Environmental issues are starting to finally take their place in the
Vancouver
real estate market. Having practiced and taught environmental law for almost 20 years, I think it has been a long time coming but I am glad to see it seems to finally be here. Even places where you wouldn’t expect it are promoting the importance of environmental values; at the beginning of January 2007, in the Globe and Mail real estate section the “small-scale condo big on environmental awareness” was the pick for dwelling of the year (ROAR on west 10th next to what used to be the Varsity Theatre); more and more projects are choosing environmentally friendly materials-for example replacing old growth wood flooring with more sustainable bamboo. In fact there is now a building supply firm in the west side that sells only environmentally friendly products (GreenWorks Building Supply on West 8th Ave) and the Habitat for Humanity “Restore” is opening in the west side, not only fund raising for a very worthy cause (one of MacDonald Realty’s charitable donation recipients) but also making recycled materials available to the public at a very low cost). While we still have a long way to go, at least this is a start!
MacDonald Realty has just launched a contest among its realtors-to come up with ideas to make our operations more environmentally friendly. I have a few ideas related to reducing pollution from cars (its sad that people seem to think that the realtor with the most polluting car makes the most money-I guess this is the case in all areas of work but since we drive so much, the impact in our profession is likely greater) to encouraging the reduction of paper use…..if anyone really reads this blog and has any ideas, please let me know! If you come across other suppliers of green products for the home, please also let me know and they will be posted here. I hope to see MacDonald Realty become a leader in green
Vancouver
real estate-and hopefully it will since that also seems to be the owners vision!
