The size of the development allowed Parklane to develop a neighbourhood energy utility that will use hot water heating systems instead of highly inefficient electric baseboards and, says Shearing, rely on a renewable source of energy, possible sewer heat. All of the large buildings are being built to LEED platinum or gold standard, and the smaller wood frame buildings are going for Built Green (see a primer on these rating systems).

Shearing says Vancouver's goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2020 envisions a "paradigm shift" from where we are now. Early adopters of the new paradigm, he thinks, should get a hand up.

"Tax [and] density incentives are really the two biggest tools the city has," says Shearing. "And a speedier approval process would certainly help."

Incentives, he thinks should also be extended to homeowners who 'green' their houses. On-bill financing for energy efficient retrofits is an idea that's taking off in the U.S. with positive results. Vancouver has recently introduced its own pilot program. Such programs, says Shearing, are key to shifting the residential market.

Be better than 'less bad'

When asked what can be done to advance green building in British Columbia, and around the world, Guido Wimmers throws this question right back: "Are you talking about making green building more mainstream, or actually more green?"

Wimmers is the principal of Building Evolution, a Vancouver-based design firm that specializes in PassivHaus buildings. The PassivHaus standard dictates that a building use no conventional heating or cooling systems at all, but rather is designed to regulate temperature with excellent insulation, air-tightness and orientation to the sun's rays.

Wimmers is among those in the industry who say that many of the current generation of green buildings, including those certified by LEED or other standards, are simply "less bad" than older construction -- and that that's not good enough.

From his perspective, and compared to Europe, Vancouver still has a long way to go, despite its green reputation.

"With architects or mechanical engineers who have studied a lot, you find this attitude like, 'I know it all,'" he says. "Especially in Vancouver, where they got promoted as the 'greenest city', it's probably more difficult for them to accept that there is much more out there to learn."

Wimmers's answer to both questions -- how to make green building more mainstream and also raise the standards of what's considered green -- is education.

"Education of the public, of everybody," he says. "It should begin in schools."

Trade schools are beginning to recognize that green building requires a new skill set as well as a new mindset. Okanagan College recently opened the Centre for Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies at its Penticton campus. The centre is a kind of living laboratory that offers programs in sustainable construction, geo-thermal energy capture, and metering and monitoring of green buildings. The centre's building itself provides a model of green anatomy: wherever possible its mechanical and electric systems are exposed, so students can learn from the building itself.

The centre was built to meet the stringent standards of the Living Building Challenge (the CIRS building at UBC is another example of a potential Living Building, although neither were certified by the time reporting for the series was completed.)

Jason McLennan is the founder of the Living Building Institute and the man behind the Living Building Challenge. Its standard represents the next generation of green buildings: structures that produce as much energy and water as they consume, outlaw toxic materials, and are sourced as close to the site as possible.

"Our organization operates from a position that there's global urgency, and merely being 10 per cent less bad or 30 per cent less bad, is not a successful long term strategy for humanity, frankly," says McLennon.

While we've seen more green building in the higher education and institutional sectors, we are further behind in commercial buildings and especially the production housing sectors, says McLennon. He gives an example of a typical suburban house, with a two-car garage and what he calls a "bonus room" built above the garage -– "the house a lot of us grew up in."

"If you took a two car garage and a bonus room above it -- the cost of that piece of the house is the same, approximately, [as] energy independence with renewable energy," he says. "We question, what's the payback on solar panels, an asset that actually makes you money? But we don't question what the payback is on a two-car garage that covers an asset [your car] that depreciates so rapidly."

For things to change, we need a complete paradigm shift, a re-thinking of what we value, McLennon says.

"We're seeing now projects that will never have an energy bill and water bill, they will never release carbon into the atmosphere, so it's a completely different paradigm. What we're showing is that sustainable is possible now, it's not this far-flung utopian idea. We can move much further and much faster and when we do there are social benefits and health benefits and we provide a much more exciting vision of the future."

[See more Tyee environmental coverage.]