Why is flying the most sustainable?

The triple bottom line analysis consider the economic (the raw cost of travel), the environmental (my carbon footprint) and equity (the social cost).

The Economic Cost

I decided to redeem some travel rewards so the flight cost me $161.88 (for taxes, security and admin fees). The least expensive ticket one can book according to Expedia this morning was $499. When I looked earlier in the week both Air Canada and Porter had seat sales on; flights were $338. Given that I booked the flight earlier in the week I’ll use the $338 value in my analysis.

Via rail is Ontario’s only rail carrier. You can take the GO train within the Greater Toronto Area but it does go beyond the GTA borders. When I looked at booking it was $155, but when searching today it was $202.50. (And knowing me I would have bought my ticket at the station today!)

If I was going to drive I’d have to spend $117.68. According to fueleconomy.gov my car requires premium gasoline and goes 11.5km/L on the highway. The round trip distance is 888km and for simplicity I’ll say that the drive is all highway kilometres (10km total is not on the highway). Thus it will require 78L of fuel (round up to 80L and ignore any congestion encountered on the way). Gas was $1.47.1 at my corner gas station according to Toronto’s Gas Prices this morning.

Summary: Flight: $161.88, Train $155, Drive $117.68

The Environmental Cost

The carbon footprint cost. How much damage am I doing by going to Ottawa? According to Carbon Finance one could sell a tonne of carbon on the European market for €12.32 or $16.64CAD today.

When I booked my flight Air Canada stated me that the total carbon footprint for my portion of the flight round trip was 0.21tonnes of CO2 emissions for a value of $3.49.

According to CarbonFund.org each km of long distance rail travel emits 0.49lbs/mile or 0.12kg/km. The Toronto Travel Guide says it’s 446km, which totals 107kg (.107tonnes) of CO2 emissions round trip or $1.78.

The footprint of my car is 174g/km according to NextGreenCar but that is based on a combined urban and highway driving. For simplicity I’ll use this value, so for my 888km my calculated footprint would be 154kg (.154tonnes) of CO2 emissions, bringing the total cost to $2.56.

Summary: Flight $3.49, Train $1.78 or Driving $2.56.

The Equity Cost

It comes down to what I value my time at. I remember when I wrote my thesis (in 2007) that the average value for an hour of work was $20. I could have valued at what my current salary pays me at, or I could have been a little more conservative and used my ski coaching salary. Both of these were greater than $20 so I think I’ll stick with that (Note: I do value my time more than $20/hr! )

Ignoring the time it takes to get to each mode of travel here is what the cost breakdown is for travelling to Ottawa.

My flight is 1hr gate to gate, probably 40mins in the air. Roundtrip, $40.

The train varies between a 4 hr&24min trip and 4hr&48min trip, for an average of 4hrs&36mins. Cost of my time to take the train roundtrip is $184.

For the drive lets assume I drive the speed limit, the 444km trip would take just under 4.5hours. Round trip the total cost would be $190.

Summary: Flight $40, Train $184 or Drive $190.

From the table you can see that the cost of flying is by far the cheaper option. Even if I only valued my time at $10 it is still significantly cheaper to fly, driving is $30 more than flying and taking the train is more than $60 more. However, if I’d had to pay for the full price ticket (at $338) it would make flying the least viable option; I guess that reminds us all to collect and redeem those travel miles!

(Note: This was a quick, basic way to calculate my triple bottom line total cost of travel. I do not claim that it is the most accurate method to calculate the cost of traveling. This exercise was merely meant to demonstrate the ability to account not just for economic costs but also the environmental and equity (social) cost).

According to Commute Solutions: The True Cost of Driving it costs me $18.50 per day to drive to work!

Driving is not just the cost of gas and the amortization of your vehicle; do not forget to include insurance, license and registration, tires, maintenance, etc. And there are all the other things we so frequently forget to include, the costs to maintain the roadways, pollution, noise, etc.

Although I drive to work most days I have made changes to try and reduce my carbon footprint. I am fortunate and have some flexibility in my schedule, so I either work and earlier or later shift to avoid peak congestion. I also plan to start split commute; subway and biking, again at off peak times to bring my bike on the subway and to avoid as many cars as possible. If I get really adventurous I may even start running to or from work to try and bump up my running mileage!

The conference started out with David Miller’s last appearance of the Mayor of Toronto. He spoke about the initiatives Toronto was undertaking to reduce their carbon footprint, including the waste diversion programs and gas collection from landfill sites. He spoke passionately about being the leader of the C40 cities. Miller was honoured by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Donna Cansfield, and Stockwell Day, the Minister of the Asia-Pacific Gateway. Toronto can only hope that the succeeding mayor will be as passionate about sustainability (ha!).

