Carbon Neutral Local Government

Carbon Neutral Quick Links The Workbook Contracted Out Services Tools to Measure Emissions 'Becoming Carbon Neutral Guidebook' Project Profiles Webinars Feedback What is a Carbon Neutral Local Government

Read the Overview of Carbon Neutral Local Government under the 'What' tab.

The Workbook

The Joint Provincial-UBCM Green Communities Committee’s Workbook – Helping local Governments Understand How to be Carbon Neutral in Their Corporate Operations is intended to provide guidance to local governments on what is in scope to measure and offset within the boundaries of their corporate emissions. This version is newly revised based on feedback of the Draft from local governments.

Download the Workbook here.

The 'Carbon Neutral Workbook' provides initial guidance to local governments on the 4-step process to become carbon neutral and focuses on how to get started on measuring corporate emissions that occur within the local government “traditional services” boundary. For the next level of guidance for local governments on how to become carbon neutral, including step-by-step guidance on how to balance corporate emissions to zero by investing on GHG reduction projects and / or through purchased offsets read the 'Becoming Carbon Neutral Guidebook.'

The Workbook provides:

•  an explanation as to what carbon neutrality is,
• a description of which corporate operations, referred to as “traditional services”, will be included in the carbon neutral commitment,
• advice on data collection; and
• examples of energy statements and how the information can be used to interpret a local government’s energy consumption and carbon footprint.

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Note Contracted Out Services

If a local government has a contractual or partnership arrangement to deliver these services, some of the emissions from these same services operated by the contractor/partner would also be included. This will apply to new contracts or upon contract renewal. The rationale for including contracted services was to establish a level playing field amongst all local governments.  Guidance for local governments on what to consider in order to include contracts as part of their corporate emissions inventory is currently under development.

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Tools to Measure Emissions

SMARTTool is a web-based, carbon emissions inventory and reporting tool that provides a standardized approach to calculating and reporting an organization’s corporate greenhouse gas emissions. The tool was originally developed to help provincial public sector organizations meet their legislated requirements to be carbon neutral by 2010.
As part of their work supporting local government signatories to the Climate Action Charter meet their carbon neutral commitments the Green Communities Committee (GCC) is pleased to be able to recommend SMARTTool for use by local governments.

For further information on the benefits of SMARTTool, the GCC incentive and how to sign up visit: http://toolkit.bc.ca/smarttool-recommendation.

The use of other inventory and reporting tools will be enabled under the Carbon Neutral Framework.  To ensure methodology, emission factors and outputs from other tools are consistent and comparable with SMARTTool results, a local government choosing to use another inventory and reporting tool will be required to:

1. Use the same corporate boundaries as described in the Workbook – Helping Local Governments Understand How to be Carbon Neutral in Their Corporate Operations
2. Use the same emission factors and methodologies employed by SMARTTool as detailed in the Methodology for Reporting B.C. Local Government Greenhouse Gas Emissions which will be provided to local governments
3. Complete and adhere to the SMARTTool business processes checklist
4. Report on annual total corporate emissions as calculated and reported by the alternative tool, broken down by fuel type.
5. Provide CAO/CFO attestation that the actions outlined above were undertaken

Methodology Document (for users of alternative tools)

The Draft Methodology for Reporting B.C. Local Government Greenhouse Gas Emissions has been developed for use by those local governments who are using or considering using a corporate emissions inventory and reporting tool other than SMARTTool.

The use of the emission factors and methodologies contained in this document are required by the Green Communities Committee as part of the common approach to carbon neutrality under the Climate Action Charter.　　

Local governments that use the information provided in this document need to consider if they have or can access the expertise and knowledge required to properly apply the emission factors and methodologies as technical support for this document is not available.

Please note that this document will be updated periodically to reflect changes in emissions factors. For this reason, local governments should ensure that they are using the most current version of the Methodology when they are calculating their corporate emissions.

The next update is expected to take place in the fall of 2011.

If you have comments or questions on the Workbook please email: the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development at IRPD@gov.bc.ca. Please put "Workbook" in the email subject line.

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Becoming Carbon Neutral Guidebook

The 'Becoming Carbon Neutral Guidebook' builds on the Workbook described above and provides the next level of guidance for local governments on how to become carbon neutral, including step-by-step guidance on how to balance corporate emissions to zero by investing on GHG reduction projects and / or through purchased offsets.  

Download the 'Becoming Carbon Neutral Guidebook' here.

The 'Becoming Carbon Neutral Guidebook' reviews the Carbon Neutral Framework and its 4 key steps to achieving carbon neutrality (i.e., measure, reduce, offset/balance and report) and focuses on options for local governments to balance their corporate emissions to zero through investments in local GHG reduction project and / or purchased offsets (i.e., step 3 of the Framework).

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**Project Profiles Included in the Guide are provided below

PLEASE NOTE: The 'Becoming Carbon Neutral Guidebook' includes 4 project profiles that local governments can use to measure GHG reductions resulting from these GHG reduction projects.  Each of the project profiles contains an embedded spreadsheet for determining the annual emissions reductions associated with each project.  The project profiles and embedded spreadsheets are provided below as separate documents for local governments to use.  Any work conducted in the spreadsheets needs to be saved as a separate file or as an update to the project profile document. Instructions are provided in the profile documents.

• Option 1A: Project Profile Low Emission Vehicles
• Option 1B: Project Profile Energy Efficient Building Retrofits and Fuel Switching
• Option 1C: Project Profile Solar Thermal (Hot Water) Retrofits
• Option 1D: Project Profile Household Organic Waste Composting 

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Email Us: We Want Your Feedback

GCC is interested in hearing from local governments on the Carbon Neutral Framework and the “Becoming Carbon Neutral Guidebook” to ensure it considers and reflects the needs of all local governments. 

If you have comments or questions please email: the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development at IRPD@gov.bc.ca. Please put "Carbon Neutral " in the email subject line.

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Webinars

To assist local governments in learning how to measure their corporate emissions using SMARTTool  (or an equivalent measurement tool) and how to become carbon neutral in their corporate operations, the GCC held a series of free workshops and webinars throughout the Province in June. The webinar recordings are below:

Watch the webinars online:

Becoming Carbon Neutral - Small Communities Part 1 on Vimeo*.

Becoming Carbon Neutral - Small Communities Part 2 on Vimeo*.

Or download the webinars:

http://www.communityenergy.bc.ca/becoming-carbon-neutral-webinars

The GCC would like to commend local governments for their leadership and action on climate change to date.  As more and more B.C. local governments adopt greener policies and practices, move toward carbon neutrality, and take steps to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions, all British Columbians benefit from cleaner, healthier and more liveable, sustainable communities.

*Vimeo is a third-party viewing platform. The Green Communities Committee (GCC) makes no representations, warranties or endorsements about vimeo.com or its sponsored links, advertising, features, safety or its programs and services. The fact that a website is linked to this site does not imply that GCC sponsors, endorses or is affiliated or associated with the entity that owns or is responsible for the website. 

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