Government Operations Committee on Feb. 27th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

We do have a quorum, so I will call the meeting to order.

Welcome.

I believe Ms. Kenny is the lead person. If you'd introduce the people with you, we will give you about 10 minutes to make a presentation. We're a little flexible on that. We will have you here until about 5 o'clock, because our agenda has us deciding future business from 5 to 5:30.

So, please begin.

[Margaret Kenny, Director General , Office of Greening Government Operations, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Madam Chair, members of the committee, I'd like to thank you for inviting us here today. I would like to introduce you to a number of my colleagues who are here this afternoon to assist me in answering your questions. Let me introduce

Berny Latreille from Environment Canada; Elizabeth Hopkins from Public Works and Government Services Canada; Shirley Jen from Treasury Board Secretariat; and Anne Auger from Natural Resources Canada.

As the committee will recall, last week the Honourable Minister Fortier briefly presented some information concerning the greening of government operations, and certainly today we appreciate the opportunity to provide you with further details to support your study.

The federal government, as you're aware, is one of the biggest enterprises in Canada and, as such, leaves a significant environmental footprint or environmental impact. At the same time, as one of the largest buyers of goods and services and a substantial property owner and manager, the government is uniquely positioned to demonstrate leadership and, in fact, to strengthen markets for environmental goods and services.

To this end, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has long maintained that Canadians actually expect their government to manage their assets in a sustainable manner, and as the commissioner highlighted, it is important to have a federal lead undertaking such an initiative.

In 2005 the Office of Greening Government Operations was launched at Public Works and Government Services Canada to serve as this focal point and to work with other departments and agencies, particularly those you see around the table here today, to accelerate the greening of government operations.

Public Works and Government Services Canada, as the procurement arm and property manager for the Government of Canada, was deemed a good fit for this focal point for a couple of reasons. One, as a common service agency, it has the potential to leverage action and influence results across the government. Secondly, there is a core of expertise within the department dealing with operational environmental matters.

Because of the mandate and given the specialized nature and knowledge of the other departments represented around the table here today, they became key partners in this exercise. They obviously include Environment Canada, with its expertise on environmental impacts and aspects, which are really at the heart of the green procurement policy, and which I'll talk a little bit about later; Natural Resources Canada, with its expertise in energy, particularly concerning buildings and vehicles; and certainly Treasury Board Secretariat, with its control over many of the policies and directives that guide all departments.

For those of you who have the deck that was distributed earlier, you will see

this slide shows our operations in diagram form.

At the centre of the diagram, you will see there are associate deputy ministers from the three organizations who really provide direction to this initiative. The outer part of the circle represents the interdepartmental steering groups that are in place and who meet regularly to identify opportunities and issues. You'll see that once this is done, there's the possibility of developing policies or guidelines, etc. Then OGGO, the Office of Greening Government Operations, can also help develop tools and offer advice to assist government departments and agencies in their implementation efforts. Obviously as you go around the circle, one of the ultimate objectives is to measure progress and performance, to make changes, to improve and to start again, because there's always more room for improvement.

As the committee is aware, the Office of Greening Government Operations is a relatively new organization, and to date a significant portion of the effort we have put into this work has been directed towards laying a foundation for change, bringing departments together and developing policies, guidelines, tools, pilots, etc., that can integrate environmental considerations right into the way we do our business.

Probably one of the best examples of this is the policy on green procurement. In essence, the green procurement policy—which came into effect last April—aims to embed environmental performance considerations into the decision-making processes of all departments and agencies in the same way, so that when these decisions are made, price, quality, availability, and performance are all considered. So this is about making green procurement a matter of our day-to-day normal business, not only to improve government performance but obviously also to generate some market pull for these technologies and to stimulate a certain demand.

It's not an ad hoc approach. We're not trying to create a special basket of green goods or a list of green products that procurement officers can choose from. Rather, it's a very comprehensive policy that starts with the planning stage and moves right into acquisition, and then to use and, ultimately, to disposal. It really is a good example of how the greening of government operations initiative works, because here we have a Treasury Board-approved policy being managed by Public Works, with expertise and assistance provided by Environment Canada and Natural Resources, and implemented by all departments.

