Town of Caledon July 2019

Working with people and technology to inspire climate action

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How technology and people have inspired sustainability and climate action in Ontario

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TOWN OF CALEDON

Katelyn McFadyen, Manager of Energy and Environment for the Town of Caledon, discusses the push for sustainability through the use of technology and empowering the people behind climate action

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aledon, located in southern Ontario and an hour’s drive from Toronto, is a shining example of the positive impact that can

be generated through sustainability initiatives at 04

the municipal level. Katelyn McFadyen, Manager of Energy and Environment at the Town of Caledon, and Cristina Guido, the Energy and Environment Specialist in McFadyen’s team, are enthusiastic and passionate about the impactful initiatives being enacted across the municipality. “I think it’s safe to say that, no matter the size of the municipality, you’re still able to be creative when addressing climate change,” says McFadyen. “The Energy and Environment division is responsible for providing corporate and community stakeholders with guidance and tools for addressing climate change, energy management and sustainable operations practices,” says McFadyen. “We do a lot of research and facilitation to build corporate and community capacity, so that projects that address climate change can be implemented collaboratively and effectively.”

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“ Energy consumption in buildings is our number one contributor to corporate GHG emissions” — Katelyn McFadyen, Manager of Energy and Environment w w w.c a l ed on . ca

TOWN OF CALEDON

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“ We were recognized by the Mayor’s Megawatt Challenge for a 10% reduction in energy usage in our Town Hall” — Cristina Guido, Energy and Environment Specialist

The overarching aims of the Town’s corporate environmental initiatives can be boiled down to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and maximizing the efficiency of buildings and transport networks. “Energy consumption in buildings is our number one contributor to corporate GHG emissions,” says McFadyen. Guido is currently working on updating the Town’s corporate five-year energy management plan, which is set to be released in 2019. “It’s a requirement of the provincial government, but we took this as an opportunity to go beyond provincial regulations and expand this to broader corporate GHG emissions,” says Guido. “We’re assessing strategies to enhance operations and maintenance, and get our buildings to be as efficient as possible.” Through a collaborative partnership with the Town’s Corporate Energy Team, a group made up of the Town’s building operations specialists, Caledon is working to minimize emissions stemming from its buildings. This is being done through enhanced operational efficiency and conservation-focused retrofits. “We’re very

Recieving the award from Mayor Allan Thompson

fortunate to have the level of engage-

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘CAPTURE CALEDON’ 07 ment from our Building Operations

a software developed by Natural

Team that we do,” says McFadyen.

Resources Canada, a department of

“They’re an incredible group of people

the Canadian Government. It stream-

who’ve totally embraced our corporate

lines the Town’s building benchmarking

strategy and are actively engaged in

initiative as well as visualizing progress

– and excited about – efforts to

on Caledon’s goals. “RETScreen

leverage opportunities and retrofits to

allows us to normalize for variables that

reduce energy consumption.”

drive energy consumption which staff

At the outset of her time with the

cannot control, such as weather. This

Town of Caledon, Guido was pivotal in

allows us to isolate factors such as

the development of the Town’s building

heating degree days, cooling degree

benchmarking initiative that McFady-

days, and the number of days arena ice

en’s team has since used as a powerful

is operational in facilities. For some

indicator of building efficiency. The

facilities, we also look at recreation

project is driven by RETScreen Expert,

building booking hours and how this w w w.c a l ed on . ca

TOWN OF CALEDON

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influences their energy performance,”

Another major area of focus is

says Guido. “We also use RETScreen

transport, with McFadyen’s team

to monitor progress towards our

working not only to reduce the GHG

reduction targets. For example, our

impact of Caledon’s fleet but also to lay

current corporate energy management

the groundwork for future vehicular

plan has a target of a 9% reduction in

solutions. “One of our main focuses

building energy consumption, and we

with Town-owned vehicles will be

use the software to monitor how close

developing a corporate green fleet

we are to reaching that target,”

strategy and doing some modelling to

explains Guido. Caledon is well on its

see what types of lower-emission fuels

way to meeting its current goals, and

are less harmful to the environment,”

McFadyen enthuses that doing so is

says Guido. Progress has already been

just the beginning.

made in this area, with McFadyen 09

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Katelyn McFadyen Katelyn McFadyen is Manager of the Energy and Environment Division at the Town of Caledon. Having completed her Master’s degree in Environmental Sustainability at the University of Edinburgh, McFadyen has worked at the Town for almost six years as a key driver of the Town’s environmental portfolio successes. In her previous role as Energy and Environment Officer, McFadyen launched the Corporate Energy Team and established the Town’s Corporate Energy Revolving Fund, a self-sustaining fund that financially enables energy retrofits in Town facilities. McFadyen is currently updating the Town’s community climate change mitigation and adaptation action plan, driving the implementation of the Peel Climate Change Strategy, and leading the Energy and Environment Division.

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TOWN OF CALEDON

$100mn+ 1974 Annual budget for 2019

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Year founded

350+

Approximate number of employees

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The Savings by Design program helps builders improve energy and environmental performance in new construction projects.

When a building model exceeds the Ontario Building Code’s energy performance requirements by 15% (combined gas and electrical savings), it becomes eligible for incentive funding.

