The City of Edmonton has launched the Corporate Climate Leaders Program, a new initiative for businesses concerned about climate change and those that want to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions, reduce and conserve energy and promote local generation of energy.
Corporations registered in the program will take inventory of their greenhouse gas emissions, then develop a plan to reduce them through active greenhouse gas (GHG) management. So far, 18 local businesses have registered for the program including, Enbridge Inc., Alberta Health Services, IKEA Edmonton, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), University of Alberta, and West Edmonton Mall.
“Energy sustainability is a key component of the global climate change challenge,” said Linda Coady, chief sustainability officer at Enbridge in a statement.
“That’s why we are diversifying our business and focusing on energy efficiency initiatives across our operations. We believe that we all have a role to play in achieving a lower carbon future.”
Businesses can register in the program until Oct. 12, 2018.
Corporate Climate Leaders will share best practices with respect to emission reduction strategies and advancing low carbon business opportunities. Another purpose of the initiative is to inspire all Edmontonians to help make the city a more energy sustainable one.
According to the annual Climate Change & Energy Perceptions Survey conducted by the City more than 7 out of 10 Edmontonians are concerned about climate change. The survey also found that 72 per cent of the respondents agree that the time to take action is now.
Andrea Soler, senior community strategist, at the City of Edmonton said the survey is an “important tool to gauge citizen attitudes toward climate resilience, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, and more.”
On an encouraging note, this year’s survey found a decrease in the gap between how concerned individual Edmontonians are about climate change (73%) and how concerned they believe other Edmonton residents are as a whole (47%). Although the gap is still wide, it was reduced by 8 per cent from 2017 when only 39 per cent believed other Edmontonians were concerned about climate change.