So as a facilitator, we've worked with our partners to develop tools and training. In fact, that training is a mandatory component of the certification of procurement officers in the federal government.

The OGGO, Treasury Board Secretariat, and Environment Canada have also worked to set direction by providing guidance to departments in relation to the sustainable development strategies recently tabled in the House in December. This guidance actually targeted vehicles, building energy, and green procurement as three targets on which federal departments could collectively make a concerted effort to make progress.

In addition, the Office of Greening Government Operations worked with others to produce PWGSC's sustainable development strategy. We were very conscious of having targets in place, so that when we implemented them in our own department, they would be there to help and facilitate the work of other departments in greening their operations.

In the area of green buildings, you may be aware that in 2005, the federal government did adopt the LEED, or leadership in energy and environmental design, gold standard for new office buildings and major renovations, etc. There have been quite a number of our buildings that we hope have made that particular standard at this time.

I am aware that Sustainable Development Technologies Canada will be appearing before this committee in the upcoming weeks and will provide additional information on the LEED.

In our sustainable development strategy in PWGSC we took the next step. So this LEED standard was for building buildings, renovations, etc. The next step we took was our commitment to adopt the Building Operators and Managers Association Go Green Plus process for improving how we operate and manage our buildings in a sustainable way. It's an industry-developed tool that we believe is going to provide us with good, consistent, reliable data that will help us more strategically manage those buildings and find cost-effective ways to improve our environmental performance.

So the object here is not to just improve the buildings we own and operate, but to also lay the foundation for other custodial departments to do the same. These commitments on buildings are being rolled into a comprehensive sustainable building strategy. It's not as far along as the green procurement policy, but it's the same idea. It's about putting systems in place to improve our environmental performance, and make thinking green a normal part of the way we do business.

I again thank the committee for the opportunity for us to be here today. We will be pleased to take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

Mr. Simard.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses today.

My first question is on the government fleet. When we're talking about energy efficiencies, that always seems to be one of the places we go to immediately. We've heard in the House over the last years how government has these huge vehicles and we leave them running all the time. Is there a policy in place to allow us to replace the less gas-efficient vehicles we have now with more efficient vehicles over the years? Has that been working in the past, or have you started that already?

[Margaret Kenny]

That's certainly an interest of ours as well. It is one of the three priorities in this round of sustainable development strategies. We've started with the executive fleet, and a recent Treasury Board policy limits the vehicles ministers and deputy ministers use to essentially three types: four-cylinder vehicles with certain performance characteristics, hybrids, and E85 vehicles. Since that policy came into place, my understanding is that we've gone from one-quarter of the vehicles meeting that standard to three-quarters of them meeting it now. The eight-cylinder cars are out of the fleet, and the next job is to deal with the rest of the fleet.

As a community, within one of those steering groups I mentioned we are taking that next step. We're looking at some of the best practices. The Department of the Environment did a very interesting study on their fleet in the last year. They found that if they could put in some extra funding up front for the next few years down the road, they would obtain some very significant savings in the operation and maintenance of the fleet. So we're trying to share those best practices.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Do you have an idea how many vehicles we have out there?

[Margaret Kenny]

We have about 27,000 vehicles in all, but about 13,000 are RCMP and DND vehicles.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

It does not include DND, does it?

[Shirley Jen, Senior Director, Real Property and Materiel Policy Division, Government Operations Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

There are roughly 27,000 commercial light-duty vehicles, and they include passenger cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks. Of the 27,000, roughly 85 are executive vehicles, and DND and RCMP vehicles make up about two-thirds of that 27,000, so it's a very large number.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

That makes sense.

On greening government procurement, there's a statement here that says it focuses on embedding sustainable development concerns into operations rather than developing a list of green products and services. Can you tell me what that means? In other words, when we put out an RFP, for instance, do we have specific green criteria? If we do, what percentage is based on that? Is it 10%, 20%, or 30%?

