Topic: Buildings and Fleets

BC Energy StepCode

The BC Energy Step Code is an optional compliance path in the BC Building Code that local governments may use, if they wish, to incentivize or require a level of energy efficiency in new construction that goes above and beyond the requirements of the BC Building Code. Builders may voluntarily use the BC Energy Step Code as a new compliance path for meeting the energy-efficiency requirements of the BC Building Code.

Eligibility/Deadline:
Local governments in BC

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Email Address:
building.safety@gov.bc.ca

Energy Sustainability Education

The Community Energy Association (CEA) provides information and training to local governments on energy/GHG planning, policy and implementation. The CEA can help local governments develop and implement energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

Eligibility/Deadline:

  • Local Governments and First Nations in BC

Partners for Climate Protection

The Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program is a network of more than 160 Canadian municipal governments that have committed to reducing greenhouse gases and acting on climate change.

PCP is a partnership between the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. It is the Canadian component of the international Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program. PCP receives financial support from FCM’s Green Municipal Fund (GMF), which is managed by the FCM Centre for Sustainable Community Development.

PCP offers:

  • A plan: PCP’s five-milestone framework is a proven municipal strategy to cut GHGs.
  • Resources: PCP members have access to useful resources and information, including case studies, templates, technical assistance and newsletters.
  • Networking: PCP offers valuable opportunities to share experiences with more than 150 participating municipalities, and with an international network of municipal governments.

Eligibility/Deadline:

  • Canadian municipal governments.
  • Join through a resolution at council.

CleanBC Better Homes

CleanBC Better Homes is BC’s new online hub for homeowners and businesses to access information, incentives (rebates) and support to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in new and existing homes and buildings. The program is provide rebates and performance-based incentives for conversion of gas and oil-fired heating equipment to electric heat pumps, upgrading to highest efficiency gas equipment, and envelope improvements such as increased insulation and high-performance windows and doors.

Resources include:

  • Easy to use incentive search tools for residential renovations, residential new construction, commercial renovations, and commercial new construction
  • Single application for EfficiencyBC, BC Hydro, FortisBC and local government residential renovation incentives
  • Information and answers to frequently asked questions on energy efficiency upgrades
  • Free Energy Coaching Services for homeowners and businesses undertaking renovations, including a phone and email hotline staffed by energy coaching specialists
  • Search tool to find registered EnerGuide Rating System energy advisors for residential renovations
  • Contractor directories to find registered contractors in your area

Plug In BC

Plug In BC lays the groundwork for plug-in electric vehicles and related electric charging infrastructure in British Columbia. It is a broad collaboration between the Province of BC, BC Hydro, the Fraser Basin Council, several academic institutions, regional governments, and over 100 communities and businesses.

Plug In BC focuses efforts along 5 main themes: vehicle deployment, charging infrastructure, policy development, research, and outreach.

Integrated Community Sustainability Planning

Apply Sustainability Principles in your Community

An Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP) is any existing or new long-term plan, developed in consultation with community members, to help the community realize sustainability objectives within environmental, cultural, social and economic dimensions of its identity.

Background

Integrated Community Sustainability Planning is a provincial initiative which originated from the 2005 Federal/Provincial/UBCM Federal Gas Tax Agreement (GTA). It ties in very closely with provincial interests to address climate change and encourage the development of healthier, less costly and more sustainable communities. The ICSP Initiative goes well beyond the funding opportunities of the GTA. It promotes the development of partnerships within government and beyond to support the growth of community sustainability planning throughout the province over the long-term.

ICSP encourages communities to take a fresh look at their future and find ways to become more sustainable. With ICSP, communities can envision, plan and implement actions to secure their long-term well-being. ICSP builds on existing planning tools. It could be applying sustainability principles to a whole new plan, or to the type of planning a community already has. It provides a framework that helps communities plan for their own needs while ensuring that the needs of future generations are also met.

Principles

Many communities in and beyond BC have identified a vision for sustainability and are engaging in ICSP processes. These innovative planning approaches emphasize:

Long-term thinking – planning and/or plans are future oriented to enhance community sustainability (e.g. communities address the need to become resilient in the face of changing circumstances).

Broad in scope– planning or plans consider the communities’ economic environmental, social and/or cultural sustainability.

Integration – planning processes or plans reflect a co-ordinated approach to enhance community sustainability through linkages between different types of plans or planning activities.

Collaboration – planning processes engage community members and other partners to support community sustainability (e.g. First Nations, neighbouring communities, NGOs, private sector, other levels of government).

Public engagement and education – designing processes that enhance public input into planning processes.

Implementation – keeping plans off the shelf and putting them into action

Monitoring and evaluation – setting targets and tracking results to celebrate progress and focus efforts on areas that need the most improvement.

