Evidence of meeting #79 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was buildings.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC
That's broader. Thank you very much.
Were the retrofits targeted within your initiative to government-owned buildings, or was there a combination of changes to lease?
Acting Director, Corporate Sustainability, Ministry of Citizens' Services and Open Government, Shared Services BC, Government of British Columbia
For core government, we primarily focus on owned facilities, although, as I've mentioned, when leases are renewed and when there is an opportunity to apply a retrofit to increase the efficiency of building systems, that's when we would do it. That cost could either be split or it would be absorbed by us, by the province, so long as it falls within that five-year repayment schedule.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC
In regard to the retrofits themselves, was this financed through taxpayer dollars? Was there any appeal to the private sector for funding?
Acting Director, Corporate Sustainability, Ministry of Citizens' Services and Open Government, Shared Services BC, Government of British Columbia
In B.C. we get our funding from Treasury Board, so it's public sector funding. The business case for all the energy efficiency initiatives is based on the return on investment. In other words, the initial capital cost must be repaid by cost avoidance, operational cost reduction within a threshold period of time. In these facilities it would be five years or less.
Conservative
Acting Director, Corporate Sustainability, Ministry of Citizens' Services and Open Government, Shared Services BC, Government of British Columbia
That's for the broader public sector under an agreement we have with the utilities. Perhaps Rob could speak a little bit more about that.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC
We'll leave the utilities out just for the meantime. I'm sure someone else will pick up on those, and if we have time I can go back to them.
In regard to the $75 million, that was done over three years. Did you get all the buildings done that you thought you could?
Executive Director, Ministry of Environment, Climate Action Secretariat, Carbon Neutral Government and Climate Action Outreach, Government of British Columbia
We did. If we had had more money, we would likely have wanted to do more buildings.
But we're also doing a fairly deep dive in terms of evaluating: did we not only get the number of buildings done that we wanted to do, but did we actually achieve what we set out to do in terms of emission reductions, improvements in energy efficiency, and so on?
For virtually all of these projects there was an estimated reduction and an estimated cost return, etc., and we're in the process of evaluating that now.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC
In my understanding, then, you have a program, and you can't say that it has been successful, but in your opinion there has been some real progress over the past three years. Now you are quantifying those results so you can take that forward. Is that correct?
Executive Director, Ministry of Environment, Climate Action Secretariat, Carbon Neutral Government and Climate Action Outreach, Government of British Columbia
That's absolutely right.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC
The reason I mention this is that our Treasury Board Secretariat authorized a similar program in 1991, and it's been running since then. By 2010 the program had facilitated over 85 retrofit projects.
The one key part I would just focus on—because I believe these kinds of forums, Mr. Chair, are really meant to share information—is that we've seen over $320 million in private sector financing for these. On an average of each project, we've seen a reduction of energy costs of 15% to 20%. Again, that's an average cost.
I always bear in mind, Mr. Chair, that many of these projects have some of the older buildings. We had the nice presentation from the people from Manitoba, a great province, I hear. They cite that they have 100-year-old projects, and obviously those take a lot more to bring up to modern standards.
How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC
I just want to say thank you to my friends from B.C.
Also, there are private corporations that operate in B.C. for electrical and otherwise—for example, FortisBC—but they're all ruled by the B.C. Utilities Commission, and that's a good thing, I think.
Acting Director, Corporate Sustainability, Ministry of Citizens' Services and Open Government, Shared Services BC, Government of British Columbia
I would just add that no matter where we get our funding, it forms part of our debt load, so in B.C. there is not necessarily an incentive to go to the private sector for funding. The business case is built on return on investment, as opposed to where the funding comes from.
Conservative
Executive Director, Ministry of Environment, Climate Action Secretariat, Carbon Neutral Government and Climate Action Outreach, Government of British Columbia
I will just very quickly add that....
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Peter Braid
Thank you very much.
We will now go to our next questioner, Mr. McCallum.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you.
Thank you to the witnesses.
What I am looking for is some sort of summary statistic or goal or financial measure to assess how well we are doing. For example, since 2005 the U.S. federal government has invested $3.1 billion to improve efficiency of federal government facilities, and they say the result has been cost savings of approximately $8.5 billion over the life of the energy saving initiatives.
I wonder if either B.C. or Manitoba has some such summary statistics that could provide a measure of your success or otherwise in what you are doing.
