Project Profile

Climate Smart Training Program
The Bottom Line Approach to Addressing Climate Change

PROJECT SNAPSHOT

Clients: The Whistler Chamber of Commerce in association with the Resort Municipality of Whistler and Ecotrust Canada. The first cohort of businesses enrolled in the training program: Nicklaus North Golf Course, Merlin Air Custom Charters Inc., Canadian Snowmobile Adventures, Whistler Real Estate Co. Ltd, Glacier Creek Contracting Ltd, Coast Blackcomb Suites at Whistler, Gone Eatery, Blackcomb Snowmobiles Ltd., Whistler Housing Authority, The Players Chophouse, & the Great Glass Elevator Candy Shop.

Key Deliverable: Climate Smart is a comprehensive, business case focused training program that takes enterprises through the process of creating a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and developing effective reduction strategies with a focus on cost savings and brand lift.  It trains key staff and provides the tools necessary for businesses to become more competitive in this era of carbon regulation and volatile energy prices.

Our Role: The Whistler Centre for Sustainability (WCS) along with the Climate Smart Team (a subsidiary of Ecotrust Canada), work to market, recruit and deliver Climate Smart training to the business community. In the case of Whistler, the WCS co-hosted the training workshops, facilitated the learning sessions, and helped to develop the course curriculum, focusing on the business case analysis of identified reduction strategies.

Timeline: First Whistler Cohort - June 2009 to Dec 2009

PROJECT DETAILS

The WCS continued to support Whistler’s ongoing transition to a lower carbon economy by training a cohort of 11 local companies (all members of the Whistler Chamber of Commerce) to increase their understanding of their business-specific carbon footprints, evaluate the results of their energy inventories, and ultimately adapt their operations toward a better way of doing business. The program is now being replicated in other communities, such as those on Vancouver's North Shore.

During the fall and early winter of 2009, a number of Whistler SME’s (small and medium sized enterprises) took on the climate change leadership challenge and put their collective shoulders to the greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) grindstone – and moreover they are each quite likely to improve their financial bottom lines while they’re at it.

In 2008, direct carbon emissions from Whistler’s commercial, residential and institutional sectors tallied just more than 126,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). While this represents a two per cent reduction compared to 2007, and is more than 10 per cent below 2000 levels, the Whistler community still has a long way to go to achieve its Official Community Plan climate protection goal of a 33 percent reduction from 2007 levels by 2020. To reach this goal-- there is little doubt that Whistler needs demonstrated leadership across all sectors of the community.

To begin to meet this need, an innovative shared learning program delivered by Climate Smart and the Whistler Centre for Sustainability (WCS) was initiated. Supported by the Resort Municipality of Whistler’s (RMOW) Climate Action and Innovation Fund and the Whistler Chamber of Commerce, the first cohort of climate leaders was assembled from June to December 2009 to go through the full training program.

The first step in the program was to guide the cohort through the process of compiling a full inventory of their respective energy expenditures and carbon emissions. Working with these new baseline inventories, the WCS helped to teach skills and techniques for setting reduction targets and evaluating the return on investment (ROI) for specific energy and emissions reduction strategies.

The first six organizations within the cohort to finalize their inventories and start into their reduction strategies had a collective carbon footprint of approximately 2,200 tCO2e, with an average individual footprint of roughly 350 tCO2e/year. Evaluating these inventories revealed that the largest sources of emissions were related to travel and transportation, followed by space heating, landfilled wastes and electricity.

Of course, most important are the new reduction strategies developed by the businesses, highlights of which include:

• a workplace social marketing campaign for improving energy conservation at Gone Bakery, Moguls and Zogs;
• a fuel efficiency based fleet replacement and waste reduction strategy at Canadian Snowmobiles;
• a tenant communication strategy aimed at reducing building energy use at the Whistler Housing Authority;
• installation of occupancy sensors and a waste reduction strategy at Nicklaus North Golf Club;
• fleet efficiency investments for tours and guest transport at Blackcomb Snowmobiles;
• increased use of biodiesel and an improved ride sharing program at Glacier Creek Contracting;
• more occupancy sensors, LED lights and expanded in-room recycling bins in guest rooms at Coast Blackcomb Suites at Whistler; as well as
• a full climate neutrality commitment from Peak Ventures.

We are hosting the next Whistler cohort in May and June 2010. We also offer Climate Smart training elsewhere in BC. For more information, contact Dan Wilson, Tourism Business and Monitoring Specialist at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .