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The Real Estate Foundation of BC hosted the Green Developers Roundtable at the 2008 Gaining Ground Summit. “We organized the roundtable event to engage the major Vancouver Island developers in a conversation about the factors that facilitate or hinder their efforts to design, plan for and implement development incorporating Green Value Strategies on Vancouver Island,” said Jack Hall, REFBC Chair at that time.

“The Ministry of Environment appreciates that the Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC embraces shared responsibility for the Water Sustainability Action Plan. The next phase of the Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Education Initiative will add to ‘Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery: A BC Framework’ and integrate watershed systems thinking and adaptation to a changing climate into asset management,” wrote Wes Shoemaker.

To develop a common understanding, the Green Infrastructure Partnership unveiled a cascading hierarchy. “Desired outcomes for water sustainability and green infrastructure can be achieved through infrastructure standards that reflect a full and proper understanding of the relationship between land and water”, stated Kim Stephens.

“Whether discussing the economy or ecological challenges, the significance and relevance of the findings from Flow and Grow is that they will be replicable throughout the province and beyond,” stated Ted van der Gulik. “The reason for this applicability is that the workshop focus was on the impacts of climate change and the need to plan now for a water sustainable future.”

Renowned landscape architect, writer and educator Ian L. McHarg (1920-2001) was best known for introducing environmental concerns in landscape architecture. His 1969 book Design With Nature pioneered the concept of environmental planning. “The title contains a gradient of meaning. It can be interpreted as simply descriptive of a planning method, deferential to places and peoples, it can invoke the Grand Design, it can emphasize the conjunction with and, finally it can be read as an imperative. DESIGN WITH NATURE!,” wrote Ian McHarg.

The key principle is that settlement and ecology are equal values and they must be as much in balance as possible for wellbeing of human and natural systems. “If we were in fact measuring ecological values, there would be more ‘weights’ (reliable data) on the ecology side of the balance scale; thus leading to more informed conclusions and hence different decisions,” stated Tim Pringle.