Your Profile. Your Priorities.
Rapid or in-depth, your situational analysis should cover at least the following community considerations:
Exploring these themes can help you identify preliminary opportunities. Depending on your situation, it could be a smart neighborhoodi, a bike network, a district energy system, a community green buildingi program or all of them.
Your Emissions Profile: Today’s and Tomorrow’s
One of the most important considerations in identifying meaningful greenhouse gas reduction projects is understanding your community’s greenhouse gas emissions profile.
These four greenhouse gas emission profiles illustrate some of BC’s community-to-community diversity. Community variables that can affect emissions include:
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In combination with your emissions profile, understanding trends in each of these variables (e.g. changes in trip distances or travel modes) will help you create and update your plans.
Your Energy Budget: Consumption and Cost
Community Energy Association’s Community Energy and Emissions Planning Guide is a good primer for climate action planning. / CEA Planning Guide,2008.
The BC Government’s Community Energy and Emissions Initiative (CEEI) will provide local governments with community wide inventories. As well as greenhouse gas emissions, these inventories will provide energy consumption data. From this information it is reasonably straightforward to approximate current and future community-wide energy expenditures.
In many BC communities, energy expenditures are often more than $3000 per capita per year. For a community of 10,000, that amounts to $30 million per year. Approximately 80 percent of that leaves town. For many communities, this insight helps generate interest in energy efficiency and renewable energy.
This interest has been compounded recently by the rising cost of electricity, natural gasi and notably transportation fuels. Many people are seeking opportunities to reduce energy costs by driving less and in some cases explore new working or living locations.
Your Local Priorities: Make it Matter
On top of emissions and energy consumption data, a range of other factors can be integrated into local plans, including:
- Local opportunities that could reinforce a climate protection and sustainable energy agenda, such as local air quality issues, congestion or land protection
- Current local government policies and projects that could reinforce climate action – e.g. smart growthi commitments, sustainabilityi goals, or downtown revitalization
Your Energy Opportunities: All Over the Map
British Columbia’s inexpensive hydro electricity, natural gas and gasoline, and ample land have shaped an energy intensive society and economy. A commitment to reduce greenhouse gases, and reduce riski to rising energy prices, is creating opportunities to look for more efficient energy systems and renewable energy.
One way to preliminarily explore local opportunities is through some local and regional maps.
North Vancouver Low Carbon Energy Supply Map / City of North Vancouver, District of North Vancouver
The low carbon energy map was prepared by the City of North Vancouver and District of North Vancouver for a long-term multi-stakeholder planning process. Preliminary analysis was done to identify potential energy supply opportunities. The energy map could also consider existing sewage treatment plants and major mains/interceptors as heat source locations; wood waste sources as potential biomass feedstocks; large industrial heat and electricity producers that could be optimized through co-design with local commercial and residential customers.
While still preliminary, a somewhat more thorough mapping exercise identified the high density, mixed use nodes, along with major transportation networks. The high density, mixed use neighborhoods have the greatest potential to reduce emissions in buildings, but also in transportation and infrastructure. 
North Vancouver Low Carbon Energy Supply Map / City of North Vancouver, District of North Vancouver.
An exercise like this can identify some initial ideas to be informed by target setting and action evaluation. It would be supplemented with discussions that examine opportunities that may not have been introduced by the energy mapping exercise such as solid waste and building efficiency. The whole process would be underpinned by rich engagement.