Green Industry News Spring 2017 Vol. 26 Issue 2
What’s inside: • 150 garden experiences highlighted • How the CPP will be enhanced • Getting in 'the zone' for certification tests • Garden Days and Pink Days in Bloom
"Nature is incredibly resilient. The inability to green the urban environment is not nature’s fault."
• Greening the Canadian Landscape • ELCA goes to Bulgaria
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his May, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities hosted the Grey to Green Conference, featuring the latest research and industry developments in green infrastructure. Keynotes touched on a variety of topics, from Shaping Livable Cities presented by Herbert Dreiseitl, Director of Ramboll Liveable, to Landscape Ontario’s Tony DiGiovanni on creating jobs through green infrastructure, to the Honourable Glen Murray, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change discussing oceans, forests and local food. Besides the highlevel keynotes, the day was jam-packed with informative seminars, all with the aim of educating for better infrastructure decisions.
Jeffrey Bruce, Chair of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, opened the conference by showing an image of a forest on a slide. Then, after getting the room to close their eyes for a few moments, he said, “Do you feel that? The calm that comes when you just look at this picture?”. It was a physical reminder of what many of the architects, landscape architects and designers in the room knew: the calming effects of green – that as soon as we connect to the living environment, there are positive effects, health benefits. Bruce went on to say that undisturbed / natural green space is only about three percent of the total environment. He urged action, stating that waiting to develop metrics, seeking ‘regulatory
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