Vancouver, the greenest sustainable city in Canada

Vancouver is Canada greenest sustainable city. Canada in our imaginary is the green lung of North America, a lavishing land, where life is simple and houses cozy and welcoming. Especially the city of Vancouver, which is exploring new ways to make its streets more sustainable from both a social and environmental perspective. Environmentally, this means thinking about how to allow tourism, architecture, technology, building in a green and eco-friendly way; more simply, redesigning urban design.

Simple design solutions such as planting native plants and street trees between the road and sidewalk can address this issue of a more sustainable city. Landscaping also reduces air and water pollution, slows vehicles down, and creates an enjoyable street for pedestrians and bicyclists. Streets should also be designed to accommodate sustainable means of transportation such as pedestrians and bicycles. Socially, this mean accommodating the physical needs of people with different abilities, creating safer roads, and engaging communities to get involved in greening their street.

Designing sustainable streets requires thinking purely beyond the project’s up-front costs. That’s what Vancouver aims to do and where its community is actually going forward. The city’s commitment to sustainably made and organic products -not to mention locally made- it’s helping safeguard our planetary future.

Vancouver landscape (ecoobe.com)

Speaking of design products, we would like to bring your attention to the work of M Smart Design in Vancouver, where you’ll find items that look smart and act smart for the environment. And its range of price points is pretty smart, too. Like the Shoo-foo in Vancouver bamboo towels, which are unbeatably soft as well as eco-friendly, you will find many stores around Vancouver offering eco-friendly,  organic, made of natural and local material, non-allergenic, chemical-free, design products. M Smart Design in Vancouver is definitely on the map for merchandise that’s good for the Earth.

Vancouver also proudly hosts the Vancouver Fashion Week to prove its commitment to environment in fashion too. Each year the billion-dollar fashion industry results in over 90 million items of clothing in landfill sites globally. This, along with a laundry list of other assorted harrowing industry statistics, moved Myriam Laroche, Jeff Garner of Prohpetik and a model, to launch the Eco Fashion Week in Vancouver, Canada’s greenest city. Started in 2009 and expanding every year, Laroche developed the event to bring change to the fashion industry. In the process she and her (all-volunteer) team are bringing some amazing sustainable design to fashion fans and consumers alike. Says Laroche: “instead of ‘eco’ I want to bring in the words ‘conscious’ and ‘responsible’. Responsible fashion is about the treatment of people and the earth during the entire garment-making process. There’s so much fabric waste, and damage from the chemicals used in textile manufacturing.”

Vancouver Design Week (by ecoobe.com)

Held twice annually, the runway events (along with seminars and panels) feature some of the globe’s most progressive eco-fashion designers. This season saw 17 designers showcase on the runway; along with the local Vancouver designers, others hailed from Sweden, Poland, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Tennessee, and Seattle.

Vancouver also hosts the Vancouver Design Week, which shows how much Canada cares about its design and architecture, besides fashion and tourism. As per the tourism, Canada and in particular Vancouver has breathtaking scenery and untouched wilderness, with fascinating wide open spaces. Fresh air and crystal waters. Locals and visitors usually can’t wait to get outside and enjoy Canada’s green beauty. Besides the drizzle and the rainy weather, Vancouver is a lively city crowded with independent, exciting and creative individuals bringing businesses, food, art and events to life to create the diverse and eclectic culture of the city.

Vancouver is running to be the greenest city in the world by 2020. You will be astonished by the beauty of Stanley Park and the glamorous neighbourhood of Kitsilano, by its landscape that spaces from skyscrapers to mountains of Kootenay Rockies, from rivers to fashionable shops and lush national parks.

Stanley Park Vancouver (ecoobe.com)

Vancouver is in fact one of the most sustainable and livable city in the world after New York and San Francisco, the third ‘vertical’ capital and one of the most populated in the world. Vancouver’s thriving fashion design scene is supported by amazing shops in Gastown and along Main Street. Indie bands and artists have venues and galleries in which to show their work.

Food ‘aficionados’ can find quality, local, organic, fresh-from-the-farm meals anywhere in the city. From Point Grey to Commercial Drive, food is everything in Vancouver and a great way to explore the city.

People in Vancouver love their homes as demonstrated by the home design shops found in every neighbourhood; from mid-century modern to girly glam, they love to decorate our places. All this and the great outdoors – lush greenery, great cycling and walking paths, fresh ocean air and views of the North Shore mountains – is what makes Vancouver a great town. Some Vancouverites spend almost all of their time in their own neighbourhood, working, living and socializing within a few blocks.

Even Vancouver was not immune to gentrification and urban development, while the high-tech, and the movie industry is expanding and flourishing every day.

Vancouver Waterfront (ecoobe.com)

Photo: courtesy of Google’s images

The author: Anna is a dreamer, an idealist, a huge lover of everything is cool and innovative. Passionate about movies, avid reader and relentless traveller, she enjoys taking pictures and she fools herself to be a good photographer only because she thinks she knows how to use a professional SLR camera. She lived in New York, with which she (hopelessly) still in love with. Four wonderful years passed by and deeply changed her prospective. Anna starts growing a passion for innovative and eco-friendly design, in a world which is constantly in evolution and in deep need of a change.