Canadian research and business relations and provides support for the exchange of information, development of networks, and the establishment and cultivation of collaborative partnerships in academia and business. The main goal is to contribute to the enhancement of international knowledge and technology transfer and to raise the profile of both countries as centres of excellence in innovation and research. The Centre opened its doors in Edmonton in October 2010 and is a membership organisation under Alberta law. For more information, please visit www.gccir.ca The Online Centre for Corporate Stewardship (OCCS) (Athabasca University) is a collaborative online community of corporate stewards who promote the philosophy of corporate stewardship and increase research and effective educational programming in this area. The Centre showcases our collaborative research and course offerings. However, the bigger goal is for the Centre to become a global nodal point for academics and practitioners to share knowledge, interact and develop new thinking to pursue the goal of corporate stewardship. Northern Alberta Business Incubator (NABI) works with aspiring entrepreneurs and small businesses with advice on quality business planning programs, one-on-one business coaching and mentoring to meet specific goals.

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ATTENDEES

NAME (in alphabetical order) ORGANISATION

Aaron Latimer City of St. Albert Alan Henry View Office Technology Allan Yee City of Edmonton Amber Nicol City of Spruce Grove Anshuman Khare* Athabasca University / NABI / HAC Brian Stewart* NABI Charlene Zoltenko State Farm Insurance Cindy Fulton NABI Cornelia Sarwas GCCIR Daniel Handford* University of Alberta Dar Schwanbeck NABI David Checkel* University of Alberta Dietmar Kennepohl Athabasca University / HFLOC Dwight Thomas Sesame International Limited Guy Boston City of St. Albert Heather Wheeliker City of Edmonton Jessica Butts Athabasca University Joan Barber City of St. Albert Joan Nodelman Nodelcorp Consulting Inc. Joel Nodelman Nodelcorp Consulting Inc. Kalen Pilkington City of St. Albert Katelyn Petersen HFLOC Leonard Wiebe University of Alberta / HAC Luke Brimmage Athabasca Primary Care Network Malcolm Parker Councillor, City of St. Albert Michael Ganley Alberta Venture Nolan Crouse* Mayor, City of St. Albert Patrick Draper City of St. Albert Randall Yatscoff TEC Edmonton Rob LeLacheur St. Albert Leader Sandeep Datla City of Edmonton Terry Beckman* Athabasca University (*) Speakers / Facilitators

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PHOTOS

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