Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for inviting us to speak before you today on a topic that we share a great passion for.
My name is Karim Abraham and I'm the CEO of the Kambo Energy Group. With me is Yasmin Abraham, my sister and our senior vice-president of business development.
Before we begin our testimony today, we'd like to acknowledge the Algonquin nation whose traditional and unceded territory we are gathered upon today.
Today we'll discuss our experiences and what we've learned from designing and implementing energy efficiency programs in indigenous communities and underserved populations. We'll provide two recommendations to maximize the efficacy and equity of programs across Canadian demographics.
The Kambo Energy Group is a family-owned social enterprise that delivers turnkey energy efficiency solutions to businesses and underserved communities. Our customer groups include commercial and industrial businesses, indigenous populations, newcomers to Canada, seniors and those who live in energy poverty. We are part of the front line for reducing energy consumption in Canada. We are not policy specialists; we're not lobbyists and we're not economists. We are building scientists, marketers, engineers, software developers, construction specialists and project managers who are innovating the implementation of energy efficiency projects every single day. We have grown from four employees in 2012 to over 60 people across B.C. and Alberta today.
In the 30-plus years our family has been working in energy efficiency, we've experienced the ups and downs of the industry. Today, approximately half of our business comes from the private sector and utilities and the other half comes from funding at all levels of government, including some first nation governments. Having worked with both public and private sector stakeholders, we're in a unique position to bridge the learnings between the innovations required to stay relevant in the commercial market and the patience required for public funding that can seem to come and go without warning or communication of rationale. This is a reality that has been detrimental to Canadian energy efficiency businesses and their ability to invest and plan for the future.
We'd like to share with you our experience with public funding of energy efficiency, and highlight Empower Me, a landmark equity-based program that combats energy poverty in western Canada. Over the years we have honed our programs and services to focus on two core principles, which also serve as our recommendations to the committee. Number one, programs should be focused on implementation and performance. Number two, programs should be inclusive of all Canadians.
With respect to the focus on implementation and performance, if the goal of energy efficiency programs is to reduce energy consumption, the reduced energy consumption should be the verified deliverable. Far too often we see funding that has stringent eligibility criteria limited to activities with no requirement to report actual savings. In addition, funding programs rarely fund both assessments and implementation of measures required to achieve those savings. Assessments on their own do not reduce energy use. This fragmented approach, which separates the processes between energy assessors, engineers and contractors, leads to poor results with little accountability for the savings. We need a cohesive approach focused on accountability.
The success of our clients and the savings they achieve are a direct result of the innovation that has been created precisely between the existing siloed funding steps. Our technology spans the traditionally fragmented value chain to move seamlessly from diagnosing energy-saving opportunities to scoping solutions, providing installation quotes and business cases, managing the implementation and verifying resulting energy savings. By focusing on the goal of delivering meaningful savings for the client from the onset, innovation and accountability maximizes efficacy and drives down costs.
In B.C. first nations communities, we have seen this approach achieve energy savings of between 30% and 40% on upgraded homes. We have also seen 10% community-wide reductions year over year, with simple paybacks of four to seven years. Sadly, we have no specific funding stream from any federal organization to be able to repeat this proven approach with other communities.