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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.”

The Protocol is an economic tool to make real the notion of ‘watersheds as infrastructure assets’. “There are some philosophical principles that guide us,” stated Tim Pringle. “Foremost is that water is an ecosystem. It supports all of the living ecology that we treasure. The other principle is that we know that practitioners have knowledge and ability to do things on the ground in a more successful, sustainable way than we often see.”

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.

“Designing with nature is efficient. It amounts to using income from natural capital rather than drawing down the resource,” wrote Tim Pringle. “The key principle is that settlement and ecology are equal values. This condition is prerequisite for designing with nature and it supports better control of the life-cycle costs of providing infrastructure for the built environment.”

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.

“The Ecological Accounting Protocol (EAP) is an economic tool to make real the notion of ‘watersheds as infrastructure assets’. EAP would support four related analytical approaches to capital expenditure and life cycle costs represented in infrastructure (drainage) services drawn from natural assets. These are Substitution, Cost Avoidance, Environmental (watershed health) Benefits, and Attributed Values,” wrote Tim Pringle. “EAP would make sustainable service delivery more robust with the inclusion of the value and costs
associated with the use of services from natural assets to supply infrastructure.”

Tim Pringle coined the phrase ecological accounting protocol. “The purpose is to enable comparison of engineered infrastructure to natural systems by means of common units of measurement and value,” states Tim Pringle. “The challenge is in HOW to calculate the most effective blend of services from nature and engineered infrastructure. The need for measurement and valuation is paramount.”