City hall is successfully going green.
The city, which is a signatory to the provincial Climate Action Charter, was recognized recently for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.
For its efforts, the city was provided with ‘Green Communities’ branding for use on the city’s website and official letter heads.
Coun. Larry Samson said at Tuesday’s council meeting he was pleased with the city’s progress.
“I would like to congratulate staff and council for achieving this level of acknowledgment under the Green Communities,” Samson said. “It’s something to be proud of.”
The city was successful under the Green Communities’ measurement category which requires local governments to complete a corporate carbon inventory for the year and demonstrate they are familiar with the Community Energy and Emissions Inventory.
Julian Paine, assistant deputy minister of the local government division, and Gary MacIsaac, executive director of the Union of BC Municipalities, said the city was successful in measuring and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions at city hall.
“The work that your local government has undertaken to measure and reduce its corporate emissions demonstrates strong climate leadership and sets the stage for broader climate action in your community,” wrote Paine and MacIsaac. “This leadership and commitment is essential to ensuring the achievement of our collective climate action goals.”
Despite the city’s achievement with Green Communities, city operations did fall short of carbon neutrality by the end of 2012 – the target for communities signed onto the Climate Action Charter. The city signed on to the provincial climate charter in 2007 and in an effort to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2012 implemented a carbon neutral plan in 2011, which included emission reduction targets for 2012, 2020 and 2050. While the city did not become carbon neutral, the city did exceed its target for 2012, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 12.8 per cent over 2008 – 2.8 per cent better than its goal.