Government Operations Committee on Feb. 27th, 2007

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

You have been looking outward, though; you're not simply—

[Margaret Kenny]

Yes. We absolutely have to.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

That's reassuring.

We have a bit of a contradiction, potentially, but I'd like to know if it is a contradiction. We understand that obviously your department is committed to achieving savings both through its management of property and through its various varieties of procurement. But now, to carry on with these greening initiatives, is this going to be a direct outlay of cost and expense? Or do you see this potentially being offset with not only environmental gain but cost savings, by embracing a technology that could actually be of real advantage to the government?

[Margaret Kenny]

There are many examples, and we're coming across them more and more often, of where there is a good intersection point between what is the right thing to do for the environment and what is fiscally prudent to do.

An example we talk about sometimes—it's relatively easy for those of us who use a lot of paper to understand—is printers. You buy a printer that can print on both sides of the paper; it's a duplexing capability, and as long as you actually use that feature, the statistics suggest you could save about $700 per printer per year. Even though the printer might cost a little more, you multiply that out across the number of people who actually have printers in the federal government and you can see there can be a savings.

It's a matter of looking at the whole life cycle of the product to see where savings are possible.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

That's a very good idea.

Just to follow up on that, initiatives are wonderful, but I hope your department would demonstrate, not only to this committee but obviously to all facets of government, that you have a control mechanism in place to monitor all the progress you're making, complete with benchmarks so we can evaluate exactly what you were just saying. In other words, are we spending $1 and saving $2, are we spending $5 and saving $10, or are we spending $10 and costing $40? We need to have a steady evaluation of this in order to naturally assess the results of the greening progress and the success you have had, but also the success in dealing with the budgetary process that all of us naturally have to be accountable for, as well. We need the benchmarks, we need the control mechanism, we need the reporting--and we need that consistently to Parliament so as not to demand unrealistic expectations.

We have a responsibility for oversight, and we would appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Is that it? Okay.

We'll go to Ms. Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to our committee.

I would like to pick up on the 45,000 buildings that Canada has. I know you have talked about, in new construction or in massive renovations, greater energy efficiency. What is the plan for increasing the energy efficiency of all the buildings that Canada owns?

[Margaret Kenny]

The plans you will see laid out in sustainable development strategies give some indication of what we're trying to do. We have targets for energy. You will also see in the strategy plans for improving water efficiency and so on.

I understand that about one-third of the inventory has gone through the FBI program that Madame Auger spoke about. There's work going on to adjust that program so it can be very helpful for things like laboratories and so on.

The kind of work that is going on is with the LEED, as you had mentioned--us and, hopefully soon, other custodial departments doing those BOMA assessments so we can see what we can cost-effectively improve environmentally. And then with the federal building initiative, we take action.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Is there a plan, for example, to replace all the windows in buildings that are owned by the government, to put in energy-efficient windows.? Is that one of the things? What kinds of things are you doing?

[Margaret Kenny]

Shirley, did you want to respond to that?

[Shirley Jen]

One of the things that might be helpful, to speak to this point, is to talk about the various responsibilities of the custodial departments, because you're really talking about the whole of the government inventory in terms of its real property holdings. The Federal Real Property and Federal Immovables Act basically provides a minister with the authority to hold real property in order to support programs. The minister has a responsibility for administering that property.

As well, there's something at the Treasury Board called the real property management framework policy, which also vests with deputies of those departments the full authority and stewardship responsibilities for their particular suites of assets, which include real property and in some cases include other tangible assets, such as cars.

That's just to say that when it comes to questions about managing a particular portfolio of buildings in a particular department, that decision on whether to replace those windows, although it's certainly influenced by the types of initiatives that Margaret and her team have been undertaking in terms of the greening of government operations, is really a decision that is taken by the individual custodial department.