Concept

The following describes how the Ministry of Community & Rural Development’s (MCD) ICSP initiative is a long-term plan to support community sustainability.

The inner circle of Figure 1 identifies the various components of community sustainability as well as the processes local governments are encouraged to engage in. The outer circle recognizes what others can do (e.g. provincial and federal governments, and the private sector) to support local governments with their ICSP processes.

At the heart of community sustainability are sustainability principles that recognize the need to balance social, environmental, economic, and cultural interests. These are closely connected to:

  • Integrating plans (e.g. linking land use designations to the impact on water supply and transportation)
  • Aligning internal operations to ensure that the local government itself is a leader in sustainability (e.g. the local government operation embraces sustainability principles to guide its policies, regulations, purchasing practices and internal programs).
  • Engaging with community partners and citizens to reinforce sustainability goals (e.g. harnessing the synergies of other programs such as BC Healthy Communities Initiative, the Mountain Pine Beetle Program, Community Action on Energy Efficiency and the Real Estate Foundation’s Communities in Transition program).

ICSP extends to implementation. It challenges communities to ensure that sustainability principles are carried forward into identified strategies and actions. Measuring and monitoring these actions is one further step in the implementation actions.

The outer ring in Figure 1 identifies the actions that need to be taken at levels beyond local governments. It recognizes the need for leadership and vision from senior governments, for collaboration within and between governments and the private sector, and for support for the development of capacity-building tools.

Community Examples

For a comprehensive list of sustainability plan examples from across BC visit FBC’s Smart Planning for Communities page (in the Resources ‘e-binder’ section) and Canadian Sustainability Plan Inventory website.

The ICSP Process

Integrated Community Sustainability Planning can involve a continuum of three phases; Assessment, Core Planning and Implementation.

Assessment/Preparing

The Assessment/Preparing phase can involve a number of different activities from education of the community, staff and local government elected officials to assessment of planning capacity and what is needed to move ahead with ICSP. An ICSP community assessment enables local governments to develop a sense of where they are with current planning and what their capacity is to move forward with ICSP. It allows them to determine their gaps and where they need to start in order to move ahead.

Some communities might start by educating staff and council about sustainability; others might determine ways to ensure their planning processes are more integrated. MCRD has designed a template to help local governments to identify where to begin in this first phase. GTA funding up to $5000 is available to do a community assessment.

Consult the Capacity-Building and ICSP program guide on the UBCM website for information on how to apply for community assessment funding.

Core Planning

The Core Planning phase can be approached two ways: develop a sustainability plan OR apply sustainability thinking /principles to existing plans and policy documents. For several examples of processes and plans visit the Smart Planning E-Binder.

Implementation

The Implementation phase moves plans into action and ensures that plans and actions remain fresh and relevant over time. Beyond the application of a sustainability planning “lens,” local governments are demonstrating that current decision-making frameworks and/or administrative processes may need to be revised to ensure successful implementation of new approaches. Improved governance is one. A number of communities in BC are developing Sustainability Checklists, measures and indicators to help guide decision-making.

Smart Planning for Communities

Smart Planning for Communities (SPC), a program of the Fraser Basin Council, is a BC- wide, collaborative initiative providing resources and tools to local and First Nations governments for planning socially, culturally, economically and environmentally sustainable communities.

Contact us for further information.

Fleet Fuel Data Management System

Tracking fleet-wide fuel use and emissions

What cannot be tracked cannot be managed. A Fuel Data Management System relates the true costs of fleet operations, with respect to fuel consumption, to key decision makers.

A fleet manager can select the most relevant measuring tool of a variety of monitoring and measurement methods, including:

  • Manually entered data
  • Uploaded fuel pump data
  • Fuel card or receipts data
  • On-board vehicle computer data
  • GPS data.

Fuel data management ensures that efficient and accurate fuel consumption and vehicle performance data is recorded and tracked. The understanding gained from this will allow fleet managers to invest in targeted areas that will result in the greatest fuel efficiency increases and emissions reductions. Ongoing monitoring and measurement performance will ensure green fleet action plans remain dynamic and ever-improving.

A fuel data management system will also provide a strong basis to understand performance variation in drivers, vehicles, and departments. The City of Victoria uses on board diagnostic equipment to develop an idling baseline. The City of Williams Lake installed a new fuel storage and dispensing system that allows them to better manage vehicle fuel consumption.

Benefits

A fuel data management system makes every other one of your fleet emissions reductions more effective. It also:

  • Helps identify continuous improvement opportunities
  • Provides detailed measurement of fuel performance
  • Increases benchmarking comparison opportunities
  • Provides accurate cost methods.

Developing a fuel data management system

The key principle of a fuel data management system is always the same: to manage fuel consumption. Local governments can take a variety of approaches to doing this, ranging from manually tracking mileage (with pen and paper) to collecting instant fuel consumption with on board computers. Each local government will be different and find one technique that provides a better cost/benefit than all the rest.

