Burlington eyes zero carbon footprint - going green

NRU
March 7, 2018
By Maryam Mirza

With aspirations to achieve a zero carbon footprint by 2040, The City of Burlington has identified opportunities to reach its goal through multistakeholder collaboration, demonstration projects and intensification-focused urban development.

Burlington Mayor Rick Goldring told NRU that he recognizes that achieving carbon neutrality, which assumes no net increase in emissions from cars and other sources, is an "aspirational goal." But he is optimistic about the potential to make progress on several fronts, including through compact built form and other measures in a new official plan to be debated by council in April.

In the meantime, he says, the city hopes to test new approaches to emission reductions through its involvement with a net-zero building currently under construction at The Centre for Climate Change Management at Mohawk College.

The new building, which will showcase low-carbon construction methods that produce no greenhouse gases, is a pilot project backed by Burlington and the City of Hamilton.

"The work that Mohawk College is doing with the particular building – the region's first net-zero building - which we can learn a lot from. We can share this with other communities," Goldring said.

Along with projectspecific efforts to address climate change, the mayor says that sustainable planning practices such as in-fill and intensification will also contribute over time to a smaller carbon footprint.

"The fact is that in Burlington we don't have any more room to grow out, we're growing up," Goldring said. He explained that the new official plan contains various proposals, such as sustainable building guidelines, compact built form and transit, to assist in lowering greenhouse gas emissions over time.

After Burlington approves a new official plan, it would be sent to Halton Region for final adoption.

Environmental Defence Fund senior manager of livable communities Susan Lloyd Swail told NRU that Burlington is ahead of other municipalities in its embrace of climate change policies.

Given that all municipalities are required to update official plans to promote climate change policies, Swail urged them to promote construction of energy-efficient buildings, adopt compulsory green building standards, expand public transit options and invest in community energy and storm water management projects.

"Transportation and buildings are two of the largest sources of greenhouse gases in Ontario, so cities have a key roles in those two sectors so they can really lead the charge in tackling climate change," Swail said.

She acknowledged there are challenges to convincing car-dependent residents to switch to public transit. For its part, her organization is working at the grass roots to educate citizen groups on the contribution of transit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"If the municipality is making investments in helping people commute quicker and through transit – they'll take it," Swail said, urging transit authorities and citizen groups to lobby municipalities to invest in relevant infrastructure.

The city's new official plan outlines specific policies that aim to improve air quality and energy efficiency through revised land use and transportation policies.

Goldring told NRU that "areas [in the city] are going to be mixed use, compact, walkable and transitsupportive." He added that 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in Burlington are typically produced by the transportation sector. "This can have a significant impact in our community.

In an email to NRU, Burlington senior sustainability coordinator Lynn Robichaud emphasized the value of multistakeholder collaboration on a community energy plan that includes efforts to develop local sustainable energy generation.

"This is not just about City Hall," Robichaud stated in her email. "This is about working with our community partners and stakeholders through the implementation of the community energy plan."

One of its significant projects, she said, is an investigation of the technical feasibility of a district energy system in Burlington, with thermal energy potentially piped to buildings from a central energy plant.

Goldring says that a multi-pronged strategy is essential to achieving success on greenhouse gas emission reductions.

"You have to focus on a number of components and our community energy plan does that – it focuses on behavior change, energy efficiency, energy generation, security, land use and growth and transportation."

Along with municipal level initiatives, local residents have a role to play through the\ choices they make on where to live and how to commute to work, Robichaud stated.

"How they [residents] go about their daily lives or business, how they commute, how they are heating and cooling their homes, and businesses" she said, are contributing factors in a reduced carbon footprint.

Changing public behaviour, she stressed, is key to achieving carbon neutrality. "So how do we engage the community to think about lifecycle costs of their purchases? Something may be cheaper up front, like a gas or diesel vehicle, but the ongoing maintenance or operational costs may be higher," she said.