Savings

by Design Program

The Town of Caledon Southfields Community Centre Conceptual Rendering

TOWN FACILITY ADOPTS ENERGY EFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES EXPLORING ALTERNATIVE OPPORTUNITIES TO SAVE ENERGY The Savings by Design program offers many options to help customers build resiliency into their projects, lowering long-term operational and ongoing energy costs. A Visioning Session helps define project requirements and sustainability priorities by exploring site, regulatory, and market conditions. Issues are then identified and prioritized in the Integrated Design Process Session (IDP).

At the full-day IDP workshop, a team of design experts in sustainable building, lighting, HVAC, storm water management, and planning explore possible design improvements to the building. The team works with the SBD experts to explore alternative opportunities to save energy and meet the goals of the program.

Real-time modelling allows the team to explore energy savings measures with immediate feedback on the energy impacts. After the workshop, SBC delivers a final energy model based on the ECMs selected as well as a report summarizing the discussions of the day.

The Town of Caledon has a Corporate Green Building Standard that requires LEED Silver certification for all new facilities over 10,000 square feet. When planning its new recreation facility at Kennedy Road and Dougall Avenue, the Town of Caledon turned to Enbridge Gas and Savings by Design.

“The Savings by Design program presented a strong alignment with our Council-approved building standard,” says Katelyn McFadyen, Manager, Energy and Environment, Finance and Infrastructure Services.

“It provided an integrated learning opportunity between Town staff and the project consulting team. All the parties came together to share information about facility construction best practices and energy efficient technologies.”

The 65,000 square foot Southfields Community Centre contains a pool, fitness area, library, OPP station, youth and seniors space, and a community hub containing a Montessori School, Parent Child Centre and other community partners. A groundbreaking ceremony took place in the fall of 2017.

A significant outcome of the Savings by Design program, according to the Town of Caledon, was the integrated learning opportunity about construction best practices, technologies and approaches available to reduce energy consumption, plus methods to improve the management of stormwater.

The SBD program also had a direct impact on projects beyond Southfields Community Centre. “We invited staff outside of the project to expand their knowledge capacity and understand the justification for the construction of high performing facilities.”

INTEGRATED DESIGN WORKSHOP Sponsored by Enbridge and facilitated by Sustainable Buildings Canada (SBC), Savings by Design provides incentive funding for projects to engage in an integrated design workshop process with real-time energy modelling.

Enbridge offered the Town of Caledon free access to a team of multidisciplinary experts to explore high performance building energy targets as well as other environmental objectives including wellness, low impact design, water management, and more.

“Although some of the stormwater management technologies and approaches presented during the SBD workshop were not integrated into the Southfields Community Centre, these practices were integrated into other facility construction projects in Caledon,” adds McFadyen.

For more information, visit savingsbydesign.ca

“ We were recognized by the Mayor’s Megawatt Challenge for a 10% reduction in energy usage in our Town Hall” — Cristina Guido, Energy and Environment Specialist

noting that the Town has developed a strong foundation for future electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure. “For a municipality of 70,000, we’re really proud that we have 13 publicly available EV charging stations, and six plug-in hybrid vehicles in our fleet,” she adds, noting that these successes are of particular importance to Caledon with its geographically large landscape.

Through the Peel Climate Change Partnership, which involves the municipal governments of the Region of Peel, Town of Caledon, Cities of Mississauga and Brampton, Credit

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Cristina Guido Cristina Guido is the Energy and Environment Specialist with the Town of Caledon. Guido has her Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from York University in Toronto, and has recently received the Business Energy Professional certification from the Association of Energy Engineers. Guido has been with the Town since 2015, beginning in the role of a student and progressing to her current full-time role. She is driven by her passion for climate change mitigation and is inspired to make a change in the community that she grew up in.

Guido continues to lead the Town’s corporate energy and environmental initiatives.

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TOWN OF CALEDON

Valley Conservation Authority, and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, Caledon is helping to develop a new regional strategy to accelerate the adoption of low-emission and zero-emission vehicles by residents and businesses in Peel Region. Further actions earmarked for improvement in this area include a ramp-up of vehicle maintenance to maximize efficiency, as well as optimizing fleet route selection. “We’ve installed a GPS-based system into every vehicle in our fleet which could, for example, optimize 14

routes for snow removal in the winter,” says McFadyen.

Automation-based technologies are also playing a part in the Town’s sustainability drive, such as the deployment of smart thermostats through many of its buildings and an algorithmic tool that collates utility bill data in the back end of Caledon’s energy management software. The benefits of such upgrades are far reaching: by being able to remotely control a building’s internal climate, McFadyen notes that operations teams no longer have to travel between locations to make adjustments, thereby reducing transport-based emissions. The algorithmic solution

mitigates the risk of additional costs or disruptions accruing through mishandled or misinterpreted data, provides alert reports with consumption anomalies and enhances administrative elements of processing utility bills.

The efficacy of these endeavors has been reflected in the awards that McFadyen’s team has received.

“We were recognized by the Mayor’s Megawatt Challenge for a 10% reduction in energy usage in our Town Hall, and received similar recognitions for two of our recreation complexes,” says Guido, highlighting a handful of the many awards received from local associations and climate action drivers – but for the team, the satisfaction lies in the results themselves. “Something we really value is that once you implement a project you can see its results,” says Guido. “We can see these retrofits and then, on the data side, we can measure and see that they are saving energy and reducing emissions. It’s amazing to see the impact of our work and to know that we are making a difference.”

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6311 Old Church Road, Caledon Ontario L7C 1J6 T 905.584.2272 www.caledon.ca