Case Studies

Poster on the context for local economic development in Jamaica, presented to the LED Forum by the University of the West Indies.

In 2004, the City of Yellowknife completed its baseline inventories as part of its PCP Milestone work. Most electricity is generated by hydro; however, emissions from fossil fuel use for heating are almost twice that of the Canadian average, accounting for more than 70% of Yellowknife's emissions. The City used that data to inform its Community Energy Plan (CEP), adopted in 2006.

In 2010, the City of Markham began developing a project to install a 250-kW grid-tied solar photovoltaic system atop the roof of a warehouse on Warden Avenue, which was already connected to the district energy utility. In the first year of operation, the Warden Avenue system generated $189,000 in revenue.

In 2007, Banff's Town Council approved a policy requiring all new municipal buildings to meet or exceed LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Level certification. As a result, Banff's transit storage facility is expected to reduce annual GHG emissions by 18 tonnes and The Fenlands arena, will save about $100,000 per year in operating costs (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Strategies to reduce energy requirements are a key part of the City of Kamloops' Sustainable Kamloops Plan. The City started with heating-system upgrades at a number of City-owned facilities. The City has estimated that these boiler upgrades will  save about $120,000 in natural gas costs each year, and reduce GHG emissions by about 444 tonnes. (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month)

The Ile des Chenes Arena was built in 1974. Renovating the ice plant would extend the life of the facility by 35 years and reduce maintenance costs; however, staff from the Local Arena Board saw that replacing the ice plant with a geothermal system would be an expensive proposition. To overcome the financial challenges, Ritchot decided to design a bigger geothermal heating and cooling system that would attract more funding and serve not just the arena, but the fire hall and community centre as well (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

As part of its inventory of energy use and GHG emissions in 2005, Halifax determined that fleet vehicles were responsible for about 8,500 tonnes of emissions each year. To reduce emissions from fleet vehicles, HRM has implemented a number of measures, including replacing the traditional hydraulic-fan system in Metro Transit buses with a slide-in, controllable electric-fan package (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Both the City of Nanaimo and the Regional District of Nanaimo have purchased electric vehicles for their fleet operations in recent years and have installed charging stations for use by municipal fleet vehicles and residents alike. This article features the rationale behind the purchases and results of the vehicles' use in both municipalities (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

As a result of its 2005 energy and emissions inventory, the City of Saskatoon hired a consultant to help it prepare an action plan. The plan made a number of recommendations, including the use of solar hot water heating at the city's two public swimming pools (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Food waste had been collected separately in Mission for more than ten years. Residents had been encouraged to use at-home composters, or to place food scraps in with yard waste. The municipality found, however, that this approach was largely underutilized, and waste audits showed that approximately 50% of curbside garbage could be composted (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

In 2011, the Province of Nova Scotia introduced legislation that required the use of light-emitting-diode (LED) technology for all roadway lighting in the province, making it the first province or state in North America to do so. HRM was already ahead of the game in this case, as its program to replace streetlighting began in 2005. Of the almost 40,000 streetlights in Halifax, about 38,000 still need replacing, and HRM plans to replace them over the next five to ten years (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

In 2010, as part of its Climate Change Action Plan, Thompson, Manitoba completed a baseline inventory of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and found that the propane combusted in propane furnaces contributed 82% of residential-sector emissions, but only 18% of total energy usage. To combat this, the city initiated a furnace-replacement program. The objective was to remove as many older, inefficient propane furnaces as possible, replacing them with high-efficiency propane or electric furnaces, or geothermal heat pumps (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Tecumseh and Tsumeb create lasting ties and help those most in need in post-apartheid Namibia.

Drake Landing, a 52-house development, is Canada's first solar-powered community district heating system. An array of 800 solar panels, installed atop the development's stand-alone garages, captures solar energy in spring, summer and fall (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Stories From the Field: A look back at the partnership between Drayton Valley, Alberta and Lushoto, Tanzania that touched lives in both communities.

