Thank you.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you today about the work Environment and Climate Change Canada is doing to meet its commitment to green government operations.
ln the federal sustainable development strategy under the pan-Canadian framework, the Government of Canada committed to lead by example by making its operations low carbon, and has set a target to reduce GHG emissions from facilities and fleets by 40% below the 2005 levels by 2030, or sooner—potentially by 2025.
ln support of the FSDS, Environment and Climate Change Canada developed a departmental sustainable development strategy for 2017-20, articulating departmental actions that will contribute to the FSDS commitments to improve energy efficiency of our buildings, modernize our fleet, support transition to a low-carbon economy through green procurement, demonstrate innovative technologies, promote sustainable travel practices, and understand climate change impacts and build resilience.
ln line with the FSDS, the centre for greening government at Treasury Board developed the greening government strategy, setting out a more ambitious target to reduce the GHG emissions from federal operations by 80% by 2050, relative to the 2005 levels, as well as outlining specific measures to reduce water consumption and its load on municipal systems, and the environmental impact of waste.
ln translating the centre's vision, Environment and Climate Change Canada has created a greening and environmental programs division to mobilize departmental action under this goal and to meet our GHG target reductions, in particular from our facilities and our fleet. To this end, Environment and Climate Change Canada is rationalizing our real property portfolio and implementing strategies to reduce energy consumption, developing a road map for short-term and long-term investments to be made in our facilities, seeking alternative fuels, modernizing our fleet management strategy, electrifying our inventory and expanding our deployment of charging stations.
Environment and Climate Change Canada has a capital planning process in place to identify greening projects, and these are emphasized and implemented with the objective of reducing our GHG emissions. ln 2017-18, Environment and Climate Change Canada invested $5.6 million in capital funds aimed at greening our facilities, and will invest another $8.8 million in planned projects for greening our facilities in 2018-19.
Our five-year capital plan focuses on our facilities that Environment and Climate Change Canada owns and manages, with projects specifically aimed at maximizing our reductions at the earliest possible opportunity. Over this period, an estimated reduction of 1,697 tonnes of emissions will be achieved with the implementation of these projects. Environment and Climate Change is increasing employee awareness and mobilizing from within to reduce waste and find alternative innovative solutions to minimize consumption of single-use plastics. We are planning to undertake waste audits specifically focused on the plastic waste stream to establish a baseline for waste production. This will serve to provide a benchmark against which our progress will be measured in meeting our waste reduction targets.
Environment and Climate Change Canada is relying on internal experts, as well as other departments, to work with its partners to achieve the best procurement and innovative technology outcomes.
Environment and Climate Change Canada is implementing central agency directives on green procurement, exploring paperless options as part of contracting operations, developing green procurement training with a particular focus on credit card acquisitions, prioritizing the reduction of embodied carbon and minimizing the use of harmful materials in the construction and renovation process. ln order to measure our progress towards our targets and deliver on our commitments, we have established a governance structure and invested resources to strengthen the capacity within the department. ln addition, we are undertaking an assessment of our business processes and establishing a monitoring and reporting mechanism to make sure we are measuring progress towards reducing our GHG emissions, waste and water.
As part of the national effort to combat climate change, Environment and Climate Change Canada has adopted the Government of Canada's commitment to reduce its GHG emissions by 40 % by 2030, or earlier, against the baseline of 2005. ln the fiscal year 2017-18, emissions have been reduced by 24.5% against the 2005-06 levels. Steady and strong progress is being made to drive down GHG emissions.
We continue to work closely with the centre for greening government, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and with departmental partners and other government departments to expand and deepen our departmental actions and to further our goals in meeting the Government of Canada's commitments.
I thank you for the opportunity to share with you the work we are doing.