Buildings, both commercial and residential, hold great potential for energy efficiency improvements. An R2000 home will save about 30% compared to a conventional house, while new green commercial buildings can be 30 – 50% more efficient than standard construction practices.
Almost all local governments can benefit from taking action on buildings efficiency, by:
The Community Energy Association delivers the Green Buildings BC (http://www.greenbuildingsbc.com/) which has extensive information, including sample RFPs and contracts and a How-To Guide, on performing comprehensive energy retrofits of buildings. For further information on the program, contact David Sims dsims@communityenergy.bc.ca 604-628-7076.
The Community Action on Energy Efficiency program, funded by the provincial Ministry of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources, has taken the lead on buildings energy efficiency for local governments. 29 participating local governments have signed on to the program, and are taking action in a variety of ways, including retrofitting their own buildings, developing policies for new civic buildings, holding workshops for developers, using efficiency checklists for permit applications, and even developing model bylaws requiring efficiency improvements in new buildings.
Establishing LEED standards for municipal buildings is becoming widespread. (http://www.cagbc.org/building_rating_systems/leed_rating_system.php). The GVRD has produced guidelines for municipalities seeking to construct and develop high performance and LEED buildings (http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/Buildsmart/pdfs/gvrdmunicipalleeddesignguide2006.pdf) The City of Kingston, Ontario, is estimated to save $100,000 annually as a result of building to LEED standards.
The Community Energy association can provide additional information on policies and actions that can be taken to promote energy efficient buildings throughout your community.
Municipal fleets can be optimized to reduce energy use, cost, and greenhouse gas emissions. In the 2007 Throne Speech, the Province of BC committed to all new fleet purchases being hybrid-electric vehicles.
One approach to fleet optimization that is gaining momentum with local governments is the E3 Fleet program delivered by the Fraser Basin Council. E3 Fleet helps on-road vehicle fleets reduce smog and greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Find out more at http://www.e3fleet.com.
A BC example from 2006, the City of Dawson Creek implemented a Green Municipal Vehicle Purchasing policy, with assistance on design of the policy from the Pembina Institute. Their policy can be found here: http://www.planningforpeople.ca/what_we_are_doing/energy_plan/phase_1/index.asp
The Environment and Plastics Industry Council have produced guidelines on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from residential solid waste: www.cpia.ca/files/files/files_Epicreport-2.pdf.
Signing on to the provincial water conservation guidelines can help save water AND energy. Through other infrastructure optimization such as sewer-heat recovery, additional savings are possible.
One example of energy savings from other infratructure results from replacing traffic lights and street lights with energy efficient lighting. The City of Vancouver saves $247,500 in energy costs, and $110,000 in maintenance costs, as a result of changing the bulbs in 670 traffic lights (http://www.bchydro.com/business/success/story4287.html)
Green procurement policies ensure that along with other priorities such as value for money, climate and energy concerns are not forgotten when the municipal government goes shopping. While some of these choices may involve higher upfront costs, they lead to lower running costs for municipal operations, through lower heating, fuel and electricity bills. A simple green procurement policy would use existing and widely recognised green certification frameworks. A generic tool for developing a green procurement policy is available here: http://www.cec.org/eco-sat/webform/home.aspx?CFID=17796040&CFTOKEN=36711000.
However, carbon offsetting is a relatively new phenomenon, and there are a range of competing quality assurance standards, such as the ‘Voluntary Gold Standard', and ISO 14064. The BC government is currently developing its own offset strategy. Meanwhile, we can help point you in the direction of some guides about current offsetting best practice.
http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/ConsumersGuidetoCarbonOffsets.pdf