The Greater Sudbury Housing Corporation (GSHC) is a non-profit organization that manages more than 280 public housing buildings on behalf of its sole shareholder, the City of Greater Sudbury. About 40% of the units managed are high-rise apartment buildings. In 2007, the GSHC was faced with the need to reduce energy consumption at its largest building, a 17-storey apartment complex on Bruce Street. After reviewing a variety of ideas, the GSHC approached Conserval Engineering, a Toronto-based company, to custom-design a SolarWall® as the best solution (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

In 2010, the Town of Gibsons, British Columbia, established a geoexchange district energy utility system to heat and cool a new housing development. The first phase of the system, now complete, provides heating and cooling to 27 residential lots in the Parkland development area of Gibsons (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

In 2007, the town council of Banff, Alberta, passed its Municipal Sustainable Building Policy, which requires new municipal buildings with a footprint of 500 metres square or greater to meet or exceed the Silver level of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. The new transit storage facility was the first new municipal building constructed after the policy was passed (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Exhibition Place (EP) in Toronto, Ontario, is Canada's largest entertainment venue, attracting millions of visitors each year. In the past decade, EP has become a demonstration site for renewable energy technologies - wind, solar, geothermal and trigeneration - as well as numerous energy-efficiency, resource and water conservation initiatives (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

As a member of PCP, Saanich prepared corporate energy and GHG inventories of all of its municipal operations. In 2007, the District of Saanich, BC established its innovative Carbon Fund ("the Fund") to finance initiatives that lower the District's corporate emissions (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Relationship building case study

Regional water case study

Regional water case study

Service agreement case study

Service agreement case study

Relationship building case study

Service agreement case study

In 2010, FCM prepared greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy use inventories of its offices and operations. These inventories will help FCM zero in on emission-reduction approaches, policies and practices that can be implemented now and in the future (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability ICLEI prepared greenhouse gas emissions and energy use inventories of its offices in Canada. The GHG inventory will help it zero in on emission-reduction approaches, policies and practices that can be implemented now and in the future (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The Resort Municipality of Whistler, British Columbia, adopted its Green Building Policy in October 2008. One such green building in Whistler is the Spruce Grove Field House. Installation of a geo-exchange system at the Field House began in 2001 and was completed in 2002 (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

A new approach to Stanley's municipal computer system helped the municipality implement paper-saving initiatives that have saved resources and time (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The City of Saskatoon's Energy and Greenhouse Gas Management Plan, adopted in June 2007, sets out the city's framework for reducing corporate and community greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 10 per cent and six per cent, respectively, below 1990 levels, by 2013. As part of the plan, the city aims to reduce emissions from solid waste by diverting materials, such as organics and recyclables, from its landfill (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Fredericton became one of only a handful of Canadian cities to achieve the highest level of program requirements for greenhouse gas (GHG)measurement and reduction in municipal operations. The city has refurbished a number of municipal buildings, including  replacing several inefficient heating systems with more energy-efficient ones (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The City of North Vancouver, British Columbia, established the Lonsdale Energy Corporation (LEC) in 2003. Connecting City Hall and the library to the LEC system will reduce emissions by approximately 33 tonnes per year and save more than 650 gigajoules of natural gas (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The lighting system at the Pickering Civic Complex and Main Central Library was nearing the end of its service life. The system appeared an obvious target for one of the city's first energy-reduction projects. The initial energy savings of $32,000 a year were based on actual energy costs for the 12 months prior to project completion (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The heat recovery project cuts annual GHG emissions by about 153 tonnes and saves the town about $22,000 a year in heating energy costs (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

In 2010, a geothermal system was installed at the Aldergrove water treatment plant. Based on the plant’s energy use between 2005 and 2007, Langley estimates it will avoid using about 1,300 gigajoules of natural gas each year (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The town expects to save between $13,000 and $14,000 per year on the electricity costs associated with street lighting, a decrease of more than 60 per cent of what they had been paying, and cut GHG emissions by 47 tonnes (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

This project involved replacing the lighting at two of Port Alberni's ice rinks. Electricity savings are estimated at 68,539 kWh, an annual cost savings of about $4,000 (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

This case study explores the results and lessons learned from an innovative municipal partnership between the Town of Drayton Valley, Alberta and Lushoto, Tanzania. The two municipalities extended the reach of their partnership by engaging the public and mobilizing civil society organizations.

Read how the City of Edmonton constructed a wetland as an innovative and cost-effective way to treat stormwater runoff from older, built-out communities in this award-winning project.

