eco-strata

This guide holds dozens of practical tips on how you can green your building. It has been written for…

• Multi-family building owners or renters
• Strata council members
• Property management companies
• Building or real estate experts, and
• Interested people who are keen to learn about greening buildings

Are you on your strata council or are you a resident of your building and wondering what you can do? Are you interested in the financial savings that come from greening your building?

Are you literally getting sick and tired from the toxic chemicals in your paint, carpets and walls? Maybe you want to do your part in tackling climate change and wasteful consumption.

This guide’s goal is to help you create an eco-strategy and take action to reduce your building’s impact on the Earth. Although this document was prepared with reference to the Metro Vancouver region, it applies widely if not everywhere.

This guide is focused on existing buildings – specifically multifamily dwellings – also known as apartments, townhouses, condos, or ‘vertical villages.’ It contains a host of eco-friendly and healthy options and alternatives that can, for the most part, be implemented without too many hassles and difficulty.

Aims

This guide aims to make taking the first steps to greening a multi-family dwelling accessible through a set of clear recommendations and explanations regarding alternative choices and technologies. By reading it, you will be equipped with some key tools to initiate the journey of taking your multi-family dwelling down a green path. We hope you will find it to be an enjoyable and fulfilling one, one that brings real improvements and savings as well as a sense of contributing positively to sustainability and to your community. Making your building healthier for its occupants, and better in terms of water and energy consumption, is a great example of implementing the “think globally, act locally” adage.

As owners, renters, strata council members and property management companies, we all have responsibilities and an important role to play in facing up to this challenge. Each and everyone one of us can make a difference, regardless of how big or small it is. To remind us of that, an African proverb states that “If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try sleeping with a mosquito in the room.”

Please find the link to the 32 page PDF of the Eco-Strata Guide, printed in April 2009.