The greenest city: What we can learn from Vancouver

A key goal in Vancouver's 2020 plan is ensuring all residents live within a five minute walk of a park, greenway, or other green space. Photo / Supplied

Auckland consistently ranks highly in lists of the world's best cities but is never number one. So what would it take to turn Auckland into a first-class city? This week the Herald begins a 10-day series examining some of the biggest hurdles Auckland faces, from housing and transport to entertainment and education. We look at what we are doing, what we need to do, and why Auckland's success matters to the rest of the country. In the second part of the series we look at the environment

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• WORLD CLASS AUCKLAND - Part 1: Housing

If we're after any city with an environmental agenda to aspire to, look no further than clean, green Vancouver.

While the Canadian centre's urban population of around 2.3 million is much greater than Auckland's, one of the few global environmental indexes that compare the two cities' air pollution levels, published by the World Health Organisation, shows Vancouver's air is cleaner.

The Canadian city has an annual mean of 11 PM10 particulates per cubic metre of air, compared with 19 in Auckland.

PM10 is a collective term for very small airborne particles, 10 micrometres or less in diameter, which are associated with health problems, ranging from respiratory irritation to cancer.

While the Canadian city benefits from a clean surrounding environment, with close distance between forests and ocean, it also has a transparent publicly available air quality monitoring data centre, called Airmap.

The city has electrified public transport, which cuts down vehicular particulate emissions in the city centre.

While Auckland has just launched its new electric rail network, it could also benefit from electric buses.

Eighteen per cent of Vancouver is covered by tree canopy and 62 per cent of that on private property.

Eighteen per cent of Vancouver is covered by tree canopy. Photo / Supplied

Tree cover in Auckland accounts for six per cent of the city isthmus, and while 63 per cent of that is on private land, just 15 per cent of those trees are protected.

Vancouver's Greenest City 2020 Action Plan has a range of ambitious goals, among them doubling the number of "green jobs" over 2010 levels by 2020 and doubling the number of companies that are actively engaged in greening their operations over 2011 levels by 2020.

Its climate goal was to slash community-based greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent from 2007 levels by the end of this decade - Auckland's is to cut emissions 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2040.

Vancouver required all buildings constructed from 2020 onward to be carbon neutral in operations and reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in existing buildings by 20 per cent over 2007 levels.

By 2040, Auckland Council aims to have 95 per cent of all buildings meeting sustainable design standards equivalent to a 6 Green Star rating, and 95 per cent of new and existing housing meeting sustainable design standards equivalent to an 8 Homestar rating.

In transport, Vancouver wants more than half of trips in the city to be via foot, bicycle or public transport by 2020, along with a 20 per cent reduction from 2007 levels in the average distance driven per resident.

Its striving for this by improving its walking and cycling infrastructure and public transport networks, and kicking off a bike-sharing programme.

By contrast, Auckland is aiming toward between 20 to 30 per cent fewer trips per person by 2040, and 100 public transport trips per person each year.

While Auckland is aiming to achieve zero waste going to landfill by 2040, Vancouver seeks to halve its rate by 2020.

Other key goals in Vancouver's 2020 plan include ensuring all residents live within a five minute walk of a park, greenway, or other green space; planting 150,000 new trees; slashing Vancouver's ecological footprint and per capita water consumption both by 33 per cent over 2006 levels; and always meeting or beating air quality guidelines.