VANCOUVER—Mayor Gregor Robertson spoke at CreativeMornings/Vancouver on Friday, Dec. 7, not just as a politician pushing a platform, but as a creative. During his talk he touched on how social change is aided by thinking creatively.

Mayor of Vancouver since 2008, Robertson said his social awareness came into play at his previous role as an organic farmer and founder of Happy Planet, a successful organic prepackaged juice and soup company based in the city.


Robertson said when he and his business partner made more juice than needed to fill the company's orders, Happy Planet would deliver the excess to Vancouver's impoverished downtown eastside, giving it away to the homeless. This was at a time in the '90s when the government was cracking down on welfare and cutting services to the poor, leaving many on the street, said Robertson.

After meeting area residents through this initiative, Robertson began asking himself questions about how to bring about social change. Eventually he started "asking questions out loud," as he put it. Friends urged him to find the answers through involvement in politics. Robertson decided to give it a go, feeling that he could "embrace the creativity of politics rather than seeing the blocks," he said.

According to Robertson, "cities are where innovation is going to happen." He mentioned that as mayor he tries to encourage creative, forward-thinking projects, many of them centring around Vancouver's goal of becoming the greenest city by 2020. As an example, he described how the city has supported a project to turn plastic bottles into 'plasphalt,' a road surface that uses less energy to make than traditional asphalt and emits fewer VOCs, improving air quality for construction workers. The city won an international award earlier this year for urban innovation in environmental sustainability.

"Change is coming," Robertson said about the need for cities to move forward. "We'll be able to adapt to it through creativity."