The more actively you can manage your fleet’s fuel consumption, the more effectively your fuel data management system will inform the strategies you take to reduce emissions.

Be sure to always relate fuel consumption into business outputs, such as fuel consumed by distance traveled, hour, tonne, or person and create opportunities to differentiate between business units, vehicles, and employees. This will allow you to take more targeted action and foster the desired change.

Fleet Route Planning

The most efficient path to get the job done

Route planning ensures that the most efficient routes are always taken. It is an excellent way to reduce unnecessary fuel consumption and decrease driving time. Route planning is a financial and organizational improvement exercise and connected to climate action.

Route planning ensures that vehicles optimize loads and minimize empty trips. Improved logistics are used to better coordinate vehicle needs and driving by taking steps, such as clearly defining territory, sequencing stops or route segments to avoid redundancy, and expanding time windows to allow use of roads with lighter traffic.

Global positioning systems (GPS) and geographic information systems (GIS) can aid in mapping and planning regular routes, consistent communication, and strategic scheduling. For local governments, studying and mapping the most fuel efficient routes for community driving are an effective way to reduce emissions.

Route planning ensures that what is done every day is done as efficiently as possible

Start by identifying common activities, destinations, routes, and loads. This will help you understand where you need to get when and help you focus less on the driving and more on the task that results in the driving. Depending on complexity and the way you choose to understand routing, you may want to spend several weeks or months analyzing information. Some methods and components of route planning include:

  • Mapping and planning regular routes
  • Using computerized route planning (including GPS, on-board computer technology, and GIS)
  • Establishing strategic delivery schedules
  • Ensuring consistent communication between drivers and dispatch
  • Considering equipment storage locations.

Ensuring your vehicles run at optimum efficiency is another key component of route planning. Some ways to ensure full carrying capacity and helping you avoid empty or small loads include:

  • Coordinating loads to full permitted weight
  • Using non-time sensitive fill-freight to maximize loads
  • Maximizing back haul trips
  • Establishing strategic delivery schedules
  • Having drivers finish deliveries near next pickup assignment.

Finally, provide your drivers with logistics support. Help them understand where to start and stop to better coordinate their efforts and sequence deliveries to avoid redundancy.

As you begin to save money from reduced fuel consumption, lower maintenance costs, and numerous other benefits related to fuel efficient fleet management, you can take the opportunity to invest in new hardware and software designed to help you optimize the routes your drivers take.

Example

Thompson Nicola Regional District installed remote online turbidity and chlorine monitoring at 11 rural water systems (will eliminate need to physically travel to sight to monitor operations)

Fleet Preventative Maintenance Program

Increasing fuel efficiency and reducing operating costs

Preventative maintenance is one of the most important components of a green fleet strategy. A preventative maintenance program reduces vehicle downtime, helps optimize fuel and emissions performance, and increases awareness of sound maintenance practices. It involves identifying and scheduling regular maintenance and inspection criteria. Both minor and major maintenance should be defined and scheduled regularly to achieve optimal engine performance. Schedule maintenance according to driving distance, engine hours, and/or time period.

Benefits

A preventative maintenance program’s benefits include:

  • Improved fuel performance
  • Improved driver and mechanic / technician satisfaction
  • Reduced emissions and related pollutants
  • Optimal lifetime vehicle utilization
  • Predictable operations and reduced downtime
  • Improved client satisfaction
  • Improved driver safety
  • Higher resale value.

Preventative maintenance is something that every fleet manager will want to do

In setting up a preventative maintenance program, the goal is to identify regular maintenance and inspection criteria for each vehicle, class, or type to ensure optimum engine efficiency and performance. To do so:

  • Identify and understand manufacturer’s maintenance standards
  • Consider warranty requirements
  • Involve all stakeholders – management, drivers, and mechanics / technicians
  • Determine all types of maintenance tasks, from filter changes and proper tire pressure to 90,000 km vehicle tune-ups.

Identify appropriate maintenance and inspection intervals Developing regular procedures to ensure that your fleet’s engines and other parts are running at maximum efficiency will help you save money and the environment. Developing regular procedures to ensure that your fleet’s engines and other parts are running at maximum efficiency will help you save money and the environment and schedule according to your understanding of the vehicles specifications. Design these intervals according to distance or engine hours. While running the program, effective scheduling and supporting checklists allow for effective and efficient maintenance management.

Develop and execute procedures for all stages of vehicle ownership: when vehicles are being considered for purchase, directly after purchase, and during the life of the vehicle (e.g., preventative maintenance). Standardize forms and tasks as much as is effective to ensure clarity and easy use. This will also help when training new employees.

