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Town off target on reducing greenhouse gas emissions By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF 13 · Friday, January 15, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com It's not easy being green. Members of the Town of Oakville's Community Services Committee found this out first-hand Tuesday night, when they were presented with a staff report indicating that if something is not done soon the Town will fail to meet its targets for reducing corporate greenhouse gas emissions. In 2004, council approved Oakville's membership in the Partners for Climate Protection program, an initiative administered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to support municipal government commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the corporate and community level. Currently, 194 Canadian municipalities are involved with the program, while 700 communities around the world are involved in the global version. The program is based around five milestones, which include conducting an emissions inventory and forecast, setting a reductions target, developing a local action plan, implementing that plan and measuring the progress and reporting results. Following the emissions inventory and forecast, the Town set a `corporate operations greenhouse gas emissions target of 20 per cent below 2004 levels by 2014 and a community greenhouse gas emissions target of six per cent below 2004 levels by 2014.' At the Tuesday meeting, however, Town staff noted this target might be overly ambitious. "Currently, we will not meet this target. That's in four years and with the amount of growth we have endured and will continue to endure we will not meet this target," said Suzanne Austin, a research policy analyst with the Town of Oakville. "What we are recommending tonight is that this target be extended to 2020, which would then mean an annual reduction of 545 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year to reach that 20 per cent below 2004." Rather than declining in recent years, the Town's greenhouse gas emissions have increased. Austin said corporate greenhouse gas emissions have gone up by 33 per cent or by 3,896 tonnes of CO2 between between 2004 (when Oakville became involved in Partners for Climate Protection program) and 2008. Energy usage in the operation of municipal buildings was blamed for 71 per cent of this increase with the Town's vehicle fleet blamed for 17 per cent. The other 11 per cent was attributed to streetlight energy usage. Some of the increases associated with municipal buildings can be attributed to the Town's acquisition of new facilities like the Joshua's Creek Arena and the Queen Elizabeth Park facility. The alteration of the province's electricity coefficient was also stated as a significant factor. "We do have measures that we have been taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Austin. "Just a couple subtle highlights from the things we've done for buildings are the successful program implementation of the Verdiem Surveyor, a system that turns off your (inactive) computer and optimizes your computer's usage. We also did audits of our 11 largest facilities and implemented recommendations for retrofits to save energy and reduce greenhouse gases." Other energy saving measures included Oakville's participation in the Earth Hour initiative, the purchasing of a new energy efficient compressor at the Maple Grove Arena and a traffic signal replacement program that has seen the existing signals replaced with more energy efficient ones. Despite the emission reductions caused by these measures, Town staff note they are not enough to reach the 2014 target, with considerable work still necessary to even reach the proposed 2020 goal. Austin noted building all new Town facil- ities to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) specifications will result in the buildings using between 25 per cent to 50 per cent less energy thereby avoiding future emissions growth. Further green energy purchases and replacing all streetlights with LED technology were also pointed to as emissions reduc- tion measures. While the Community Services Committee voted to accept the report Austin had put together, they were unwilling to give up on the 2014 target directing staff to further investigate ways to meet this goal. The decision will come before council for final approval on Monday. HERITAGE Lifestyle Home Furnishings SINCE 1977 H Durh Au Fac ug am tho tor e Furn rize y Sa i d le Sa tur En vi e Sale ds Ja n n1 7 gs 4205 Fairview Street, Burlington 905-634-5298 ! ACTIVE LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY