Glossary

Definitions

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ALR: The Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) is a BC provincial zone in which agriculture is recognized as the priority use. Farming is encouraged and non-agricultural uses are controlled.
Back Haul Trips: Back haul trips are simply head haul trips in reverse. Back haul trips involve picking up freight at your original destination and taking it on your way back.
Baseline: Data on a current process that provides the metrics against which to compare improvements and to use in benchmarking.
Biodiesel: Clean-burning, non-toxic biodegradable alternative fuel that can be combined at any level with petroleum diesel to fuel diesel engines. It is typically produced from renewable sources such as trap grease and low grade recycled cooking oils, however local governments should be careful to avoid purchasing biodiesel produced from food grade sources.
Biomass combustion: Biomass combustion, or 'gasification', involves using organic (often wood) waste from landscaping, land clearing, forestry, or agriculture to produce heat, electricity or combined heat and power, either directly through combustion or indirectly through gasification. These uses must be weighed against other disposal or recycling alternatives for some forms of organic waste such as composting; combustion also requires consideration of potential air quality impacts.
Bioswale: A technology that uses plants and soil and/or compost to retain and cleanse runoff from a site, roadway, or other source.
Brownfield: Abandoned, idled or underutilized industrial and commercial facilities where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived contamination.
Capacity Building: Refers to increasing the ability of individuals, groups, organizations, institutions and communities to analyze and respond to challenges and opportunities over time. Capacity building often focuses on provision of information and experiences that improve the ability to take action.
Carbon Calculator: A tool to help individuals and organizations track carbon emissions. A carbon calculator determines primary carbon footprints, through calculations based on factors such as fuel bills and annual travel patterns.
Carbon Dioxide Off-Set: Reducing carbon dioxide emissions in another location to compensate for the emissions an individual or organization uses during home or office activities, commuting, travel or other activities that use energy and produce emissions.
Carbon Tax: A tax on the types of energy sources that emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Charrette: A meeting held early in the design phase of a project in which the design team, contractors, end users, community stakeholders, and technical experts are brought together to develop goals, strategies, and ideas for maximizing the environmental performance of the project.
Chicane: An `S` bend in a roadway that reduces speeds by forcing drivers to drive through in a single file.
Climate Change: Changes in long-term trends in the average climate, such as changes in average temperatures. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), climate change is a change in climate that is attributable directly or indirectly to human activity that alters atmospheric composition.
Cluster Development: Development design that concentrates buildings and infrastructure in specific areas on a site to allow remaining land to be used for recreation, common open space, or the preservation of historical or environmentally sensitive features.
Combined heat and power: Combined Heat and Power (CHP), or co-generation, is the simultaneous production of power and usable heat, that can improve efficiency from about 35 to 55%, to 80% compared to conventional power plants. These systems may be fueled by natural gas or biofuels (e.g., wood waste) and range in size from individual buildings to district energy systems.
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) or Co-Generation: CHP or co-generation is the simultaneous production of power and usable heat.
Comfort: Designing for comfort aims to create a space where people enjoy being; such qualitative, performance-based objectives are a hallmark of sustainable building.
Commissioning: An activity commenced at completion of construction (often including initial user occupancy) intended to allow designers and managers to check functional subsystems, to determine that the facility is functioning properly, and to undertake any necessary remedial action.
Complete Street: A multi-modal street that is designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and bus riders of all ages and abilities are able to safely move along and across a complete street.
Construction and Demolition Waste: Waste building materials, tree stumps, and rubble resulting from construction, remodeling, repair, and demolition of homes, commercial buildings and other structures and pavements.
Cost and Benefit Analysis: An economic method for assessing the benefits and costs of achieving alternative health-based standards at given levels of health protection.
Daylighting: Using natural light in an interior space to substitute for artificial light. Daylighting can reduce reliance on artificial light (and reduce energy use in the process) and when well designed, contributes to occupant comfort and performance.
Denatured Ethanol: This is the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It is used mainly as a biofuel alternative to gasoline, most widely in Brazil. It can be made from very common crops, such as corn and sugar cane, and so has increased in popularity around the world with rising gasoline prices.
DES: District Energy System - District energy is an approach to supplying thermal energy in the form of steam, hot water and cold water through a distribution system of pipe from a central plant to individual users. Users then extract the energy from the distribution system for their individual heating, cooling and process requirements.
Distributed Generation: Distributed generation typically refers to distributed electricity generating technologies (and sometimes heat and power technologies) that are embedded in the local distribution system, either behind the customer meter as in a net metering installation or selling directly into the grid (as in a small independent power producer).
