Energy Conservation Techniques Make Green Home Building Affordable at Abundance Ecovillage

In Canada, buildings comprise more then a THIRD of Greenhouse Gas emissions and buildings are the single most important opportunity for us to achieve significant reductions in our Greenhouse Gas emissions! More sustainable, energy efficient and environmentally friendly ‘green’ buildings are finally on the rise, and have the potential to drastically reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions. We definitly have a thing or two to learn from this example.

Many Canadians would like to become more environmentally friendly - but there are many barriers. This is especially true for non-profit and community organizations, which are frequently interested in greening their organizations, but are intimidated by a lack of support, expertise and resources...

The Riverdale Immigrant Women’s Centre is a non-profit organization that provides culturally specific settlement and counseling support services and believe it is of critical importance to set an example of sustainability and to promote green practices for marginalized women who are new to Toronto.

RIWC is undertaking a groundbreaking 'greening' of their facility. This includes an environmentally sustainable renovation and addition to their head office as well as the adoption of green workplace strategies. Their design features energy efficient ventilation systems, passive solar heating and cooling, non-toxic building materials and complete building accessibility. It is estimated that the entire costs of this project will be recouped in 10 years, and RIWC will incur significant energy savings (approx. 77%) to re-invest in services for their clients! This is unheard of in the Toronto non-profit sector and truly an amazing, multi-faceted project.

RIWC is offering support to organizations who want to know more about green development in the form of focus groups and information sessions provided free of charge through Green Resource Developers. If anyone is interested in this project - contact them! They have tons of resources and information on all aspects of Green Development!!

For more information please contact;

Emily Parker, Green Resource Developer
riwc.green@gmail.com
(416) 465-6021