[Margaret Kenny]

Your question is certainly on the right track. When we are talking about embedding it into the process, that means we start with planning. If we were talking about something like electronic equipment, does everybody need a BlackBerry and a cell phone, for example? That's the first kind of planning decision you would make.

Then you get into the acquisitions part. At Public Works and Government Services Canada, there obviously is a process dealing with managing the commodities, such as developing some procurement tools like standing offers for all government departments to use. That is where the considerations for what kinds of environmental performance measures you could hope to achieve are considered. Obviously it's going to be different if we're talking about furniture or if we're talking about computers, for example.

It's always a little bit of an art to determine how far you can take it so that you still can have competition, because part of the value for money equation requires that there be competition in the market. For lack of a better example, there may be a requirement for 45% recycled material in chairs put in the standing offer this year, and maybe the next year it's going to be 55%. So it's something that constantly moves along, rather than just saying certain chairs are the normal chairs and then there are the green ones, and then individual procurement officers have to decide. In this way, anybody using that standing offer is going to get a product for which we've pushed the environmental considerations as far as we can.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

I think we all agree that this is good policy. It's probably one of the only times here that we'll all agree on something.

We all know Public Works is on board with this. They've developed the policy with Treasury Board, I guess. But getting it down to departments is another story, getting those people on board and getting them to support the initiative. First of all, how have you done that? Secondly, what is the follow-up process to make sure they're doing it?

[Margaret Kenny]

Part of the answer to that question lies in having standing offers for commodities that are mandatory and that people will use. Of course, those don't cover everything.

The policy on green procurement does make deputy ministers responsible for undertaking this work. We have also, as a community, developed tools, training, etc., to help the individual departments put this in place.

The guidance document that we've produced for the sustainable development strategies did identify that every department should identify at least three targets in their sustainable development strategy. They need to report on those through their departmental performance reports, their DPRs, on an annual basis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Ms. Thibault.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Kenny. Thank you also to your colleagues who have come to see us to talk to us about greening.

I'll continue along the same lines as my colleague. I can understand what Public Works is trying to do with your directorate, but whether you like it or not, this needs to become part of the culture. People need to be motivated. It needs to be a top priority, they need to share these values.

Let's talk about the impact on our departments, for example, as far as procurement is concerned. I like the example of these 308 members. On Parliament Hill, in addition to the senators and the highly effective public servants, officials, and employees of the House of Commons, there is an army of people who use equipment. Members, both here and in their ridings, have belongings and buy things. In our riding, we pay for them; here, they're provided for us, but that's another story.

How do you ensure that we share these values with you, and how will you make sure, if indeed we don't share them, that we are accountable?

Accountability is extremely important, in my opinion. We have a program and we'll have measures to implement it, but after that, how are we going to ensure that people comply? I don't really like the idea of the carrot and the stick, but at the end of the day, if people don't comply, it will be disclosed, people will be aware and it will be one of the reasons why the program will not be the success we expected it to be.

It has been my pleasure to be here for almost three years and in all this time I have never received anything telling me I need to think about the environment. I do think about the environment but I've never been asked to help in making the environment here on Parliament Hill as green as possible. I have a number of tools at my disposal, such as the blue recycling bins, and so on, but they have been around for a long time.

How do you measure this? In other words, after providing the tools that are needed how do you determine there has been a change in culture, that people are using these tools, and at the end of the day, how do you hold these people to account?

[Margaret Kenny]

I wish there was a very easy answer to that. Under this initiative we are not in fact in a position where we can force individuals, or even departments. When I talked about the sustainable development strategy, the Office of Greening Government Operations provided guidance. I must say there was excellent take-up of that guidance, but it was not being forced.

We do have policies like the green procurement policy. That's helpful in that deputy ministers are accountable. We have these mandatory offers where the environmental considerations are embedded right into them, so by default they're green.

