Edmonton's public school board sets emissions reduction targets for 2035

Edmonton public school trustees have voted unanimously to aim to cut the school division's greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half within 12 years.

The new policy commits the school division to cut carbon emissions 45 per cent below 2021 levels by 2035.

"There's the environment argument, and then there's the economic argument, and it's powerful when the two overlap," board chair Trisha Estabrooks said at a Tuesday meeting.

The board has also committed to cutting emissions five per cent by 2025.

Some trustees said they are nervous about their dependency on funding from provincial and federal governments to make the changes needed to meet these climate goals. They also said the status quo was a poor option.

"It costs money to do nothing as well," trustee Julie Kusiek said.

In 2021, the school board opted to take part in the City of Edmonton's corporate climate leaders program. Participation obligates the school division to set emissions targets for 2025 and 2035.

A 29-page report to school trustees explains the division would start with lower cost, simpler steps to slim down its carbon footprint, then try to secure grants and government funding to make costlier changes in the longer term.

Among the ideas is a plan to join forces with other unnamed "public educational institutions" and purchase a pool of power from renewable sources.

The report also proposes installing more solar panels. The division has solar panel arrays on top of 24 of its 213 school buildings, which it says saves $650,000 a year and offsets 7.5 per cent of power consumption.

Heating and powering division buildings make up 92 per cent of the organization's emissions, the report says.

With carbon taxes escalating, maintaining business as usual could lead to the division's utility costs nearly doubling to $45 million per year by 2035, administrators told the board.

Ben Thibault, a renewable energy consultant and senior strategy adviser at Prairie Sky Strategy in Edmonton, said in a Monday interview the targets are prudent and possible. He was not involved in creating the plan or targets.

Thibault said just finding new sources of power during the next decade could get the school division 90 per cent of the way toward the proposed emissions goal.

The potential cost-savings alone make a good case for switching to renewables, he said.

"In some ways, it's just prudent," he said. "It just makes sense as a matter of good business practice to try and build in more resiliency for your budgeting."

Solar arrays are particularly useful for schools, because they have the roof space to accommodate them, and peak consumption times are when the sun is highest in the sky, Thibault said.

The Edmonton public report also suggests retrofitting old buildings and constructing more energy-efficient new schools, exploring an electric school busing pilot project, and standardized waste sorting in all buildings to divert material from landfills.

Purchasing from environmentally friendly vendors, conserving water use, buying energy-efficient appliances, replacing aging lights and encouraging school-based projects could all help, the report said.

It does not provide a price tag for making the needed improvements.

Risks of setting the targets include the limited available funding to make changes required, the division's growing set of aging buildings, and "changes in the political climate and evolving legislation," among others, the report said.

Thibault said there is a paucity of federal and provincial grants available now to help the nonprofit sector with the upfront costs of energy use and efficiency improvements.

A year ago, the Calgary Board of Education also set greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. That board has pledged to cut emissions 50 per cent below 2010-11 levels by 2030, with a goal of being net zero by 2050.

School boards in Toronto and Waterloo, Ont., have also set emissions reduction targets.