Read how the City of Toronto transformed this midtown brownfield — a former TTC streetcar maintenance facility and designated heritage site — into a LEED® Gold certified community centre and public park.

Read how the City of Campbell River became the first municipality in B.C. to install a green roof on an existing civic building through this award-winning project.

Read how the Town of Newmarket achieved LEED® Platinum certification — the highest rating for environmentally sound housing in the world — for this award-winning 34-home subdivision.

Read how the City of Toronto and Toronto Community Housing are redeveloping Canada's oldest public housing community to create this award-winning, LEED Gold® certified, mixed-income, mixed-use neighbourhood .

Read how the Town of Cobourg implemented induction lighting to supply electricity, update aging lighting infrastructure, and reduce GHGs, operating costs, and light pollution through this award-winning project.

Read how the City of Williams Lake and its community partners envisioned a successful and sustainable Williams Lake in 2030 and made an award-winning plan to get there.

Read how the City of Kelowna examined and changed its zoning to allow as many housing forms and support services as possible through this award-winning project.

Read how the County of Haliburton and its community partners applied transportation demand management (TDM) principles in a rural setting through this award-winning project.

Read how the Société de transport de l’Outaouais and the Société de transport de Montréal studied the effectiveness of green propulsion technology in reducing GHGs and enhanced the speed, accessibility and comfort of public transit through this award-winning project.

Read how the Regional Municipality of York's first community environmental centre gave the public a reliable and convenient way to dispose of their waste through this award-winning project.

The city estimates the facility’s oil consumption will be reduced by about 40%, which translates into annual savings of $50,000 and GHG emission reductions of 250 tonnes, a 5% overall reduction in the city’s corporate emissions (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The 2009 Calgary Climate Change Accord, and revisions to the Target Minus 50 Action Plan, aims to cut emissions. At the core of Target Minus 50's renewable energy program was its long-term energy contract with ENMAX, Calgary's wholly owned electricity utility. Over the 20-year life of the agreement, Calgary will produce about seven million fewer tonnes of GHG emissions associated with power generation (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The City of North Vancouver conducted energy audits of four of its municipal facilities and made recommendations on how to cut energy use. The city will save close to $14,000 each year in energy costs and reduce GHG emissions by about five tonnes annually (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The City of Hamilton launched several initiatives to improve one of its main express bus routes. These were the first steps toward eventually introducing rapid transit.

An interdepartmental staff team undertook a Fleet Emissions Reduction Study in 2006 to identify ways to make the city's fleet cleaner and greener. As a result of the right-sizing initiatives, GHG emissions will be cut by approximately 548 tonnes (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Beginning in 2005, the municipality began developing the Clare Energy Concept, a plan that aims to expand Clare’s economic development while keeping more energy dollars within the community and protecting the environment (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Join us in celebrating 10 years of the Green Municipal Fund with 10 of the best GMF-funded initiatives.

In the fall of 2007, Sudbury city council approved a pilot project to test seven hybrid vehicles as part of its municipal fleet. Each of the original seven hybrid vehicles costs $27,000 with estimated annual savings of about $3,000 per vehicle(GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The City of Dawson Creek, B.C., initiated a community energy plan in January 2005 that examines the municipality's current and future energy use patterns and identifies where improvements can be made. The city spent approximately $60,000 to purchase the new traffic, street and solar lighting and is saving approximately $15,000 a year in energy costs, for a simple payback of four years (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Since 2000, the City of Fredericton has applied an aggressive retrofit policy to all its municipal buildings. As part of this process, the city's property services division has been removing oil-fired boilers, furnaces and water heaters from many of its buildings and replacing them with natural gas-fired water appliances. Costs totalled $17,823 ($10,000 for the natural gas heater and $7,823 for the solar thermal system), and annual savings are estimated to be $3,385 for a simple payback of about five years (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

In 2008, the City of Surrey switched its three-stream recycling program to a single-stream system, allowing residents to place all recyclable materials at curbside unsorted. Recyclables are then collected using compaction collection vehicles, which dramatically increases collection efficiencies. More than 115,000 households participate in the program, with recycling rates jumping 10 per cent in the first year (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

The City of Regina aims to reduce GHG emissions from its municipal operations by 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Between 2002 and 2008 electricity use at City Hall, for example, was reduced by about 23 per cent, while natural gas use dropped by almost 42 per cent (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Find out how the application of Infraguide best practices have contributed to more capital projects in Halifax.

In 2002, Ottawa city council adopted a Fleet Emissions Reduction (FER) strategy. The city chose Orion VII Next Generation transit buses and purchased two of the buses in late 2008. Using the NRC’s results on fuel economy, the city estimates the payback period to be about six years, once subsidization is factored in (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

As part of a group of lighting upgrades to several LRT stations, Edmonton upgraded the lighting at the Grandin station, as well as its mechanical control and temperature systems. With annual savings of about $41,500, the project has a simple payback of 1.5 years and annual GHG reductions of 459 tonnes or 610,887kWh (GHG Reduction Initiative of the Month).

Read how the City of Victoria turned a large, centrally located brownfield site into a model of sustainable development and urban intensification through this award-winning project.

Read how the City of Toronto encouraged sustainable building design and addressed several of the city’s environmental challenges through this award-winning project.

Read how the Township of South Stormont's Kilowatt Countdown Challenge motivated residents to reduce their electricity consumption through this award-winning project.

Watch how the City of Edmonton became one of few municipalities in the world to commit to the highest level of environmental management — ISO 14001 — through this award-winning project.

Read how the City of Langford increased the availability of affordable housing, improved ecological health and enhanced public amenities through this award-winning project.

Read how the Resort Municipality of Whistler plans to convert an athletes’ village built for the 2010 Olympics into a sustainable, compact, pedestrian-oriented community through this award-winning project.

Read how the Town of Banff became the first Canadian municipality to operate a public transit fleet composed only of diesel–electric hybrid buses through this award-winning project.

Read how the youth organization Groupe Solidarité Jeunesse and the City of Victoriaville have raised environmental awareness and funds for humanitarian missions through this award-winning project.

Read how the award-winning Well Aware program supports and encourages well stewardship among private well owners in communities across Ontario.

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The Rural District of Nyanga in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe and the small Canadian community of Rossland, British Columbia have developed a training program on good governance and leadership that is helping municipalities in rural Zimbabwe improve municipal management and services.

The Town of Tsumeb in northern Namibia and the Town of Tecumseh, Ontario are mobilizing local business and civil society groups to work together to provide sustainable services to the citizens and businesses of Tsumeb.

The City of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, and the Town of Jinja in Uganda, have made great strides in empowering women and strengthening their participation in local government.The two communities formed one of the twelve partnerships in Africa supported by FCM’s International Centre for Municipal Development.

The City of Vancouver, British Columbia and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), Thailand, signed an agreement in 2004 as part of the Municipal Partnership Program of the International Centre for Municipal Development, Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

The City of Bacolod in the Philippines and the City of Kamloops, British Columbia have reduced violence against women and have introduced reproductive health education in Bacolod through a very successful communitybased program.

In 1997, the Regional County Municipality (MRC) of La Matapédia, Que., successfully undertook an innovative pilot project in the area of domestic composting with the municipality of San Vicente in El Salvador

In October 1999, the Regional County Municipality (MRC) of Papineau and the Association of Municipalities of the Precordillera (AMP) in Chile signed an agreement to work together in the area of regional planning.

The Canada/Aceh Local Government Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Project (CALGAP) aims to support post-tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction in Aceh.

In April 2006, CIDA approved FCM’s proposal for the Canada/Aceh Local Government Assistance Program (CALGAP) which began operating the following month.

The Canada/Aceh Local Government Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Program (CALGAP) aims to support post-tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction in Aceh.

An ‘Open House’ is an informal event, which brings together a multitude of stakeholders under one roof - to discuss a common agenda.

With funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), FCM undertook a project to improve solid waste collection services in Galle, beginning in December 2005 with the task of waste sampling to determine what would be the most effective management strategy.

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Read how Gibsons residents spearheaded a best practices-based approach to infrastructure delivery as a result of the rebuilding of Franklin Road.

Learn how the City of Winnipeg is working to extend the life of its infrastructure, reuse its resources and apply InfraGuide best practices.

Read about the value of InfraGuide's best practices in the City of London's energy efficiency successes.

Read how the City of London's adoption of the InfraGuide best practice Coordinating Infrastructure Works has helped the city implement a well-coordinated infrastructure programs.