Lawrence Grassi was a trailblazer. An immigrant from Italy he was a respected mountaineer and guide who built and maintained many of the original trails throughout the mountains around Canmore, Alberta.

Short of stature and eschewing alpine guide stereotypes for suspenders and hobnail boots Grassi was one of...

Ecologist Peter Marshall put it best:

"Waste itself is a human concept; everything in nature is eventually used."

Head to a forest and see if you can spot any waste. Fungi are breaking down the dead trees, the leaf litter on the forest floor retains moisture and protects the soil...

During the salmon run the T'Sou-ke First Nation set up their nets on one side of the river and the bears set up shop on the other. And it's not as acrimonious as you would think.

Respect the bear and the bear will respect you says Chief Gordon Planes. He's...

It wasn't very long ago that the whole idea of a net-zero home seemed exotic, futuristic and, oh yes, expensive. Well, they don't have to be.

By 2015, the Landmark Group of Builders says all of its new homes will be net-zero ready. Already...

With 17 micro-breweries the 750,000 people who call Vancouver Island home are well served by beer makers. But it's a different kind of Vancouver Island micro-brew that caught our attention, it's a plucky little biodiesel company at a farmer's market to selling between 150,000 to 200,000 litres a year.

As...

What are the two most common complaints from office workers?

It's too hot, and it's too cold.

Even funnier was that the two complaints were nearly dead-even.

These dichotomous complaints are symptoms of a wider problem. Not only do aging, poorly-designed office buildings do a terrible job at...

When it comes to saving money and growing the economy, energy efficiency isn't just low-hanging fruit, it's fruit lying on the ground.

As much as I would like to take credit for that quip, it comes from former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. And as long as we're using the...

Apple cores, pumpkins, Christmas trees and the crusts your mom cut off your sandwich 27 years ago. They all ended up at Cloverbar landfill in Edmonton and as that material breaks down it releases methane.

While the landfill isn't accepting new waste that methane (which we know from...

When you look through the University of British Columbia archives and see photos from the original district heating system being built you can spot Ford's Model T in the photos. Now the creaking, turn of the century steam pipes at the University of British Columbia are transforming into a modern,...

French fry oil, molasses, donuts and cow manure. No, it's not the grossest Tim Horton's ever, it's called biogas and Canadian farmers are starting to wrap their heads around this farm diversification idea.

Growing up in Alberta it's pretty hard to forget the smell of fresh manure being spread on...

When I first heard of "run-of-river" I had it way wrong, I imagined a thousand little micro-turbines in a mountain creek turning like pinwheels as the water flows by.

It's more of a kinder, gentler version of bigger hydro power projects -- none of the flooding of massive tracts of...

While some buildings feature stylish fountains out front, the Centre for Interactive Sustainability at UBC features a slick looking glass enclosed waste treatment centre.

The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability, or CIRS, building on the University of British Columbia campus is a building that nearly lives and breathes. This...

When you hear energy efficiency nerds talk about waste heat they're typically talking about the leftover, excess heat from industrial uses. Today we're literally talking about waste heat -- it turns out you can heat 250,000 square metres (with many more to come) with the water that ends up in...

As anybody who has seen astronaut Chris Hadfield's incredible images from space can attest, the single most prominent human-made features of cities like Toronto, Windsor or Edmonton are roads. As seen from space the new Anthony Henday ring road forms a dramatic...

Canada as clean energy superpower -- it's an alluring soundbite. One that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has used, but sadly Canada is more like a gifted but lazy student when it comes to using its powers for good.

Canada has half the population yet is just behind Germany...

Sewage, biosolids, wastewater, effluent, human waste and night soil -- these are all euphemisms for poo, the waste material we produce with near certain regularity. But instead of looking at it as a burden, as something to be disposed of, why not use it to grow a crop that can...

When the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland said, "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date," he could have been talking about humanity's transition to a sustainable energy future.

While the pace of our transition to a lower carbon world can be frustrating, we have learned in a...

Nothing makes you appreciate the power of the ocean more than coming within a whisker of getting tossed into it with a load of camera gear. We were on a zodiac on the Bay of Fundy conducting an interview with Matt Lumley, the communications coordinator for...

Church Point, a little-known dot on the map in rural southern Nova Scotia, isn't exactly a tourist hotspot. I mean it is incredibly beautiful, it's on the Evangeline trail and it is home to the tallest wooden church...

As you walk past two wind turbines, a rack of solar thermal modules and a large vertical hydrogen tank to get into Walmart's western Canadian perishable food distribution centre in Balzac Alberta you might think this little ode to sustainability might be over. But head inside and walk down the...