Monitoring and adjusting your preventative maintenance program is as important as setting it up and running it. Ensure that regular record keeping occurs. Track time and duration of repairs, suspected reasons, costs, and anything else that you think would help you better manage your fleet. Analyze the results to refine procedures and schedules and readjust your preventative maintenance program as necessary. Preventative maintenance will be an ongoing learning process.

Combine your efforts with a benchmarking program and a fuel data management system to be as effective as possible. And as always, communicate the importance of this program to all fleet employees as well as your efforts out into the community.

Learn more at E3 Fleet (Fraser Basin Council).

Driver training

Fleet Driver Awareness and Education

Encouraging fuel-efficient driving techniques

A driver awareness program for local government employees communicates fuel efficiency policies, including vehicle usage procedures and fuel efficiency targets and driving techniques. The key goal of the program is to ensure all drivers understand corporate plans, policies, and programs related to climate action.

A driver awareness program can be integrated with existing training programs or regular meetings and include, but do not need to be limited to:

  • Workshops
  • Regular meetings
  • Workplace posters
  • Fuel efficient driving techniques resources
  • Personnel pay stub tip inserts
  • Group emails

Training Programs

A driver training program focuses on training drivers in fuel efficient driving techniques and managers in fuel efficient management techniques. It is driven by the idea that engaging staff (already your largest operating cost) creates a culture of fuel efficiency and taps into the knowledge of those often closest to the vehicles.

Training workshops can be held in-classroom or in-vehicle and should always reflect the needs of business operations. Often it should be an extension of existing training programs. A driver training program is a core element of a green fleet action plan and can be strengthened by a driver incentive program.

Incentive programs

A driver incentive program encourages drivers to practice fuel efficient driving techniques and take climate action by reinforcing a green fleet action plan and related policies. It should be delivered alongside key resources, such as training and equipment, and in an open and fair manner.

The program should be consistent with training and respond to driver preferences. It should be updated on a regular basis to respond to strengths and weaknesses as well as driver concerns.

In the local government context, financial incentives can often be difficult to implement. However, competition and reward systems have been successfully implemented. Driver incentive programs, especially financial, have proven to be an important contributor to emissions reductions at major trucking companies.

Everyone is part of the solution

Implementing an awareness program is a simple step to take and should occur early on in your fleet emissions reduction strategy. For example, the Township of Langley organized a coordinated effort between their fleet operations and environmentally focused employees to enhance their approach to communicating the new GHG reduction program and its importance.

To help determine the costs and benefits of developing an awareness program, identify any awareness needs based on your green fleet action plan strategies and communicate accordingly.

Training programs

Start your training in a classroom scenario by teaching your drivers fuel efficient driving techniques. Coordinate your training program with a driver awareness program and green fleet action plan in order to reinforce the same habits over and over. Training should provide instruction for drivers on how to operate their vehicles efficiently, for managers on how to track emissions reductions, and for mechanics/technicians on how to ensure the fleet will run at optimal engine efficiency.

Start by determining the costs and benefits of redeveloping your current training to include energy efficient techniques. Analyze the raw operating and usage data and identify opportunities for immediate action and activities that result in higher than average fuel consumption. This is one place a fuel data management system comes in handy.

It is important to seek commitment to the program. Identify the job types requiring training and any existing programs. Make sure you have an understanding of job responsibilities, training needs, and key organizational players.

There are numerous resources that provide guidance on fuel efficient training and even consultants that will help you do the job using tested and true techniques. Natural Resources Canada’s FleetSmart Program and E3 Fleet provides consulting support on exactly how to effectively implement a program.

Once developed, implement training as you see fit, ensuring that new employees have access to the same opportunities. Develop a driver incentive program to reinforce the changes if needed.

Incentive Programs

Before implementing incentives, try developing a regular competition for employees to participate in related to reducing emissions and increasing fuel efficiency. Incentive programs are developed to encourage employees to take the actions that will reduce fuel consumption. As such, use your green fleet action plan to understand your incentive needs and try to determine leverage points. Leverage points will allow you to achieve the greatest amount of reductions with the least amount of investment.

Be sure to involve drivers and mechanics/technicians in designing the program to ensure that the incentives will effectively result in behavioural change. Make decisions regarding timing and the reward system and implement your program. Ensure that you continuously review and revise the incentive program to keep it effective and up to date. This likely means removing some incentives and replacing them for others.

Incentive programs should not be the main driver behind GHG reductions. If relied on too much, behavioural change is unlikely to be permanent. It is important to frame the incentives in terms of the objectives of the program and clearly communicate to drivers that they are being put in place to form new habits that will have huge benefits on both the environment and for each employee.

Carefully manage incentive programs. Remember that the goal is to change behaviour permanently, not just during the duration of the incentive program. Make sure that your program is designed so that behavioural changes are not lost if the program is removed. Be careful when removing incentive programs to avoid employee frustration and response.