Sustainable Electricity. Sustainable Transportation. Sustainable Cities. Building Sustainable Lives for all citizens

… Was the theme of the first day. Barry LePartner, somewhat of an alarmist, spoke about the failing infrastructure in the US. He predicts that the Minneapolis bridge disaster might just be the first of many. Dalton McGuinty lunch speech was about Ontario’s leadership in sustainable energy, with the FIT program and promotion of electric vehicles. His speech may have been more credible had he left the new Harry Potter movie out of his speech.

The second day was about the past/current (?) financial crisis, and was disappointing in comparison to the first day. Speakers skirted the main topics ‘Have we seen the bottom?’ and ‘What are the fundamentals for Sustained Growth?’. Perhaps these issues were avoided because commenting on them would be insulting both the Canadian and American Economic Advisers.

The highlight for me over the two days was an interview between Amanda Lang and Martin Wolf. Wolf spoke to the failing US economy and the reliance of the Canadian Economy on the US (given that 75% of Canadian exports go to the US). But it was not just the hard facts that he laid out, he also shared his views that the Developed Nations are naive to think they can continue on the path their on; the Developing and Emerging Countries will not only overtake the Developed Nations but they will surpass and leave them behind in their dust. He couldn’t repeat enough that we have to change the way we currently conduct business. He eluded to the fact that we value the ‘wrong’ things, we are too much of a commercial society that consumes meaningless goods. His candor and enthusiasm were welcomed by the crowd, especially in comparison to the high-level, reluctant speeches of his peers.

A more inclusive summary of the conference can be found here (shortly )

Recently friends of mine considered having their home designated as LEED certified. With local materials, recycled material, geothermal for heating and cooling and several other features under all the LEED categories this house would be sure to qualify for LEED certifications. They have applied and received all the government incentives for choosing environmentally friendly methods, balanced all the LCC and looked at the benefit-cost ratios and have decided not to apply to LEED Canada.

Why? LEED would become a marketing feature to their house. They are no incentives for being LEED certified. In the end it was just an extra $5000 to say that they were environmentally friendly.

I decided to do a quick Google search on why it is important to register your building with LEED. Here are some of the things that were returned.

• Buildings that are LEED certified almost always use resources more effectively when compared to traditional buildings that are built to code. Because of this, they are recognized as better for their surrounding environments.
• LEED certified buildings often provide healthier work and living environments, contributing to higher productivity and improved employee health and comfort.
• LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: (1. sustainable site development, 2. water efficiency, 3. energy efficiency, 4. materials selection and 5. indoor environmental quality)
• Encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria.
• Promotes integrated, whole-building design practices
• Building amenities include lush rooftop gardens, individual storage units, covered parking for bicycles, proximity to transit lines and direct access to car sharing.

This list could get quite lengthy. There are many benefits to having a LEED certified building.

My argument – if you’re willing to do all the environmentally friendly things to your house, do you really need the label of LEED? And what does that money that you pay for registration go towards?

In the end if we take the steps forward to think of the environment before we think of the bottom line, when we’re constructing, we are taking the right steps forward. LEED certification may only be a ‘label’ but it embodies what designers should be thinking when they start any new design.

According to the 2009 Quality of Life Index that includes 194 countries Canada ranks 19th. The ranking is based on weighted factors that includes cost of living, leisure and culture, the economy, the environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, risk & safety and climate. A full list of all the countries can be found here, including how they categories are weighted and calculated.

As for where we will be in 2010? It’s unknown right now but it will likely be falling even further behind. It’s no secret that Canada is starting to lag, we are becoming known as the country of polite polluters.

Canada the only country that agreed to the Kyoto Protocol backs away from the ratification

The Kyoto Protocol asked for all nations involved to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by a certain percentage below 1990 levels by 2012. Canada agreed to cut emissions by 6% below 1990 levels, formally ratified the Kyoto Accord at the end of 2002 and in 2006 the Canadian government announced it was abandoning the Kyoto targets. Even wore Canada is currently 26% above 1990 emission levels.

