City of Powell River has been recognized for achieving corporate carbon neutrality in 2018.
At the City of Powell River Council meeting on Thursday, September 19, councillors reviewed a congratulatory letter from the ministry of municipal affairs and housing regarding the city’s achievement of carbon neutrality last year.
Councillor CaroleAnn Leishman, chair of the city’s climate change mitigation and adaptation committee, said this is a big deal.
“Out of the many years that the City of Powell River has been a signatory to the climate action charter, we’ve typically only reached the first level, and last year we got to the second level,” said Leishman. “Last year’s council, very wisely thinking ahead, for the protection of an area known as the Penticton Trails, rezoned that parcel of land from what could have been developable land to a park to protect and keep the timber standing, and qualified for enough carbon offsets and carbon sequestration to qualify the city for carbon neutrality.
“We also got some credits from our compost curbside pilot program, and there were a few credits lingering from the city purchasing the trees and the land in Millennium Park. Because so many years have passed from the time we did that we didn’t get as many points for that one.”
Leishman said it is a huge deal to claim carbon neutrality as a local government.
“We should be really proud of this and it’s a huge shout out to our sustainability planner [Ana Lukyanova] for all the work she has done putting all of this together and quantifying our carbon emissions,” said Leishman “How to get to carbon neutrality was a bit of a process, but once we determined we could do that it was a no-brainer. Because we were able to claim those points right away we will get a lot of points this coming year as well.”
The points will start to drop off and diminish over the next few years so the city needs to start thinking ahead about how it is going to maintain carbon neutrality. Leishman said there are a lot of projects the city is working on to reduce carbon emissions and plan ahead to maintain carbon neutrality.
With its new designation the city gets to use a new logo on its letterhead and website. The city also gets a carbon-neutral window decal for all of its public buildings.
A letter from the provincial Union of British Columbia Municipalities green communities committee (GCC) offered congratulations on the city’s continually improving achievement.
“We applaud your leadership and wish you continued success in your ongoing commitment to the goal of corporate carbon neutrality, and your efforts to reduce emissions in the broader community,” the letter stated. “The work that your local government has undertaken to reduce and offset its corporate emissions demonstrates significant climate leadership and sets the stage for broader climate action in the community. Your leadership and commitment continues to be essential to ensuring the achievement of our collective climate action goals.”