So in the case of Public Works, if it's a Public Works building, the decision would be taken by that department. Au contraire, if it was a Health Canada building—Health Canada owns many laboratories—it would be Health Canada that would be responsible for making that investment decision. There's a whole series of things that they would factor in to determine whether it was best value, the right priority, and the right stewardship decision for their department at that point in time.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Is it your responsibility, though, to say, in regard to a list of priorities that they should be looking at as a minister or deputy minister, here are the greatest energy-saving initiatives they could undertake? And in terms of procurement by volume, if they're going to be replacing windows or whatever they're doing, do you suggest they do that within a given period? Is that the kind of thing you're doing?

[Margaret Kenny]

The kind of thing we're doing is working within those interdepartmental groups that I spoke about to share best practices. If I look in my office, they've changed ballasts recently, and they've changed the bulbs. We're apparently using 65% less energy on lighting than we did in the past.

So we have a responsibility to be sharing that information with others, and that certainly is happening.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you.

When you look at what are the best procurement decisions, what are the most energy-efficient products, whether it's a machine or a desk or whatever, what do you factor into that? Is it the end use of the equipment, or the desk or whatever? Do you include shipping in that? Do you track the whole footprint of that item, or is it strictly the end use that is measured?

[Margaret Kenny]

Actually, it sometimes depends on the particular commodity that we're talking about, how much information we have and how far we can push it. If we look at a recent standing offer that's being developed right now for computers, for example, we can in that particular instance, knowing where the industry is, say that this will no doubt be the greenest computer standing offer we've ever had because we're going to be able to require, it would appear, an eco-label on it that in itself contains a lot of environmental considerations and a take-back for the hardware by the supplier/manufacturer.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

You mean recycling it end of use.

[Margaret Kenny]

That's right, and a requirement for a certain amount of recycled materials and more non-toxic materials being used. So it depends a little bit on the commodity and where the supplier community is to ensure we have competition.

[Berny Latreille, Director, Environmental Affairs, Department of the Environment]

I was just going to add that there are groups who meet to determine the criteria for these commodities as they will be hitting the marketplace. They will determine product by product what are the ideal specifications for those.

For instance, coming back to paper, which was an example Margaret used earlier, most of us think that in the world of paper the higher the recycle content the better, and that's what you need to consider. In fact, for paper, if it has chlorine, that's something you'd like to get rid of. And is the fibre from sustainably managed forests, and is there recycled content? This can be quite complicated, and those are considered product group by product group.

In some cases it's a mixture of a lot of things. In the case of printers, for instance, when they're considering the kinds of printers we should be buying, or the kinds of specifications we need to consider for printers, there are certainly some things we could do today to be buying printers that are slightly greener than what we have traditionally purchased. But the real leap forward is in how we manage what comes out of the printers--perhaps having more of the new multi-function devices that consume less energy and better manage your printing.

So there are things you can do in the short term in the commodity, but we're always thinking in the long term about what we can do over the life cycle of the use of that product.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

What is the cost of the program?

[Margaret Kenny]

It's hard to say that there's actually a single cost for the program.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I'm trying to separate that out from the benefit side.

[Margaret Kenny]

Only in that I have a small office doing this kind of work. But because it's integrated into the standard work of other departments, it's hard to separate that out. There's going to be--procurement again--that commodity management work going on whether or not they are considering environmental parameters in their decision-making. So it's very hard to tease it out that way, as having a specific cost.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

This is a program that's meant to make a difference, not just to make us feel good. I would assume, to approach it in a serious way, what we would want to see is some sort of prioritization list, with cost and benefit sides to it, to see what particular initiatives are going to lead to what sorts of savings in terms of tonnes of carbon emissions or any other measure. At this point, has that sort of work not even been looked at?

[Margaret Kenny]

We know that the air emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, are a priority, of course. When we look at government operations, we know that it's our buildings that are accounting for about 40% of these; vehicles are more of a leadership issue. So there has been a lot of effort going into improving the energy efficiency of our buildings. That's the kind of approach we've been taking.