Dolus: Evil intent encompassing both malice and fraud
Durability: A factor that affects the life cycle performance of a material or assembly. All other factors being equal, the more durable item is environmentally preferable, as it means less frequent replacement.
Embodied Energy: The total amount of energy used to create a product, including energy expended in raw materials extraction, processing, manufacturing and transportation.
Enterprising non-profit: An enterprising non-profit is a non-profit organization that, in addition to other programming, provides services at charge to cover some, or all, of its expenses.
Externality: An externality is an effect of a purchase or use decision by one set of parties on others who did not have a choice and whose interests were not taken into account. The non-consenting parties may be either helped (by external benefits) or harmed (by external costs) by the decision.
First Cost: The sum of the initial expenditures involved in capitalizing a property; includes items such as transportation, installation, preparation for service, as well as other related costs.
Full-cost Accounting: Full-cost accounting (FCA) refers to the process of collecting and presenting information (costs as well as advantages) when a decision is necessary. Costs and advantages may be considered in terms of environmental, economical and social impacts. Full-cost accounting information can be used by decision-makers to make more ‘balanced’ decisions.
Gentrification: The process in which low-cost, run down neighborhoods undergo physical renovation resulting in an increase in property values and an influx of wealthier residents.
Geoexchange: Geoexchange relies on energy stored in the earth (and in some cases surface or ground water) to heat and cool individual homes, multi-unit residences, commercial spaces, or industrial facilities.
GHG: Greenhouse Gas - Components of the atmosphere that contribute to the "greenhouse effect." Some greenhouse gases occur naturally, while others come from activities such as the burning of fossil fuel and coal. Greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.
Green Building: A building that conforms to environmentally sound principles of construction practices, resource use and operations.
Green Cleaning Practice: A term to describe the process of cleaning with environmentally-friendly, non-toxic, biodegradable products. Green cleaning avoids chemically-reactive and toxic cleaning products which contain various toxic chemicals, some of which emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) causing respiratory and dermatological problems among other adverse effects.
Green Infrastructure: a sustainable approach with a focus on climate-friendly strategies
Green Infrastructure: Green Infrastructure has two common interpretations. In a more literal sense, it can refer to ecosystem-based services, such as natural stormwater management systems or urban forests. A broader definition would be equivalent to “sustainable infrastructure” – which could include ecosystem-based services but also encompasses infrastructure meeting sustainability objectives such as energy efficiency, reduced emissions, environmental protection etc.
Green Neighborhood: A neighborhood that is typically moderately dense, includes a range of uses, is designed for people and pedestrians first – including a dense network of paths and streets, human-scaled buildings and pedestrian-oriented street design. It has “green” elements, including a network of green spaces and corridors, street trees, significant private landscaping (including possibly green roofs). Buildings are often “green” buildings with excellent environmental performance. Green infrastructure is commonplace, from low-impact stormwater management to district energy systems for example.
Green Power: Energy generated from clean, renewable energy resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro.
Green Roof: Contained green space on, or integrated with, a building roof. Green roofs maintain living plants in a growing medium on top of a membrane and drainage system.
Greenfield: Previously undeveloped parcels that are not surrounded by existing development, or are surrounded by partially developed/low-density areas.
Greyfield: The development of non-contaminated retail areas such as old malls, strip malls, or institutional areas into complete, livable communities.
Ground Source Heat: Solar heat stored in the upper layers of the earth. This heat can be extracted and delivered to a building through a ground source heat pump.
Heat Island Effect: A "dome" of elevated temperatures over an urban area caused by structural and pavement heat fluxes, and pollutant emissions.
High Efficiency: General term for technologies and processes that require less energy, water, or other inputs to operate. A goal in sustainable building is to achieve high efficiency in resource use when compared to conventional practice.
High Reflectance: The ability of materials to effectively reflect the sun's energy. Roof materials with high reflectance stay cooler in the sun, thereby reducing energy cost, improving occupant comfort, and reducing the urban heat island effect.
Hydrogen Fuel: Hydrogen can be used as a vehicle fuel either through combustion or fuel-cell conversion. In combustion, hydrogen is burned similarly to gasoline in conventional fuel automobiles. Very few engines are designed to combust hydrogen, so this is not a popular alternative. In fuel-cell conversion, hydrogen is reacted with oxygen to produce water and electricity, with electricity being used to power an electric motor. Fuel cells are gathering more attention and investment from automotive companies, governments, and other organizations as a potential clean fuel alternative of the future. Many hydrogen vehicles are still in early stages and very limited refueling infrastructure make them less attractive to other alternatives at the current time. Fuel cell buses are being trialed by many locations, including the City of Vancouver and Resort Municipality of Whistler.
