Talks of global warming have been prominent in last decade yet it seems few have made the fundamental changes necessary to reverse the inevitable changes coming our way. Whether you acknowledge impacts of Global warming or not, we can all agree that adopting more sustainable ways is always a best practice.

So how do you get started?

Well, a quick Google search of ‘how to be sustainable’ will result in numerous sources with expertise in everything from how to be sustainable at home or the office, to sustainable business practices and communities and sustainable living guides in general. However if you’d like to chat in person with some local experts in sustainability and green living there are a couple of shows coming up in August that could put you in the right direction.

The Green Lifestyle Show:

August 21st, 2010: To showcase Green Businesses and Organizations to the general public. 308 Green Candiditates and 400 Green Convention participants and their families from across Canada will demonstrate ways of living that embody and inspire Green Policies. Check out their site for more details.

Live Green Toronto Festival

August 28th and 29th, 2010: Toronto’s annual celebration of all things green turns Yonge Street into ‘green street’ with more than 100 exhibitors of green products and services, local food, live music, and more Check out their site for more details.

Sarah Elton, Food Columnist for CBC Radio’s Here and Now, details several unique and innovative farming organizations across Canada – such as Everdale Farm in Ontario and the Really Local Harvest Co-op in New Brunswick.

In her book, Sarah describes her travels across Canada talking to farmers working to supply Canada with healthy and sustainable food. I am particularly interested in the different urban farming initatives happening in Toronto, New Brunswick and Vancouver. I am now much more aware of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) programs that provide opportunities for micro-investing, sometimes in exchange for a weekly food basket. Elton describes the need to reinvent what farming looks like to Canada in order to sustain economical and eco-friendly food sources for our country.

Of note was Elton’s detailed descriptions of non-profit organizations across Canada working on bringing healthy and sustainable food to all residents – organizations such as Slow Food Toronto, The Stop and many more.

A highlight of the book for me was in the description of off-season, or year round farming in Canada. Though selecting local food choices may be easier in the summer months, it takes dedication and persistence for me to eat primarily Ontario grown vegetables and fruits in the deep winter months.

Growing local, organic lettuce and tomatoes in the thick of January seems wildly optimistic, it is a reality for some Ontario farmers using green technology to harvest healthy produce in the harshest of Canadian winter conditions. A strong Call to Action is needed for young, urban farmers to revitalize Canadian farming; Elton’s book provides the details on what this new future may entail, and the work needed to get us there.

After polishing off this current and insightful read, I feel encouraged and excited by new opportunities for Canadian Agriculture and the locavore movement. If you’re interested in Food Security, sustainable, organic and local food sources, and current information about business opportunities related to Canadian farming, Locavore must be on your summer read list.

Speaking of Food Security, Meal Exchange is currently hosting an awesome contest with the MMVAs. Check out their Facebook page for more info.

One of my favourite postmodern artists, Freidensreich Hundertwasser, was also an architect who loudly expressed his ideas of green rooftops and his desire for plants and nature to play an integral part in our living spaces. He saw spontaneous vegetation, wooden floors, green rooftops and grazing animals on green spaces in our future, and to some extent those ideas have come to life here in Toronto!

There are some really cool designs up on our city rooftops and besides being aesthetically pleasing, these spaces also help reduce urban heat, manage storm water, enhance biodiversity, improve air quality and improve energy efficiency. In general, very few people look at their rooftops and an even fewer number utilize that space; however, it can be said that those in apartments are the ones who could really benefit from having their own “backyards”. Green rooftops are beautiful spaces that create more room, a place to relax out of sight, and ultimately benefit the environment. Luckily for us, the demand for such “green” spaces is quickly catching on – the Mountain Equipment Co-op Building on King St West has implemented a 10,000 sq foot green rooftop with exclusively Canadian native plants. While not public space, MEC’s roof is open to visitors during several annual festivals, such as Doors Open Toronto. With their mission to be a leading sustainable company, MEC also engages the community at their King St. location through volunteer-driven initiatives such as BikeFest, PaddleFest Toronto and eco-gift wrapping during the holiday season.

Toronto has not yet made the Green Rooftops Top Ten Cities list in North America but with so many environmentally sustainable innovations taking place, I am sure Toronto will be up there soon. Recently, the Eco-Roof Incentives Grant was passed to promote sustainable practises among existing and new businesses. Furthermore, Toronto won the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Sustainable Community Award for its green roof strategy. Kudos to Toronto for setting a “green” example in Canada. You can check out their progress here!

