I was honoured to be one of the many judges for the first annual Green Toronto Awards, which recognizes community citizens and organizations for helping clean up the city. The tag line is: “The City of Toronto’s Environmental Awards of Excellence.”

It was an inspiring event, with mayor David Miller and deputy mayor Joe Pantalone hosting and guest speeches by Severn Cullis-Suzuki (David Suzuki’s sharp-minded daughter) and Bob McDonald, the lovable guy — both smart and funny — from CBC’s Quirks & Quarks. They both gave great presentations, even though Cullis-Suzuki demonized the media, as many environmentalists tend to do.

There were eight categories — leadership, community projects, green design, resource conversation, youth, environmental awareness, health and market transformation. See winners here. I was one of five judges for the market transformation category. (Note: the winner wasn’t one of my top picks, because I saw nothing transformative about a grassroots retail store that sells environmentally friendly stuff).

Despite the feel-good nature of the event, I can’t help but relate words like “environmental” and “green” to the 1970s, with images of tree-huggers and Greenpeace boats ramming whaling vessels. This blog obviously shows my bias, but I’m much more drawn to words like “clean” or “renewable” or “sustainable,” perhaps because they’re perceived as more inclusive and less anti-business. They’re less them against us. (This is not to say the awards were anti-business. Enwave Energy Corp., for example, won the Conservation Award for its Deep Lake Cooling Project).

But why not call it the Clean Toronto Awards? It would be a worthwhile exercise to recognize the many companies in the city developing new technologies that help businesses and individuals waste and pollute less, without sacrifing convenience or profit. These aren’t green companies, or environmental companies per se. Their motive, first and foremost, is profit. But this doesn’t mean that what they have developed and are trying to sell is no less important to the cause. I would argue that these companies are in a position to make the greatest impact. I would argue they are.

I guess I’ve got a bone to pick with Mayor Miller. Vancouver is bulleting past us as the cleantech capital of Canada, even though Toronto is a strong contender with tremendous potential. Unfortunately, the city seems to have no desire to nurture a cleantech cluster, to bring these companies under a common banner and to market them to the rest of Canada and the world. Vancouver has been whipping us, and being a loyal Torontonian myself, it’s a frustrating thing to stand by and watch.

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