IAQ: Indoor Air Quality - ASHRAE defines acceptable indoor air quality as air in which there are no known contaminants at harmful concentrations as determined by cognizant authorities and with which 80% or more people exposed do not express dissatisfaction.
IESNA: The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), amongst other mandates, provides minimal standards for public space lighting which are used widely across North America.
Indicators: A specific quantitative and/or qualitative measurement for each aspect of performance (output or outcome) under consideration.
Integration: Viewing a building as a system to allow the discovery of synergies and potential tradeoffs or pitfalls with design choices. An integrated design approach helps maximize synergies and minimize unintended consequences.
Landfill gas: Landfill gas utilization involves capturing methane from landfills to produce heat and/or power. Methane from many landfills is either not currently collected or is burned off in flares, rather than used for energy production.
LCA: Life Cycle Analysis - The assessment of a building's full environmental costs, from raw material to final disposal, in terms of consumption of resources, energy and waste.
LEED: The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.
Level of Service: A standardized measure of infrastructure operating conditions, often defined with reference to a benchmark. The most common example is used by transportation engineers to indicate that traffic is moving at ideal, average, or poor efficiency and measured on a grade scale of "A" through "F".
Life Cycle: Refers to all stages of a building's development, from extraction of materials to construction, use, and disposal.
Light pollution: Light pollution refers to excessive lighting that disrupts human activities or natural ecosystems. Light pollution can interfere with ecosystem processes, especially those occurring at night; interfere with human sleep, resulting in health effects; obscure night-sky viewing for city dwellers; and interfere with astronomical observations.
Low-Impact Development: A comprehensive land planning and engineering design approach with a goal of maintaining and enhancing the pre-development hydrologic regime of urban and developing watersheds. This design approach incorporates strategic planning with micro-management techniques to achieve superior environmental protection, while allowing for development or infrastructure rehabilitation to occur.
Market Barrier: Instances that prevent or inhibit market adoption of specific technologies or higher levels of energy efficiency. Market barriers to the adoption of high efficiency and renewable resource measures can include lack of awareness, knowledge, and information on the technology, product, and service offerings; lack of product or service availability; and perceived higher risk or difficulty financing the higher incremental cost often associated with energy efficiency and renewable resources.
Market Transformation: A strategy that promotes the manufacture and purchase of energy-efficient products and services. The goal of this strategy is to induce lasting structural and behavioral changes in the marketplace, resulting in increased adoption of energy-efficient technologies.
Micro-hydro: Micro-hydro is a form of hydro-electric power using small turbines in water courses or water supply pipelines.
Mitigation: An intervention to reduce the extent of global warming through reducing the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases.
Natural Gas: Compressed natural gas (CNG) is 90% methane and runs cleaner and is less expensive than regular gasoline, however refueling infrastructure is still minimal in North America. CNG has a higher octane rating and so has greater efficiency in the engines that use it. CNG vehicles emit more GHGs than hybrid vehicles and require more space for fuel storage than conventional gasoline vehicles. Canada is a large producer of CNG so refueling stations are less difficult to find. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) can be used in natural gas vehicles, although it is more commonly used in CNG vehicles. It produces comparable energy to gasoline and diesel and produces less pollution. High production costs and expensive and complicated storage has prevented its widespread use in personal vehicles. The key difference between CNG and LNG is that CNG is compressed, while LNG is liquefied. CNG often costs less for production and storage. CNG requires a much larger volume to store the same mass of gasoline.
Natural Ventilation: Ventilation design that uses existing air currents on a site and natural convection to move and distribute air through a structure or space.
Neighborhood: An imprecisely defined area within which people live, work, learn, and/or play. Its edges may be well-defined or more loosely felt by residents. Although it is often defined by a radius equal to an easy walk, its size may vary, from an easily walkable district to a larger region. In some cases, neighborhoods may overlap, especially where they are well-connected.
Neo: Latin for 'new'
Neo-Traditional Design: A traditional neighborhood, where a mix of different types of residential and commercial developments form a tightly knit unit. Residents can walk or bike to more of the places they need to go and municipal services costs are lower due to the close proximity of residences. A more compact development also reduces the amount of rural land that must be converted to serve urban needs.
New Urbanism: Neighborhood design that promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional development, but assembled in a more integrated fashion, in the form of complete communities.
Nihil: Definition of nihil
Open Space Preservation: The protection of natural areas both within and around communities that provide important community space, habitat for plants and animals, recreational opportunities, farm and ranch land (working lands), places of natural beauty and critical environmental areas (e.g. wetlands).