- Martina Marsic

The FMTA is a non-profit Organization which advocates for better rights for Tenants. Founded in 1974, they are the oldest and largest Tenant Federation in Canada and are comprised of affiliated Tenant Associations and of individual Members that equal over 3,000 individuals altogether.

To celebrate the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations 36th year in existence they are holding their annual Fundraising Gala tonight (June 4th). FMTA are inviting their supporters to come out and enjoy the delicious buffet, dancing and an exciting raffle.

Check out their Facebook Fan Page for more details.

Here’s some small insight into what FMTA’s accomplished most recently:

• rallied successfully against the implementation of smart sub-metering
• improved Toronto by-law to protect rental housing
• helped fight hundreds of rent increase applications affecting thousands of tenants
• helped thousands of tenants on our Tenant Hotline
• successfully exposed and shut down an illegal database with tenant information on it
• prompted new rulings on tenant issues by the Federal Privacy Commissioner
• highlighted issues and abuses with Automatic Rent Reductions on TV, radio, and in print
• got low-income buildings audited by the MRAB program and spoke about the program in the media
• played a major rule in funding and creating the Tenant School

If that’s not enough they are currently working hard to:

• bring in real rent protection for all tenants
• ensure fair laws so that tenants don’t get bad with smart sub-metering
• improve environmental action in apartment buildings
• improve the Landlord and Tenant Board by making it easier for tenants to get justice when landlords violate the Residential Tenancies Act
• educate more and more tenants about their rights

It’s nice to know there is a dedicated group of individuals working hard to ensure proper tenant rights, so here’s a Civic Footprint High Five to everyone that is working for or associated to the FMTA. Be sure to check out their Website and Facebook Fan Page to learn how you can get involved.

Be sure to check out our contest details on our Facebook page.

Quick Reference for Buildings to Visit during Doors Open Toronto:
Saturday, Sunday

One of our favourite local food and environment advocates, Evergreen Brick Works, will be hosting a Doors Open Toronto Festival on both Saturday, May 29th and Sunday, May 30th to help celebrate their new developments to come on site.

If you don’t know what Evergreen Brick Works is, let us fill you in. Evergreen Brick Works is a community environmental centre that inspires and equips visitors to live, work and play more sustainably. They have transformed the former Don Valley Brick Works from a collection of deteriorating heritage buildings into an international showcase for urban sustainability and green design.

Evergreen Brick Works is currently in construction mode, with a grand opening planned for September 2010. Wanna a sneek peek at the final product? Click here to get a bird’s eye view of what’s to come. Better yet, visit in person every Saturday starting May 29th until October for the infamous Saturday Farmers Market, which features a fabulous assortment of fruits, vegetables, wild fish, meat, cheese, milled flours, eggs and oils—all from local farmers.

Want to win a pair of tickets to ANYWHERE WESTJET FLIES?*

How to Enter:

1. Attend tonight’s Timeraiser (doors open at 7pm)

2. Send a tweet about the Timeraiser using your mobile phone. Entries MUST include the hashtag #Timeraiser, #TRWJ, or #TimeraiserWJ. Don’t have a Twitter account? Enter at our Civic Footprint Kiosk!

3. Watch the entries LIVE on our Civic Footprint Blog (live stream begins at 7pm). Winners will be announced later this evening.

Some highlights for me were:

The conversation about the value of knowledge and it’s relation to digital. As we shift from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy, how can we attract top digital/ICT/new media talent and retain that talent in Canada? I particularly enjoyed Sarah Prevette’s (Sprouter) keynote session on Canadian Innovation. Sarah is absolutely right – we need to shout from the highrises about our successes in innovation and call for others to take notice.  The same applies in the non-profit sector, with the importance of information sharing and praise for great work. It is interesting to relate the calls for retaining top talent and the showcasing of Canadian innovation in the digital sector to that in the NGO sector.

It has been fun for me to draw parallels between the digital space and the non-profit sector in many of the sessions I attended at Canada 3.0. In session titled “Startup Nation: Entrepreneurs, Apps and the Next Generation of Mobile“, Polar Mobile described some of their process challenges around funding and seed capital. I couldn’t help but see the similiarities to the non-profit sector, with regards to the time it takes to complete grant applications and the requirements that go along with some types of funding.  I noted that Polar Mobile (along with other startup tech companies) are driven to outsource their resource development (with a 20% hit) because the requirements to complete applications are much too time consuming, in addition to the development time needed to get a mobile application off the ground successfully. As we continue to expand our local networks and seek top talent in both sectors, more conversations about innovation, change, and streamlined information sharing are needed.

Finally, thanks to Tom Jenkins and the Open Text team for the super fly 3D Flash demo technology on display in the Digital Showcase. That was one cool display, and I can’t wait to play more with that tool. That’s serious innovation at work.

