Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the members of the committee. I am really happy to be here and to have the opportunity to address you on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
Let me first thank the commissioner for his report. We appreciate the work that has been done, and the observations from the report will enable the government to more effectively continue on its path to net-zero emissions.
Mr. Chair, the federal government is one of the largest property and fleet owners in the country, and the largest buyer of goods and services,. That's why the greening government strategy sets the target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with an interim target of a 40% reduction by 2025 for our conventional fleet and federal facilities.
Within Treasury Board Secretariat, the centre for greening government leads and coordinates the strategy across departments and agencies that own the buildings and fleet and procure goods and services.
Mr. Chair, in his report, the commissioner noted that Treasury Board Secretariat, by developing and leading the strategy, is taking steps to support the federal government's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He also found that the Treasury Board Secretariat provided departments with useful guidance and tools to help them develop emission reduction plans and report on the results.
However, we all agree that more work is needed. Climate change mitigation is an ongoing and evolving effort, and it's important that we always review our approach and seek opportunities for improvement. To that end, we welcome the commissioner's recommendations to enhance our approach to implementing the greening government strategy. You'll see our action plan in response to those recommendations detailed for the committee, with precise dates in terms of when we propose to meet the objectives.
The one area where we differ with the commissioner is on the notion that we have not developed an approach to tracking costs and savings. We have a robust approach to implementing the greening government strategy that is cost-effective and similar to that used in other jurisdictions in order to measure and evaluate greening expenditures up front, before the project starts. The centre for greening government uses life-cycle costing analysis and total cost of ownership methodologies to inform decision-makers on the best value options to decarbonize government operations. In fact, the approach we've taken has resulted in governments in Canada and abroad reaching out to us to get more information on the costing methodology we use. We need to do a much better job of explaining this methodology to Canadians and parliamentarians, and we will.
The next update of the strategy is scheduled for next year. This will reflect the government's series of actions and act on the commissioner's recommendations.
We would like to thank the commissioner for giving attention to our efforts in his report. We look forward to receiving your comments and answering your questions.