Why are we backing away from the Kyoto protocol? Why can’t we meet our environmental targets? According to George Monbiot it is because of all the potential economic benefits of exploiting the oil of the Alberta Tar Sands. But as Monbiot explains it’s not really oil and that’s why it might be so environmentally destructive. In his article The Urgent Threat to World Peace is … Canada, Manbiot sums up the tar sands …

“It’s actually a filthy mixture of bitumen, sand, heavy metals and toxic organic chemicals… To extract oil from this mess, it needs to be heated and washed. Three barrels of water are used to process one barrel of oil. The contaminated water is held in vast tailing ponds, some of which are so toxic that the tar companies employ people to scoop dead birds off the surface(10). Most are unlined. They leak organic poisons, arsenic and mercury into the rivers… Refining tar sands requires two to three times as much energy as refining crude oil. The companies exploiting them burn enough natural gas to heat six million homes”

Canada might become known as a corrupt petrostate. According to Environmental|Defence Canada has The Most Destructive Project on Earth, the Alberta Tar Sands. The open-pit mines needed to extract the tar sands will be the size of the UK; our pristine landscape will be destroyed and that not directly destroyed by the open-pit mines will be indirectly ruined by all the leaching chemicals.

Could Canada to be expelled from the Commonwealth?

Copenhagen, a place where the commonwealth leaders have congregated to find common ground for the future of the global environment. As Kyoto is about to expire the goal is to have a legally binding agreement in place. But Canada will only participate if meets our economic objectives.

Yesterday I wrote about the triple bottom line accounting principle, people, planet, profit. Harger is regressing, he’s moving away from people and planet and purely exploiting profit. As Europe invests in green infrastructure Canada is investing in ‘dirty’ infrastructure. Globally, Harper and our Federal government our tarnishing our Canadian image.

Worse still the leaders of the Commonwealth are growing frustrated. As they implement policies and laws to meet ambitious emissions goals, Canada is seriously lagging behind. Other leaders of the Commonwealth are commenting on the divide between Harper and the other leaders.

Harper is waiting, waiting until his big brother to south takes a stand and tables proposals. According to Harper we are too connected to the US to table any proposals.

Our environmental and economic future lie in the hands of Steven Harper. If he chooses to ignore the ambitious goals being tabled in Copenhagen and solely looks out for the oil interests in Canada, than Canada will lose much of it’s good-faith with global leaders. Worse if Harper permits the complete extraction of the Tar Sands, Canada will be labeled as one of the world’s worst polluters; we’ll be chastised by the rest of the world.

This was borne out of the idea that we need to do a better job at protecting our natural environments; simply exploiting them for economic gain was going to mean the earth’s eventual ruin. John Elkington coined the phrase in 1992 in his book Cannibals with Forks: the Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business.

We can weigh the economic profits against the environmental and societal costs and truly capture the costs and benefits of the things we do

Lately I have been doing a lot of research around triple bottom line accounting. I’ve noticed that recently we have done a much better job at capturing the environmental costs and benefits and incorporating this into the total cost of new projects.

What about the third pillar? The costs to society? What is there is a benefit to society?

While working on a paper this really struck a chord with me. I was looking at the life cycle cost of a lift at a snow resort when it consumes electricity from the conventional grid compared to when it consumes wind-generated energy. I had focused much of my analysis around the environmental benefits of using wind-generated electricity, the environmental costs of conventional energy and the economic cost to install a turbine and use conventional energy. But I hadn’t thought about the social cost of installing a wind turbine at a ski resort of the social benefits of a snow resort.

With limited time to complete my paper I had to concede and look at the societal costs qualitatively, while evaluating the economic and environmental costs qualitatively. But it really got me thinking about how we neglect these ‘societal’ costs sometimes. Moving forward my personal goal is to think more about the societal costs when I evaluate something, which I think overall we can all do a little more of.

After all to be truly sustainable there must be balance between all three.

Presentation #1: Analysis of the Low-Bid Award System in Public Sector Construction Procurement

The main thing that I took away from this presentation was that typically a project in the public sector has about a 25% final cost escalation after the bid. What this really means is that public sectors budget for ‘$x’ but really they need to budget for ‘$x+25%’ – that can get really costly for us taxpayers!

Other things highlighted in this presentation:

• Pre-qualified Vs Open Bids: Typically the public sector has Vendors of Record and only allow specific companies to bid on projects. In an open bid anyone can bid the job. The author noted regardless if the company was pre-qualified that all jobs saw a 25% cost escalation.
• What project are they bidding on?: The author suggested that companies will ‘low-ball’ their job price just to get the job knowing that they can charge for many extras. Other companies will bid the ‘whole’ job and build in contingencies. I wonder which overall in the end would be cheaper?

I thought the research as lacking, particularly in consistency of level of government; there is a big difference between municipal, provincial and federal jobs in terms or budgets, project size and complexity.

What should we do In the Future?

The author didn’t offer research ideas for the future I these should be incorporated:

• Analysis of government levels: i.e break it down to municipal, provincial and federal
• Project Scope: Some $100 million jobs are the easiest so break the projects down by complexity
• Project Cost: Even though those $100 million dollar jobs are easy how do they compare in over-runs with the bigger and smaller jobs?
• Schedule: one season vs multi-year – what are the impacts?

I questioned the author on pre-qualified bidders under completed designs and asked if an investigation was done on contracts where no ‘extras’ were permitted. This area had not been explored because most of the projects looked at were bid on at the 30% design stage (I see a flaw here). But looking at the other conferences I’ve been to this year I would think that a P3 is needed here, such that the risk is transferred both to the client (the constructor) and the owner (the public sector). Using P3’s BC has been able to minimize cost escalations and has built many impressive projects.

Presentation #2: Investigation of Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) Reinforcing Bars as Internal Reinforcement for Concrete Structures

GFRP might be the future in concrete construction, well at least for certain applications. Typically concrete is reinforced with steel; to be technical concrete is great in compression and terrible in tension so without any reinforcing material in it everything would come crashing down.

Why switch from steel to glass? When steel is produced it is not in its elemental state, that shiny steel wants to return to it’s rust covered natural state. As the rust penetrates the steel it looses its structural strength. Plus steel is highly reactive and with all the chemicals in our buildings and roads the steel is once again on the defence and can break down.

Enter glass. A material that does not react to the chemicals the same way steel does. It is actually stronger than steel and has been shown to withstand twice the applied force of steel.

Drawbacks to glass:

• No way to monitor its behaviour: Because glass does not react the same way as steel and because it is so new there are many testing mechanisms to test the glass
• No way to tell it will fail: Steel has both an elastic and plastic phase. As it approaches its maximum load it enters plastic deformation. Basically we can see when it is going to fail. Glass on the other hand is only elastic and fails once it reaches it’s ultimate load
• Not recyclable: the glass fibers are covered in resin. Separating the glass from the resin is almost impossible. And to add insult to injury using recycled glass initially significantly lowers the strength so only new glass is used in GFRP.

A bulk of the authors work was testing the GFRP at extremely cold temperature, -40C/-40F. The author noted that the GRFP had no strength deviations at these low temperatures and performed well – good news for Canada!

In the end I have to say that I did enjoy both presentations. I thought the second candidate did a far better job at answering questions and proposed where future research could go (the student it starting his PhD this fall in GFRP and is continuing to build upon his research). But what I really took away from this was that a master defence at the University of Toronto is more of a presentation; these candidates weren’t sweating it out at all!

The presenter Chris Kennedy spoke about how Ontario, namely the Golden-Horseshoe, should develop infrastructure over the next 10- to 20-year horizon. Along with his colleagues Bryan Karney, Eric Miller and Marianne Hatzopolous they wrote a paper for the working paper series, Ontario in the Creative Age.

Here is a summary of the interesting Facts of Kennedy’s presentation:

Energy and Moving People are the key to success for a city
But how do you do this? In order to mitigate the effects of a recession city building is key in a deep recession. Additional ‘clean’ energy is key to a green and prosperous future. We should always progress for greater connectivity of people and places.

The Economic Lenses to Look at Infrastructure

1. Construction Jobs: in an economic decline the private sector can no longer support a mass working force. Therefore the public sector must step in and support these skilled labourers and offer them jobs through additional projects.
2. Multiplier Effect: These workers that just had new jobs created in the public sector then spend their wages which in turn generates economic stimulus. As construction increases there is a demand on the materials side, another economic stimulus.
3. Increased Productivity: infrastructure increases the size of markets, which enables firms to increase productivity through economies of scale
4. Changes to Consumption: Instead of thinking about economic stimulus to grow the economy, Kennedy challenges that it is economic investment that is needed to grow the economy.
5. Quality of Place: Good places to live attract knowledgeable workers. This really has to do with Richard Florida‘s notion of the creative class, which he discusses in his book Who’s your City?

Other highlights
Long-Wave Theory (Kondratiev waves)
This was popularized by Schumpeter who coined creative destruction, which is ‘economies grow by destroying the previous eras to create a new ones.’

Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions
We MUST decrease these. Weather it be by the introduction of the electric car, mass high-speed, electric rail, etc… we must decrease our dependence on resources that create mass amounts of GHGs. Kennedy advocates a high-speed, electric rail system for the golden horseshoe (in the article he and his colleagues wrote it shows the number of people that drive in from the suburbs of Toronto). He also believes that radial cities are necessary for a reduction in GHG emisions. What Kennedy didn’t mention here is that there needs to be a media campaign to shift social attitudes.