Before you answer, I'll just mention one thing for Manitoba and one thing for B.C. Manitoba has something called the green building coordination team, which assesses the impact of policies, so perhaps through that group you have some measure of success.
In the case of British Columbia, you talked a lot about carbon neutrality. I wonder if this objective has been met, and if so, how much did it cost to achieve it, how much did the government invest, and what were the benefits arising from it?
Those are my questions for both provinces.
Director, Green Building Coordination Team, Accomodation Services Division, Department of Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation, Government of Manitoba
Relative to our green building policy, the only investment that Manitoba made, apart from the investment that we're going to make for the community projects anyway, was the establishment of the team to support and augment. So far we've tracked the effect of the policy on market ability to deliver and we've witnessed.... We're in the process of trying to find that, so sadly I can't give you specifics, other than to say we have had a significant impact on the number of buildings created in Manitoba. We've seen an increase in new jobs providing those services in the building and construction industry.
For financial specifics, I wonder if Power Smart has.... Because Power Smart invests more specifically in energy efficiency, I'll ask them to....
The incentives are not specifically government buildings, but they do have incentive programs that are broader in scope.
Commercial Programs Supervisor, Commercial Programs, Power Smart Programs, Manitoba Hydro
I apologize. We didn't separate the data specifically looking at provincial buildings, but on average, the investment Manitoba Hydro has made with all its commercial.... I have the figures, including our investment with our residential customers. It may be misleading.
Executive Director, Ministry of Environment, Climate Action Secretariat, Carbon Neutral Government and Climate Action Outreach, Government of British Columbia
I might jump in from British Columbia, if this is an opportune moment, and address the questions around the investment of $75 million and carbon neutrality.
The investment of $75 million is estimated to be generating approximately $12.5 million in energy savings annually and reducing greenhouse gas emissions within the public sector by about 36,000 tonnes annually. As I indicated to a previous member of the committee, we are in the process of quantifying those benefits more rigorously, and I would be pleased to report back to this committee when we've completed that review.
But at this stage, those are the estimated annual savings financially and in greenhouse gas emission reductions. I would also add parenthetically that the $75 million included money that was leveraged from private sector partners, such as FortisBC.
With respect to the question around carbon neutrality, the Province of B.C. established this objective some time ago. We achieved carbon neutrality for the 2010-11 fiscal years, and we are confident that we will achieve carbon neutrality again for the 2012 year. Costs to achieve this in the acquisition of carbon offsets have been approximately $19 million in each of those two years.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Peter Braid
Thank you very much, Mr. McCallum and our officials.
I am the next questioner, so I will take the opportunity to proceed with my five-minute round from the position of chair.
I'll start with our friends from British Columbia. During the opening presentation, you indicated that one of the things you've been successful in doing is shedding or reducing your building footprint. Could you elaborate a little on that, specifically what you've done and how you've done it?
Acting Director, Corporate Sustainability, Ministry of Citizens' Services and Open Government, Shared Services BC, Government of British Columbia
Sure. I was speaking about the Leading Workplace strategy, which is the strategy that is redefining the workspace, or the work point, as we call it. It's moving from identifying our work as the place that we work, going from the space that we share to the space, to the work. So it's that progression away from identifying our work from the actual physical location, to the actual deliverable that we provide, no matter where we do that.
In rolling out the Leading Workplace strategy, what typically happens is the programming requirements or needs of a particular client, a ministry—our own, for example—are reviewed, and a survey is done to see whether anybody within that particular work area has the ability to be mobile or flexible. In other words, they don't need a permanent desk location in order to conduct their work effectively. From that information, the space is replanned for that area. What typically happens—the statistic, generally—is that at least 40% of us are not at our work desks at any given time. So why should we be creating workspaces, designated workspaces, for 100% of the folks who are on the payroll? The space is redesigned to essentially facilitate 100% capacity in a smaller footprint, by recognizing that very infrequently 100% of the people will be there. There are alternative workspaces in government offices for all of us to work.
For example, I don't work out of this building, but I'm connected in the same way. I can conduct my work in this space where I'm speaking to you right now as I would in my home office or as I would in my designated workspace in the building that has been designated to my ministry. In so doing, the size of the workspace is generally reduced by about 30% to 40%, which generates, as I mentioned, those cost savings.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Peter Braid
It sounds like a very innovative approach, and we can certainly follow up on this ourselves. Are you aware if the federal government has a similar program or concept in its workplace?