Orientation (Solar): Orientation of a structure for controlled solar gain is essential to the success of passive and active solar design elements. Sun charts and software assist in orienting a building for maximum solar benefit. Designing for solar considerations can substantially reduce both heating and cooling.
Passive Solar: Strategies for using the sun’s energy to heat (or cool) a space, mass, or liquid. A window, oriented for solar gain and coupled with massing for thermal storage (e.g., a Trombe wall) is an example of a passive solar technique.
Passive solar: Passive solar is building design that allows capture of solar energy for space heating without mechanical systems.
Patient Equity: Equity whose returns on investment are received on a long-term timeframe, complementing and supplementing typical short-term real estate financing. These may include investments from foundations and pension funds, revenue from parking facilities, and other sources of capital.
Performance Metrics: Data that can be used to measure how well you are performing to objectives and goals.
Precautionary Principle: When information about potential risks is incomplete, basing decisions regarding the best ways to manage or reduce risks on a preference for avoiding unnecessary health risks instead of on unnecessary economic expenditures.
Public Benefits Charge: A charge added to a customer billing which is intended to cover costs related to services that a utility provides in the public interest. A utility may be mandated by legislation or regulations to provide some or all of the services covered by this charge, and these services range from educational initiatives to funding for low-income customers to environmental programs.
Quibus: dative and ablative plural of qui (who or whom)
Quid: Squid without the S
Rainwater Harvest: On-site rainwater harvest and storage systems used to offset potable water needs for a building and/or landscape.
Recycled Content: The content in a material or product derived from recycled materials versus virgin materials.
Retrocommissioning: Refers to the systematic process of commissioning of existing buildings for identifying and implementing operational and maintenance improvements and for ensuring their continued performance over time. It is an inclusive and systematic process that intends not only to optimize how equipment and systems operate, but also to optimize how the systems function together.
Revolving Fund: A fund established to finance a cycle of operations to which reimbursements and collections are returned for reuse in a manner such as will maintain the principal of the fund, e.g., working capital funds, industrial funds, and loan funds.
Risk: A measure of the probability of an adverse effect on a population under a well-defined exposure scenario.
Road Diet: A technique of transportation planning in which the width of a road or lane is narrowed in order to achieve improvements to the transportation system. A typical road diet technique is to reduce the number of lanes on a roadway cross-section. One of the most common applications of a road diet is to convert a 4-lane section, with two travel lanes in each direction, into a 3-lane section with one travel lane in each direction and a two-way turn lane in the middle. The two-way turn lane can be transitioned into dedicated left turn lanes at intersections. The additional space that is freed up by removing a vehicular lane can be converted into two bike lanes on either side of the roadway.
Shared Parking: A type of parking management in which parking spaces are shared by more than one user, which allows parking facilities to be used more efficiently. Shared Parking takes advantage of the fact that most parking spaces are only used part time by a particular motorist or group, and many parking facilities have a significant portion of unused spaces, with utilization patterns that follow predictable daily, weekly and annual cycles.
Shared Street: A common space created to be shared by pedestrians, bicyclists, and low-speed motor vehicles. They are typically narrow streets without curbs and sidewalks, and vehicles are slowed by placing trees, planters, parking areas, and other obstacles in the street.
Sign Out Functions: Sign out functions are designed to manage the use of vehicles in a fleet, often in a car share program. They are also useful for monitoring and understanding activity around vehicles, departments, and drivers.
Smart Growth: A collection of urban development strategies to reduce sprawl that are fiscally, environmentally and socially responsible. Smart Growth is development that enhances our quality of life, protects our environment, and uses tax revenues wisely.
Solar photo-voltaic panels: Active solar photo-voltaic (PV) panels produce electricity. In BC, with current technology active thermal is generally much more cost effective than PV.
Solar thermal panels: Active solar thermal panels collect solar energy to heat water, to augment domestic hot water heating or swimming pool heating.
Solid Waste Infrastructure: The set of systems and facilities that are used to manage solid waste (garbage and recyclable materials); this includes storage, collection, transport, recycling, and disposal systems and facilities.
Split Incentive: A market barrier to an innovation, in which higher capital costs of an innovation are borne by one market participant while its operating savings benefit another. The financial incentive to adopt the technology is split from the participant responsible for putting it in place.
Sprawl: The unlimited outward expansion of suburbs created by low-density residential and commercial development. Sprawl is characterized by low-density greenfield development; the separation of residential, work and shopping areas; lack of well-defined centres; and a road network consisting of very large blocks with limited points of entry into the blocks.
