Guide: 2018 Sustainable Communities Awards project guide: Brownfields
The City of Port Coquitlam, BC, won a 2018 Sustainable Communities Award for the innovative, natural strategies they applied to revitalize a brownfield site. This guide is based on their experience and explains how to develop a high-quality sustainability project. It’s designed for municipal staff and decision makers, and contains award-winning strategies and questions to help your community get started on your own initiative. Discover best practices that can help your municipality:
- Mitigate health and environmental risks
- Use natural revitalization techniques
- Save money by using on-site remediation strategies
- Engage the community and build consensus
- Increase property values and encourage development
Want to learn more about this award-winning project? Read the case study
Related Resources
See AllWebinar recording: Making sustainable land use decisions in your municipality
Watch our webinar to explore tools for sustainable land use decision-making. Learn to assess financial and climate impacts and apply practical strategies for your municipality.
Toolkit: Making sustainable land use decisions in your municipality
Solutions for Canadian communities to achieve significant GHG emissions reductions in buildings and meet long-term sustainability objectives.
Webinar recording: How to get a project started, tips for small francophone communities
If you’re a small francophone municipality looking to develop sustainability projects and access funding, watch this webinar to learn how others overcame common challenges.
Learning Journey: Brownfields Redevelopment in your community
Find out how to rehabilitate and redevelop brownfields
Webinar recording: Benefits of integrated intensification for sustainable community development
This webinar teaches participants how land use decisions are tied to the fiscal health of a municipality and its ability to achieve climate targets.
Video: new purpose for a 20-year-old brownfield site
Tara Tran, Senior planner, shares tips on how to sustain your efforts and progress in brownfield (or others) projects.
Webinar recording: Take your project from study to capital
Watch this webinar recording and discover how others have successfully converted studies into a capital project that provides social, economic and environmental benefits.
Webinar recording: The 5 keys to a green municipal project business case
Watch this webinar recording and discover the five critical focus areas you need to address to get your project started, from financing and partnerships to integrating a triple-bottom-line approach.
Brownfield Roadmaps
GMF's Brownfield Roadmaps provide a detailed overview of the process of bringing contaminated or abandoned sites back into productive use in your province or territory.
Webinar recordings: Best practices in municipal sustainability
How are cities and communities of all sizes tackling their environmental challenges? Find out from our five-part webinar series on innovations and opportunities in municipal energy, waste, water, transportation and land use initiatives.
Report: Sustainable land use practices in Canadian municipalities
A snapshot of emerging trends, key issues and best practices in sustainable land use.
Guide: LiBRe best practices framework
The LiBRe program is structured around a best practices framework for becoming a municipal leader in brownfield renewal.
Guide: Getting started on your brownfield sites
Discover how to raise awareness and secure a formal commitment to support brownfield redevelopment in your municipality. Read the guide.
Guide: Developing a municipal brownfield inventory
Free guidebook. 10 steps to creating your brownfield inventory. Libre Guidebook series.
Webinar recording: How to prepare a GMF capital project application
Need advice for preparing your GMF capital project funding application? Watch our webinar recording to hear tips from our staff and find out what reviewers are looking for.
Guide: Evaluate and improve your municipal brownfield programs
See how two communities benefit from evaluating their brownfield programs and find tips you can use in your municipality to enhance your offering.
Tool: Benefits of Sustainable Brownfield Activities
Cleaning up contaminants and redeveloping a brownfield site can bring communities a number of environmental, economic and social benefits. You can achieve even greater benefits by incorporating sustainable approaches throughout the site remediation and risk management activities.
Tool: Sustainable Remediation and Risk Management Options
Any technique that remediates or manages the risk of contamination at a site has an environmental benefit as it eliminates or reduces exposure to contaminants. Some techniques, however, are more sustainable than others.
Brownfield Roadmap: Ontario
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the process, learn about the legislative framework and find funding for redeveloping brownfields in Ontario.
Brownfield Roadmap: Newfoundland and Labrador
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the processes, legislative framework and funding for redeveloping brownfields in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Brownfield Roadmap: Manitoba
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the process, learn about the legislative framework and find funding for redeveloping brownfields in Manitoba.
