Sustainability Solutions Group releases fully transparent and open source greenhouse gas modeling tool for communities

Communities increasingly address climate change through local government policies and actions. Sustainability Solutions Group (SSG) is further supporting these efforts with the release of GHGProof - a powerful yet easy to use, fully transparent and open source model that enables local governments to measure greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and costs ($) resulting from potential land use policies.

Local governments are a powerful force in climate change mitigation. They can influence up to 50% of community GHGs by regulating land use, density and the location of growth. With GHGProof, governments can compare GHGs and public and private costs of present land use patterns with those of possible future scenarios. Advantages of this approach include:

* It’s comprehensive: Each scenario considers the impact of land use changes on building energy use, transportation behaviour, waste generation, agricultural land use and forest cover.
* It’s straightforward : GHGProof uses straightforward mapping and spreadsheet tools so that it’s easy to learn, edit and use to get the functionality you need, specific to your community.
* It’s policy-relevant: Communities can use the model to establish or monitor greenhouse gas reduction strategies and targets to meet legislative requirements such as British Columbia’s Bill 27 – Green Communities Act.
* It’s accessible: GHGProof’s outputs communicate greenhouse gas implications of land use changes in visual, straightforward manners. They can help inform decision making, build public accountability, strengthen funding proposals and meet legislated climate change-related requirements.
* It’s free and open source: GHGProof is licensed through Creative Commons as an open source tool. The model and its user guidebook can be freely accessed, edited and shared for non-profit purposes and a community of users offers support.

GHGProof is ready to help your community make land use planning decisions that will reduce environmental impacts, and improve community health and livability. Contact SSG today for more information or try it out here.

Sustainability Solutions Group is a national workers co-operative with offices in Vancouver, Gibsons, Montreal, Toronto and Tatamagouche. SSG's services include sustainability management systems, sustainable buildings and community planning.

Contact: Jesse Dill
jesse@sustainabilitysolutions.ca
(604) 740-7088

SSG offers carbon neutral course in Victoria

Cutting through the hot air: a course on carbon neutral buildings

Victoria BC, June 21, 8:30am - 12:30pm

Carbon neutral? Net zero energy? Zero energy building? Offsetting?
Getting confused yet! Architecture 2030, the Living Building Challenge, One Planet Living, and many governments are encouraging and requiring a move toward carbon neutrality in buildings.

This course has been created for owners, operators, and designers exploring what carbon neutrality means in the context of building and neighbourhood design and operation. We will explore the rapidly evolving concepts of carbon neutrality in the global climate change movement, and how they relate to policy and practice specific to the building sector. Several case studies will be examined and discussed in detail, and tools and resources useful for evaluating and assessing carbon neutrality will be shared. This course will be taught by Lindsay Cole and Yuill Herbert of Sustainability Solutions Group.

For more information, and to register, please click here.