It was a privilege to get to see this presentation. Donald Wallace, the director for OCEPP has a taken under a huge project to try to meld the technical (the engineers) with softer talents. Thus far Wallace has recruited a number of brilliant engineers to work in conjunction with him. I look forward to seeing more work come out of the OCEPP.

In moving to be more environmental WATERFRONToronto set up an online consultation tool. Here it lists the Study Goals and Design Principles, Alternative Concepts, Criteria Groups and Consultation Approach. I decided to spend sometime this morning going through the material and reading some of the comments.

The Triple Bottom Line Approach
For years we based our well-being and growth on the economic bottom line; a company, a project is viable if it is economically profitable. We have evolved since then; Triple Bottom Line (TBL) looks at the project, business from three perspectives, social, environmental and economic.

I decided I’d examine the Gardiner East project from the TBL perspective.

Study Goals and Design Principles
As stated on the website “The Gardiner Expressway EA and Urban Design Study has specific goals and related study principles that will be used to develop and evaluate the design alternatives.”

The goals are:
Goal 1: Revive the Waterfront;
Goal 2: Reunite the City with the Lake;
Goal 3: Redistribute Traffic and Rebalance Modes of Travel;
Goal 4: Restore the Waterfront Environment; and,
Goal 5: Reconcile Long Term Costs and Benefits.

Someone suggested that the 6th goal should be “Contributing to the long-term goal of shifting transportation flows from cars to transit, cycling, etc,” but I think that is captured already in goal 3.

From the TBL perspective I think these goals are unfairly waited towards the social benefits. The first three goals are aimed at satisfying the social aspects. Goal 4 does capture the environmental aspect and perhaps the strategies of shifting modes of travel of goal 3 will also contribute to the environmental aspect.

What I think is really ignored with these goals is the economic aspect. Downtown Toronto is an economic hub. I think there is need for an additional goal to address the economic aspect of this problem. I propose to add another goal (and in keeping with ‘R’ theme)

Goal 6: Retain the robust and diverse economic activity of Toronto

Alternative Concepts
Like any good policy the authors came up with alternative concepts for the Gardiner East.

• Do nothing
• Replace the Gardiner East with a different type of elevated expressway or tunnel
• Improve the existing elevated expressway, and create a better urban environment underneath the Gardiner
• Remove the elevated expressway and instead develop a street-level connection

Overall I think that the third alternative is the best solution since it can fairly address all the goals and design principles including the 6th one I proposed as well as addressing the TBL.

Criteria Groups
The criteria groups were broken down into four sections two social aspects, Urban Design and Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Environmental and Economic Aspects. The chart below summarizes what is on the website.

I think the criteria groups did a good job at capturing what was set out in the goals and alternative concepts. I do think that again that the existing local business infrastructure was missed, goal 6 that I proposed.

Under the Economic aspects I think the following should be added “Local Business: maintain and grow the operations of business and industry.”

Consultation Approach
The final criteria for evaluating and sharing information on this project is the consultation approach. WATERFRONToronto has considered and is employee the following.

• Stakeholder Workshops
• Public Forums
• Stakeholder Advisory Committee
• Web-based Consultations
• Face-to-face Meetings
• First Nations Consultations
• Input Management and Reporting
• Notice of Study Completion

With the last set of public information centers this past week look for more comments and updates on the project to be posted in the coming weeks.

Personally, I don’t think the Gardiner Expressway is an ‘eyesore.’ If it was revitalized and refurbished it could be a landmark piece of Toronto. Structures can be elegant and sophisticated and provide the necessary infrastructure to efficiently move commuters.

Here’s what he had to say:

“With respect to the field of buildings and energy-efficiency, the
federal budget was disappointing.
At a time when we face the twin problems of global warming and a future in
which energy supplies will wane
and prices will rise, Harper’s government gives money to household
renovations like new bathrooms
and kitchens.

To be strategically focused on sustaining our country, and ensuring
Canadians continue to have the
opportunity to heat their homes during the cold of winter, the government
should have put this money
toward Canadians who are renovating old homes, or building new homes more
responsibly. Taxpayers
shouldn’t be subsidizing the purchase of new carpets. We should be
building better homes now. Homes that
will be more affordable to operate, less burdensome on our environment -
homes that will make our
grandchildren proud.

The government had an excellent opportunity to accomplish forward-looking
goals with respect to houses in
Canada, and they missed this entirely. It is disappointing, that only one
week after President Obama
expressed his dedication to a planet that is threatened by our use of
energy, Prime Minister Harper failed
to deliver the same hope, the same passion and the same foresight.”

Professor Pressnail is available for comment. To arrange an interview
please contact:
K.D. Pressnail,
an Engineering Professor in Building Science and Civil
Engineering from the University of Toronto