Canada-Coquitlam: Building sustainable modes of transportation

Background

Project Greenlight’s open call process solicits innovative ideas that address complex challenges facing public and private enterprises (“members”). Whether your submission involves an emerging technology you are bringing to market, or a commercially available solution used in an adjacent industry, it must be unique, scalable, and align with the City of Coquitlam’s strategic priorities.

Coquitlam, like many nature-rich communities in the region, is projected to see an increase in exposure to climate risk events, including storms, floods, droughts, and heat waves. To mitigate these risks, Coquitlam has begun implementing the Climate Adaptation Strategic Plan and is developing a new Climate Action Plan throughout 2022 to support the goals in the Environmental Sustainability Plan (ESP). The ESP is a forward-looking plan that guides future decisions and supports the long-term environmental resiliency and sustainability of the community, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 45% by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

The City of Coquitlam is therefore seeking innovative and original ideas to reduce energy and emissions in its operations and increase the resilience of its city services, while addressing its ESP goals related to climate action, the built environment, and water management. Key goals identified in the plan include reducing GHG emissions, encouraging sustainable modes of transportation, enabling sustainable development and building design, and improving stormwater management.

The City of Coquitlam has identified the following key focus areas that can benefit from technology innovation:

Climate action, including but not limited to solutions that:

• Electrify and/or reduce emissions in the City’s vehicles and fleets.
• Build smarter and greener transportation infrastructure, including solutions that support active transportation (e.g. smart/responsive pathway lighting for parks, e-bike charging stations, EV charging in facilities, curbside management solutions).
• Electrify and/or reduce energy and emissions in City-owned and operated buildings and facilities (e.g. advanced or unique heat pumps, novel heat recovery technologies, new envelope technologies).

Built environment and green infrastructure, including but not limited to solutions that:

• Monitor and manage rainwater runoff on impervious surfaces (e.g. green walls, smart blue-green roofs).
• Create smarter civic facilities (e.g. machine learning, AI, smart sprinklers).
• Understand who, when, why, and how frequently users are accessing parks (e.g. playgrounds, courts, sports amenities) and other park amenities and natural areas. The purpose is to inform current and future park planning and design, improve equitable access, and inform operational needs.
• Understand the location and value of green infrastructure in the City. The purpose is to identify existing green infrastructure to inform decision making on land use planning including parks and opens spaces.

Water management, including but not limited to solutions that:

• Manage stormwater that provides flood protection while protecting ecological health under current and future climate conditions.
• Monitor and manage sewer inflow and infiltration, and reduce the impacts of sanitary sewer overflows.
• Monitor and maintain healthy waterways.

Desired Outcomes

Successful solutions will be functional, reliable, and scalable, and directly align with one or more of the stated key focus areas.

Proposals should directly relate to addressing goals of the Environmental Sustainability Plan and align with the Coquitlam Technology Strategy. Where relevant, they should also align with, and help advance, the Climate Adaptation Strategic Plan, and the Integrated Watershed Management Plans. Proponents will need to demonstrate measurable outcomes in achieving these plans and strategies.

The city is seeking proponents that will become our solution partners, with the clarity of vision, passion, and excitement about collaboration and our shared sustainable future. We aim to support our local innovators and are determined to make sure that this collaboration is valuable for you, while we progress sustainable technology ecosystem development together.

Benefits

Engaging the City of Coquitlam could lead to one of the following scenarios, as per the City’s procurement policy:

• A proponent demonstrating its solution
• The City issuing a call for market responses to the goods and services being offered
• The City pursuing the proposal
• The City choosing not to pursue the proposal
• Another mutually agreed option

Published on 26 May, 2023.