Again, thank you for the opportunity to be with you this morning. My name is Mike Morrice. I'm the executive director of Sustainability CoLab. I'm joined by Brent Gilmore, the executive director of Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow, or QUEST. He and I are here on behalf of the Low Carbon Partnership, which comprises The Natural Step Canada, Climate Smart Businesses, QUEST, and Sustainability CoLab.
Late last year, these four leading environmental organizations came together. Each of us was already on the ground with climate solutions across the country. We were encouraged by the promise of climate action by the federal government, which was demonstrated when the Government of Canada signed the Paris agreement and kick-started the Vancouver declaration here in B.C., back in March. We recognized the need for regulation in carbon pricing, but we also knew this wouldn't be enough to engage business in meeting our carbon commitments. With this in mind, we came together to form the Low Carbon Partnership. We are four organizations that together can help Canadian businesses drive clean growth, reduce carbon emissions, and foster a prosperous green and healthy future in communities across the country. Together we already work with over 1,000 businesses across the country worth a combined $100 billion in revenue, and we're combining our individual organization strength to help government meet its climate goals.
We've set for ourselves an ambitious goal, which is to connect more than 5,000 businesses with the support they need right across the country to innovate and deepen their own carbon reductions.
We know that we are better together. Sustainability CoLab and Climate Smart Businesses work with businesses directly by providing them with the tools and training they need to measure, manage, and reduce their carbon output. Working with end-users isn't enough if we don't rethink how we plan our communities. Having QUEST in our partnership ensures solutions that can fit our land use in community energy planning by getting local governments, utilities, and builders to work together to develop clean growth opportunities.
Going a step further, having The Natural Step Canada in the partnership allows us to consider new ways of thinking about how we do business by bringing their rigorous science-based approach to sustainability and a structured approach to fostering innovation that accelerates the system's change around energy, the circular economy, and natural capital.
As per our submission to this committee, we're proposing a $30-million investment to help scale up proven tools and programs, and make them more accessible to companies and communities across Canada. Collectively, we believe this model will not only reduce GHG emissions, but spawn new businesses, create new jobs, and contribute to building the resilient businesses and communities we need to transition to a low-carbon economy.
We've built up broad support. You can see some of those folks and the 52 endorsements from across the country to date. These are organizations we already work with every day from Suncor to Dalhousie to the Vancouver Port Authority.
We feel that with our unique strength we bring to the table we are ready with relationships, trust, and programs on the ground in communities across the country.
You're not hearing from just four organizations. We each represent a network of networks connecting to thousands of businesses across the country that are ready and keen to take action on climate. We are represented from coast to coast to coast.
I want to give you four quick examples of our existing work. Through Sustainability CoLab, just one of our eight target-based assembly programs with businesses for regional carbon initiatives in the Waterloo region engages 67 companies that are employing 14% of that workforce. In just four years, they've committed to reduce over 47,000 tonnes of carbon. They've already reduced 18,000 tonnes, and 90% of them are on track.
Programs in our network also operate in Ottawa and Pickering.
Climate Smart Businesses has their business energy and emissions profiles, BEEPS. These are dashboards that have already helped eight municipalities in B.C. alone understand where their emissions are coming from, because once you know that, then you can slice and dice, and be strategic about where to take further action.
QUEST's smart energy communities have already engaged in implementing community energy plans across Canada by removing the barriers for business and local governments to implement clean technologies and renewable projects, create jobs, and strengthen local economies. In just four pilots, in Calgary, Waterloo, and Campbell River, they're working to hit four megatonnes in GHG reductions.
The Natural Step, through their Energy Futures Lab in Alberta, has brought together unlikely bedfellows to foster new innovations, businesses, and technologies and to build the system conditions to help participants scale their already developed solutions to our energy challenges. Early examples you'll see on our slide include Iron & Earth, the oil sands workers who are retraining for the green economy, as well as the geothermal oil wells.
To recap and close, the Low Carbon Partnership will accelerate Canadian clean growth while reducing carbon emissions across the country. We've already been doing this for years as individual organizations in hundreds of communities and businesses across Canada, and we've come together to help the government deliver on its commitment.
In closing, we want to offer a few specific examples of how a federal investment could scale up these proven programs.
For example, we could launch new target-based sustainability programs for businesses in 10 communities across the country. We could launch 100 of these BEEPs, the business energy and emissions profiles, across Canada. We could establish 10 new smart energy communities. Also, we could advance the work of the Alberta-piloted Energy Futures Lab to spawn new sustainable business ventures for national markets. Beyond these individual opportunities, we can identify ways to more tightly integrate our programs and offerings so that any company, sector, or community can come to us for a custom combination of our programs.
We came together inspired by your leadership, and we stand before you today ready to bring our assets to help the Government of Canada follow through where we feel we can be of most service.
Thank you.