They are CARDED! and Hot One Inch Action. The premise of the shows is presenting local artwork on cards in the former and buttons in the latter, selling packages for a nominal amount, and then letting people loose to trade for their favourites. The night ends up being a great mix of music, art and easy socializing. The Hot One Inch Action show was conceived by Chris Bentzen and Jim Hoehnle back in 2004. This year, there was a such a demand for the February CARDED! show that the duo decided to host a second one in April.

Of the shows, Bentzen says “I hope that our shows bring a little fun into the local art scene. I think for an outsider or beginning artist, the “scene” can be a little intimidating and our shows make it super easy to interact with complete strangers and everyone feels pretty comfortable.”

I love this element – making art engaging and accessible and an easy first step for those just getting in to art collecting. I’ve felt like the odd person out at a number of art events, as if I’m wearing a sign that says “my biggest art achievement is a copy-cat sketch of Mickey Mouse”, which would be true. So events, and I count Timeraiser in this group, that encourage people to enjoy and learn about local artists are vital to communities. I may never (read: will never) produce anything remotely artistic, but I certainly will be consuming art and, like many of peers, hope to start a personal art collection, too.

CARDED! and Hot One Inch Action are also great opportunities for young artists to get their name out and get some recognition that could ultimately lead to sales. Bentzen says, “Our shows really get people excited about local art and artists…it really does a lot for promotion.” Sarah Mulder, a Vancouver artist who had pieces in both the 2008 and 2009 Timeraisers as well as in both CARDED! and Hot One Inch Action says, “These events are great. I get to meet so many people and it’s just so fun to take part in local art events. It’s so great that [the organizers] do this for the Vancouver art scene.”

Art events like Timeraiser and CARDED! have lasting benefits for artists. We’ve heard from some Timeraiser artists that indeed their participation in a Timeraiser has led to sales and commissioned work. Vancouver artist Victoria Heryet’s 2008 piece, “Stop Light” was so popular that she sold 2 prints of the piece after the Timeraiser.

So kudos to the creators of CARDED! and Hot One Inch Action for creatively supporting the local art scene. And be sure to check out all the fantastic artists at a Timeraiser in your city.

Well, its been a heck of a week here at the Framework office. The team split up to rock two major events – the 2nd Annual Hamilton Timeraiser and the 2010 Green Living Show. It was our first time as exhibitors the Green Living Show, which proved to be a whirl-wind weekend of learning how to live greener, support social enterprise and get involved. Our team was astonished by the incredible lengths Torontoians will go to ‘green’ their lives – and how passionate so many people were about connecting with their community. A round of applause for everyone!

If you weren’t able to attend the Green Living Show, let us provide some insight about the event. Held at the Direct Energy Centre from April 23rd to 25th, over 20,000 participants were expected to attend. At busy times during the weekend, it certainly felt like that many people were in the building. And we can’t say enough good things about the Farm Fresh Fare – two major forks up for the fresh, local yummy food.

One big highlight of our weekend was the EarthRun on Sunday, (Emily got to use the bullhorn to chat Civic Footprint – sweet), and more importantly, completed the race in record time! (well record time for us). Thanks to EarthRun Foundation for organizing such a fantastic event and for the opportunity to speak (and yell and cheer) about Civic Footprint – you rock EarhRun.

The video below gives you a quick overview of the new friends we met at Green Living, and a quick look into our rad booth. As a team, we are really happy to have attended The Green Living Show, are really impressed with the level of active engagement by community members, and of course, the amount of Twitter love the show got! The live stream we ran on our blog all weekend provides good visibility into the events of the weekend, take a peak.

Oh yeah – we also gave away a pair of tickets ANYWHERE WESTJET FLIES!

In addition to the many conversations about Civic Engagement and community involvement, our WesJet contest drew lots of fantastic tweets and posts about how each entrant is living greener, doing more for their community and building a larger Civic Footprint. We are very excited to announce that David Bergart is the successful winner of two WestJet tickets anywhere that WestJet flies – Congratulations David. His inspiring winning entry was:

“bought hybrid car, putting solar panels on roof ,composting, using water barrels,watering garden in evenings,had eco audit, change lights to energy efficients,changed all toilets to low flow, changed all our appliances to energy efficient,new energy efficient windows, stopped using chemicals on lawns, recycle waste, use biodegradable bags, put solar blanket on hot water heater, buy organic foods with less packaging(locally grown),donate clothing, volunteer for meals on wheels,volunteer for MS&Cancer society canvassing,donate time to do tax returns for low income familiies”

-Emily and Amanda