Brownfield Roadmap: British Columbia
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the process, learn about the legislative framework and find funding for redeveloping brownfields in BC.
Brownfield Roadmap: Nunavut
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the process, learn about the legislative framework and find funding for redeveloping brownfields in Nunavut.
Brownfield Roadmap: Alberta
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the process, learn about the legislative framework and find funding for redeveloping brownfields in Alberta.
Brownfield Roadmap: Nova Scotia
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the processes, legislative framework and funding for redeveloping brownfields in Nova Scotia.
Brownfield Roadmap: Prince Edward Island
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the processes, legislative framework and funding for redeveloping brownfields in Prince Edward Island.
Tool: Finding Remediation Service Providers
Get a sense of the services required at different project stages and find providers using various directories.
Tool: Sustainable Site Assessments
You can use various techniques to find out whether a suspected brownfield site contains contaminated soil or groundwater.
Phase II Environmental Site Assessment and Remedial Action Plan, Cooper Site
As part of a plan to build a University of Waterloo satellite campus next to its downtown core, the City of Stratford completed a Phase II Environmental Site Assessment and Remedial Action Plan for the Cooper Site, a 7-hectare former industrial site.
Case study: Ladysmith Waterfront Brownfield Study
The Town of Ladysmith commissioned three studies of contamination at a former industrial site on its waterfront, to review options for remediation.
Brownfield Roadmap: Northwest Territories
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the process, learn about the legislative framework and find funding for redeveloping brownfields in Northwest Territories.
Brownfield Roadmap: Quebec
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the process, learn about the legislative framework and find funding for redeveloping brownfields in Quebec.
Tool: Sustainable remediation
Almost every Canadian municipality is home to a brownfield site.
Webinar recording: How to build partnerships to help revitalize your brownfields
Waterfronts were once bustling engines of a past industrial economy; some now sit vacant — void of the productivity that once supported their communities.
Six sustainability ideas that have gone mainstream in Canada: Article series
In a series of six articles, we explore inspiring projects and sustainability solutions being implemented in cities and towns of all sizes across Canada.
Webinar recording: Fostering brownfield redevelopment
Learn best practices in brownfield revitalization you can apply in your municipality, and understand FCM's brownfield funding opportunities and resources.
Tool: Evaluation tools for sustainable remediation and risk management
Browse through a range of tools to help you evaluate your options and compare potential benefits.
Brownfield Roadmap: New Brunswick
Use this easy-to-follow path to navigate the processes, legislative framework and funding for redeveloping brownfields in New Brunswick.
Report: Leadership in Brownfield Renewal Program Annual Review
Discover brownfield redevelopment initiatives and advancements in Canadian municipalities made during the Leadership in Brownfield Renewal program's inaugural year.
Webinar recording: Ideas to move brownfield projects forward
Join this webinar to get practical ideas for working with partners and community groups to bring abandoned properties back into productive use.
Guide: Sustainable Neighbourhood Development
This guide, Sustainable Neighbourhood Development: Practical Solutions to Common Challenges, is designed to help you re-imagine your municipality's approach to planning, development and regulation.
Guide: Promoting brownfield programs and opportunities in Canada
Read this step-by-step guide to marketing brownfield redevelopment opportunities to local developers and property owners.
Webinar recording: Introduction to the brownfield redevelopment process
Watch this webinar recording for an introduction to the process of developing a brownfield site in your community, from the environmental assessment to site remediation.
Guide: Tendering a municipal brownfield project
Conducting an efficient tendering process is a key step in managing a successful brownfield redevelopment project.
Related Funding
See AllPilot: Net-Zero Transformation
Available funding: Evaluate innovative GHG reduction solutions in real-world conditions.
See Funding OpportunityCapital project: Net-Zero Transformation
Available funding: Deploy a full scale best-in-class GHG reduction solution.
See Funding OpportunityStudy: Net-Zero Transformation
Available funding: Assess new approaches and solutions to bring your community closer to net-zero.
See Funding OpportunityPlan: Net-Zero Transformation
Available funding: Conduct integrated planning exercises to support the municipal transition to net zero.
See Funding Opportunity