As described previously on CivicScene, City Council’s green strategies require the construction of an infrastructure upon which to attract global business players to Vancouver. With regards to laying a foundation for the electric car to flourish in Vancouver, I noted:
“Creating an infrastructure for the electric car idea was panned by the development community and seen by many as a Council vote where intention would dwarf action. On the contrary, the policy directive has created waves across North America. One of my closest friends who has just left our fair country to move to Chicago is a sustainability-centred financial analyst who just happens to be working with one of the companies on the continent that is looking to broadly build that electric infrastructure.”
Expect to see these plugged in around Vancouver as of 2011.
Well, the simple vote that launched Vancouver down this path has already begun to attract business, as the Renault-Nissan Alliance has just signed a zero-emission partnership to make Vancouver the first major testing site for the Nissan LEAF, the company’s first all-electric, as of 2011.
Quite frankly, the greenest city aspirations of Mayor Gregor Robertson will only be as good as their ability to become a source of economic activity, making consistency in these kinds of successes extremely important over the coming years.
It will be interesting to see what kind of specific targets and benchmarks the upcoming economic development strategy from the VEDC lays out.
Regardless, this Nissan pilot program is a fantastic start towards greening our local economy.
