The Green Building Festival is Canada’s most comprehensive conference on green building design, operations, technologies, and materials.

Since 2005, the Festival has brought together industry leaders from across the country and around the world to transform the building industry through educational presentations, technical training, and interactive workshop.

Since its inception in 2005, the Green Building Festival has featured both the finest examples of and the leading practitioners within the green building movement.  With a blend of national and international speakers, the Festival has always been Canada’s leading technical conference for the design, construction, and operation of sustainable buildings and communities.

Each year, our Planning Committee selects Festival speakers and featured projects according to an overarching theme.  These themes are intended to be part of a ‘continuum of sustainability’ – building each year towards bigger ideas and a larger scope.  For 2012, our theme acknowledges the inter-connection between building codes and building performance.

Green Building Festival Schedule

For more information, please contact:

Jennifer Jeffery
GBF@sbcanada.org
647.746.4844

Never has both the desire and opportunity for citizens to engage with their cities, provincial or national governments and fellow citizens to shape what they look like and how they care for their residents. There are many examples of how citizens are engaging with their cities through social media, crowdsourcing, etc. to make change happen on the street, at the program and at the policy levels. This workshop will look at these examples and discuss the building blocks of leading effective community engagement and open innovation online and offline.

Speaking at the workshop will be Laura Graham-Prentice, VP, Communications & Marketing of theYMCA of Toronto, Tamara Balan, Project Director of the Civic Action Alliance, and Paul Dombowsky ofIdeavibes and Fundchange.

We will also open the floor to the participants to talk about what has worked for them and to discuss challenges in reaching those whose voice is often left unheard due to the so-called digital divide, or apathy.

Participants will benefit from learning these building blocks, best practices, understanding the tools available and where they do and don’t work, and hearing of success stories in their community.

This workshop will attract grassroots organizations, community groups, and charities, as well as civic, municipal and provincial government staff.

Event to be held at the following time, date, and location:

Continental breakfast and refreshments will be provided.

Click here to RSVP for the Engaging Citizens, Fostering Innovation and Realizing Social Change in the era of Crowdsourcing and Social Media event.

Date and Time: Wednesday, October 3rd, 6:30 pm

Location: United Steelworker's Hall,  25 Cecil Street.

Indigenous communities are taking the lead to stop the largest industrial project on Earth and Northern Alberta is ground zero with over 20 corporations operating in the tar sands sacrifice zone, with expanded developments being planned. The cultural heritage, land, ecosystems and health of Indigenous communities including those in the Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake regions of Alberta are being sacrificed for oil money in what has been termed a “slow industrial genocide”. Infrastructure projects linked to the tar sands expansion such as the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, Kinder Morgan pipeline, Enbridge Line 9 reversal, and the Keystone XL pipeline threaten Indigenous communities across Turtle Island particularly Aamjiwnaang First Nation and the Haudenausaunee Confederacy here in Southern Ontario.  To build ties of solidarity and resistance, and to create a broad base on informed support, a speakers’ series is being organized in Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver) and in Ontario. **Wheelchair accessible, childcare & refreshments will be provided* Speakers: CRYSTAL LAMEMAN is a Beaver Lake Cree First Nation activist and the Peace River tar sands campaigner for the Indigenous Environmental Network in Alberta. Crystal is committed to restoring Native treaty rights and stopping the exploitation of the tar sands.  MELISSA ELLIOTT is co-founder of Young Onkwehonwe United, and a youth activist from the Haudenosaunee Territory of Six Nations. Known to most as Missy, she has organized to defend Kanonhstaton (the former Douglas Creek Estates), and to stop development projects on Six Nations territory being pushed through without their consent such as the Line 9 reversal project. VANESSA GRAY is a youth organizer from Aamjiwnaang First Nation, a community that has been named the most polluted place in North America by the National Geographic Society. She founded Green Teens, a environmental justice organization of Native youth to resist the impact of the 63 petrochemical refineries in her hometown and is an active campaigner for the rights of Indigenous people across these lands. SUZANNE DHALIWAL is the co-founder of the UK Tar Sands Network, which works in solidarity with the Indigenous Environmental network to campaign against UK corporations and financial institutions invested in the Alberta Tar Sands. Moderated by Heather Milton-Lightning from the Pasqua First Nation, Ruckus Society and the Indigenous Environmental Network. This event is organized by the Indigenous Environmental Network. IEN is an alliance of grassroots Indigenous Peoples whose mission is to protect the sacredness of Mother Earth from contamination and exploitation by strengthening, maintaining, and respecting traditional teachings and natural laws. It is supported by No One Is Illegal - Toronto, Mining Injustice Solidarity Network, Toronto Bolivia Solidarity, OPIRG York and others.  For more information, to endorse or to support, please write to firstnationswomenspeakingtour@gmail.com

For more information, please visit Jacobson's event web page.

Here is a link to the Ted Talk with Jacobson.