We certainly endeavour, through these interdepartmental groups, to share best practices and try to move thinking along. There is that stimulation in the system to help move people forward. But it's not something my office enforces per se.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I want to talk about some of your greening government operations activities. Let's talk about reducing our use of energy. This is a particular case in which, of course, you need to be giving advice. Then, it's important for departments to ensure that—and let's take a very practical example; I'm a practical person—, that instead of using conventional light bulbs, twisted flame-shaped bulbs are used instead as it has been proved that they last for such and such a length of time. Now to begin with, you can perform a cost-benefit analysis as far as using energy is concerned. That's an example. You can also look at, for example, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other emissions.

But if you want to make progress in this area, you really have to have targets. You have to be able to measure progress. Now, in 2007, we are at a certain point and we hope, in 2012, that we'll have reached new levels of success within government.

How do you intend, as an organization, to determine to what extent I comply with what you are setting out and whether I am to whatever extent being influenced by you? Because, Ms. Kenny, I really do hope you'll have an influence. That's what we all hope. You need to be influential for departments to toe the line.

[Margaret Kenny]

When we talk about energy in particular, in fact there is a target that government departments have vis-à-vis their 1990 level of energy for buildings and vehicles. That's something we report to the public through the sustainable development strategies. So that's one target to work toward.

As well, I mentioned the LEED gold standard for new buildings. If we're hitting gold with that particular standard, most of the buildings would be at least 50% more energy efficient than if they were not meeting that target. We've seen a lot of progress in that area as well.

There's also a very important economic consideration when it comes to this. Maybe I could turn to my colleagues from Natural Resources on the federal buildings initiative, where there has been a lot of activity to upgrade buildings so energy is reduced.

Anne.

[Anne Auger, Director, Buildings Division, Office of Energy Efficiency, Department of Natural Resources]

In answer to your question, the Federal Buildings Initiative has existed since 1991 and uses energy performance contracts, eco-energy service contracts, in order to assist departments to undertake energy-efficient upgrades in their buildings without having to spend money. Companies such Amaresco, energy efficiency companies, come and do the upgrades and are paid out of the energy savings generated through the upgrades.

Since 1991, 7,500 buildings, or 88 projects, have been upgraded. Some projects are extensive and include several buildings. That has generated private sector investments of approximately $265 million and has generated savings of $38 million per year, because those savings are cumulative. That is one method. This program encourages departments and provides them with the necessary tools to act. It assists them in using energy performance contracts with these companies in order to help them carry out these energy efficiency upgrades.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I suppose I don't have much time left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

No. Thank you.

You can come back on the next round.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Mr. Kramp

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome all.

I have a couple of thoughts. Obviously the federal government has a critical mass, a very large size relative to other entities that might not be able to effectively change. Now, relative to other countries, relative to other jurisdictions, there are some nations that don't have a government with quite the dramatic size and scope that we do, and there are others that are very heavy in government administration. Rather than reinvent the wheel and just come up with and design and plan and execute many new environmentally friendly strategies and/or green strategies, we have a lot to learn from other nations.

What have you done to explore the positive results that other jurisdictions have been able to achieve? Have you been able to import any of those successes into the process you're involved with now?

[Margaret Kenny]

In fact, it goes beyond even looking to other countries. Even jurisdictions here in Canada have been very helpful in terms of sharing what they have learned.

If I start with green procurement, I would say that we did a lot of work in particular at looking at what other jurisdictions were doing, and certainly this idea of looking at the whole life cycle of the product was a characteristic across other jurisdictions that were successful. That's certainly one thing that we adopted.

We knew we had an extra advantage in that the Government of Canada was consolidating its commodity management processes. That helped us there. But we also have a committee that we co-chair, as the federal government, with all of the provinces, looking at what various jurisdictions have found in terms of the technologies that they're looking at in their buildings, the approaches they're taking.

You might have seen in some of our sustainable development strategy that we are looking for a sustainable building policy. Well, in fact, Manitoba is the jurisdiction that's come along as one of the fastest in developing that, and so that is something we have taken from a good idea that they had and we're taking it forward.