Winnipeg councillors consider retrofits for city buildings to cut greenhouse gas emissions

The City of Winnipeg is looking for ways to save money on its carbon taxes by reducing the greenhouse gas emissions at some of its buildings.

The water and waste committee passed a motion on Monday calling on the city to come up with a list of 15 buildings, or $80 million in retrofits. 

Committee chair Brian Mayes (St. Vital) brought forward the motion. The federal carbon tax is a strong motivator, he said.

"There are moral reasons to do this, environmental reasons to do it, but also now there's very much a financial lever, so I think that's important," he said.

The carbon tax is set to go up every year until it reaches $170 per tonne of carbon by 2030.

Part of the report, expected to come back by September, will calculate how much the city could pay if it takes no action on retrofitting its buildings, Mayes said. That will help inform councillors' discussions heading into the next four-year budget process later this year.

There are a number of decades-old buildings owned by the city that could be candidates for retrofits.

"We've got a number of arenas, almost all built between [1962 and 1972]. Couldn't we do something around that? So hopefully that will be part of this puzzle," Mayes said.

The motion got support from the advocacy group Sustainable Building Manitoba.

Retrofits will create jobs and could reduce the cost of living for Winnipeggers, said executive director Laura Tyler.

"There are so many additional benefits, in addition to saving money, and … taking action on the environment, and making sure we're cutting GHG emissions," she said.

"We just want to make sure that we don't get caught in just focusing on the money and not developing some of those other benefits."

While there are benefits to making the city's buildings more efficient, Tyler wants the city to go farther and push for new building codes for private homes and commercial buildings.

Another motion heading to the property committee later this week could do just that.

The motion from St. Boniface Coun. Matt Allard would call on the province to adopt the federal net-zero-ready building code immediately.

It also calls for the province to make the highest standard in the new code the minimum requirement by 2025, five years earlier than the federal plans.

"We need to make sure that the new buildings are not adding to the existing problems," Tyler said.

"Winnipeg has one of the oldest building stocks in the country, and so we need to think beyond just the municipally-owned buildings."

Methane capture motion

The water and waste committee also considered a motion from Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt to identify all landfills that are still emitting methane and to find ways of capturing it.

There are around 33 former landfill sites within the city of Winnipeg. 

The committee voted to receive that motion as information, meaning they plan to take no action on it.

The city already studied the issue in a report from December 2021. The report found that of the 33 sites, only the Summit Landfill and Kilcona Landfill produce enough methane to meet the criteria for reporting for the National Pollution Release Inventory.

The city is currently burning off methane emissions at the Brady Road Landfill, but is exploring ways of capturing and selling it.

Both motions from Mayes and Wyatt will go to council for a final vote later this month.