Reducing federal greenhouse gas emissions: Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs—February 27, 2020
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Commitment on reducing federal greenhouse gas emissions
In line with the Minister of Public Services and Procurement mandate, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) is committed to fighting climate change by greening its own operations through practices that support the Government of Canada’s economic policy goals, including green procurement.
Key messages on reducing federal greenhouse gas emissions
The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, established by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), set a target of a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions stemming from federal government operations by 2030. The Greening Government Strategy sets an aspirational target of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from federal government operations by 2050.
To take a position of leadership and to create a culture of change in the real property community, PSPC gave itself a more ambitious target than the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and committed to achieving a carbon-neutral portfolio for its Crown-owned assets by 2050, with an aspirational target of 2030:
- we will accomplish this by improving energy performance of assets, switching to renewable, cleaner energy sources, and using energy purchase agreements
Current status on reducing federal greenhouse gas emissions
As of fiscal year 2018 to 2019, the department has reduced its operational emissions by 54%, surpassing the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy 2030 target. Due to the initiatives described below, the department is also on its way to achieving its goal of a carbon-neutral portfolio for its Crown-owned assets.
Background on reducing federal greenhouse gas emissions
The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy presents the Government of Canada's sustainable development goals and targets, as required by the Federal Sustainable Development Act.
In keeping with the objectives of the act, the department supports reaching goals laid out in the strategy through the activities described in its Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy.
The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy set a target of a 40% reduction (compared to 2005 levels) in greenhouse gas emissions from federal government operations by 2030. In 2018, Treasury Board Secretariat developed the Greening Government Strategy and set an additional greening target. Specifically, the Greening Government Strategy sets an aspirational target of an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from federal government operations by 2050.
PSPC gave itself a more ambitious target and committed to achieving a carbon neutral portfolio for its Crown-owned assets by 2050, with an aspirational target of 2030. To achieve its goal of a carbon-neutral portfolio, the department prepared a national carbon neutral portfolio plan in March 2017 and an associated asset level implementation tool in 2019. The plan prioritizes:
- improving energy performance of assets
- switching to renewable / cleaner energy sources
- the use of energy purchase agreements (as a last resort)
The implementation tool allows the department to be more strategic in achieving a carbon neutral portfolio. It provides the department with environmental benefit realization information for all projects within the portfolio that affect energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The implementation tool also provides life cycle costing financial information. Because of this, the department now has the capability to prioritize greening investments based on financial and environmental rating criteria. When used in conjunction with the National Office Portfolio Strategy, greening investment decision making is more strategic and allows the department to concentrate our resources (people and funding) where best value is available.
The department can achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions of 90% solely by investing in its assets, without resorting to the procurement of renewable energy through power purchase agreements. The remaining 10% greenhouse gas emissions will be achieved via procurement tools; for example renewable energy certificates and the development of power purchase agreements for clean, renewable energy.
Under this plan, the department recently launched a roadmap to low carbon federal operations in the National Capital Area with participation from over a dozen other federal government departments that have custodian responsibilities for real property. The roadmap will identify short, medium and long-term actions that will reduce the carbon impact of federal operations and provide leadership in decarbonizing the National Capital Area in ways that can be replicated across Canada.
The department also developed a greenhouse gas emissions options analysis that is applied to all projects that affect energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The greenhouse gas emissions options analysis facilitates the incorporation of greenhouse gas emission reduction into investment decisions at the project level. The 25 St. Clair recapitalization project in Toronto was the first large-scale project to use the project greenhouse gas options analysis methodology. It is expected that recapitalization will reduce the building’s greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80%.
Other key elements of the department’s carbon neutral portfolio plan include leveraging smart building technology and the Energy Services Acquisition Program. The program will modernize the current network of heating and cooling plants and the associated distribution piping to increase energy efficiency (described in more detail in a separate section).
Questions and answers on reducing federal greenhouse gas emissions
In this section
Question 1
How much will green projects cost taxpayers or how it will affect them?
Answer 1
By considering greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts early-on in the project, we are able to make building improvements at no—or very little—extra cost when considering the life cycle cost over 25 years. Upfront investment reduces operation, maintenance and utility costs.
Question 2
What is PSPC doing to meet the government’s target of GHG reductions?
Answer 2
PSPC efforts have already yielded results. To date, PSPC has exceeded the 2016 to 2019 Federal Sustainable Development Strategy reduction target of 40%, having achieved and reported a 54% reduction in GHG emissions in 2019.
PSPC will lead by example through initiatives such as:
- converting existing lighting to more energy efficient light emitting diode (LED) technology which will reduce GHG emissions by 6% once completed across our portfolio
- the use of smart buildings in 103 Crown-owned assets. This technology is anticipated to reduce PSPC’s portfolio GHG emissions by another 6%
- targeting our largest GHG emitting assets for deep retrofit studies to investigate the energy efficiency measures that will lead to the greatest amount of reductions in GHG emissions (also referred to as carbon neutral studies)
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