Stormwater Infrastructure: Stormwater infrastructure is the network of piping, systems and facilities that manage runoff from areas such as paved surfaces and roofs.
Stormwater Management: Building and landscape strategies to control and limit stormwater pollution and runoff. Usually an integrated package of strategies, elements can include vegetated roofs, compost-amended soils, pervious paving, tree planting, drainage swales, and more.
Sustainability: Practices that would ensure the continued viability of a product or practice well into the future.
Sustainable Development: An approach to progress that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
Sustainable Landscape: A landscape that uses environmental and financial resources efficiently. Characteristics of a sustainable landscape may include water conservation and infiltration, invasive plant prevention, and habitat enhancement.
SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats Analysis - A strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project. Because it concentrates on the issues that potentially have the most impact, it is useful when there is a limited amount of time available to address a complex strategic situation. The SWOT analysis can serve as an interpretative filter to reduce information to a manageable quantity of key information.
TOD: Transit-Oriented Development - Moderate and high-density housing concentrated in mixed-use developments located along transit routes. The location, design and mix of uses in a TOD emphasize pedestrian-oriented environments and encourage the use of public transportation.
Traditional Neighborhood Development: Development that is based on human-scale design with concern for walkability, and exhibits several of the following characteristics: alleys, streets laid out in a grid system, buildings oriented to the street, front porches on houses, pedestrian-orientation, compatible and mixed land uses, village squares and greens.
Tri-generation: The combined production of electricity, heat and cooling, and involves connecting cogeneration units with absorption cooling units (cooling produced from heat).
Triple-Bottom Line (TBL): Measuring the economic, social and environmental performance of a project. This method of assessment aims for synergy amongst these three aspects rather than compromise or ‘trade-offs’ between them.
UCB: Urban Containment Boundary
Unbundled Parking: A parking strategy in which parking spaces are rented or sold separately, rather than automatically included with the rent or purchase price of a residential or commercial unit. Tenants or owners are able to purchase only as much parking as they need, and are given the opportunity to save money and space by using fewer parking stalls. Unbundled parking is more equitable and can reduce the total amount of parking required for the building.
Universal Accessibility: Access to environments and products that is, to the greatest extent possible, usable by everyone regardless of their age, ability, or circumstance.
Urban containment boundary: a regional boundary set to control urban sprawl by allowing the area inside the boundary for higher density urban development and the area outside for lower density development (UCB)
Urban Forest: A forest or a collection of trees and shurbs that grow within a city, town or a suburb. In a wider sense it may include any kind of woody plant vegetation growing in and around human settlements. The benefits of urban forests are many, including beautification, reduction of the urban heat island effect, reduction of stormwater runoff, reduction of air pollution, reduction of energy costs through increased shade over buildings, enhancement of property values, improved wildlife habitat, and mitigation of overall urban environmental impact.
Ventilation: Process by which outside air is conveyed to an indoor space.
Ventilation Control (by Occupants): The ability of building occupants to control ventilation rates. A strategy for giving control of comfort back to occupants, this can be achieved through access to individual electronic controls or by operable windows in workspaces.
Wastewater: The spent or used water from a home, community, farm, or industry that contains dissolved or suspended matter.
Wastewater biogas: Wastewater biogas digestion utilizes methane produced from wastewater treatment plant biosolids (sludge or residuals) to produce heat and/or power.
Wastewater heat recovery: Wastewater heat recovery recovers heat from wastewater to provide space or hot water heating to nearby buildings, or industrial processes. The heat recovery can be done at the building scale (e.g., drain pipe heat exchange); from sewer mains (e.g., Rabtherm technology); or from sewer pump stations and wastewater treatment plants (e.g., Okanagan College, Southeast False Creek applications); the latter will heat homes for over 4,000 people).
Wastewater Infrastructure: Wastewater infrastructure could include everything between the point where wastewater (sewage and graywater) is collected, and the discharge of treated effluent such as a river or ocean. System components include wastewater collection (sanitary sewers), wastewater treatment plants, residuals (sludge or biosolids) management systems, and effluent discharge systems.
Water & Wastewater Infrastructure: The network of pipes, systems and facilities that provide fresh water supply and wastewater (sewage) management for communities.
Water supply Infrastructure: Water supply infrastructure could include everything between the water source, and the buildings or site where the water is delivered. System components include water supply conveyance, water treatment plants, and water distribution networks.
Wind power: Wind power involves the conversion of wind energy into more useful forms, such as electricity, using wind turbines. Applications may involve a single micro-turbine on a building or many large turbines grouped into a wind farm. Wind farms composed of many very large turbines still tends to be the most common and cost-effective application.