The City of Richmond is excluding the Richmond Olympic Oval from its corporate carbon neutral emissions report after city staff conducted a “thorough reassessment” of provincial reporting requirements.
The city, as an entity unto its own, claims to be carbon neutral, with or without the Oval’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The Oval’s 1,333 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) was 16 per cent of the city’s 8,467 tonnes reported in 2013.
According to the city, the Oval qualifies for exemption from city totals because it’s a subsidiary corporation and thus pays for and uses its own energy.
Under provincial law, Richmond is only required to report direct consumption, such as for city hall, pools, community centres, ice rinks and vehicle fuel.
City spokesperson Ted Townsend said the city chose to withdraw the Oval from future reports to “fully comply” with provincial reporting requirements.
In the same reassessment the city also withdrew 960 tonnes of carbon emissions used by the city’s fleet of vehicles for construction related activities that produce a “benefit” to the community or the city, per provincial regulations, according to Townsend.
For instance, all of the emissions and energy expended to build the new Minoru pool will not be counted against the city in the future.
With or without the Oval, Richmond remains carbon neutral. But, the Oval exemption gives the city more carbon credits than originally thought.
The city’s emissions were offset by 14,085 tonnes of CO2 credited to the city for household and commercial organic waste composting and regional landfill methane gas capturing.
The city gains the former credits because household waste collection is a municipal responsibility. As for methane gas capturing, Richmond takes its regional share from Metro Vancouver.
With 5,618 tonnes to spare, Richmond may use such credits to offset 2014 carbon emissions, according to Townsend, who noted the credits cannot be sold because they are only provincially regulated, by the BC Climate Action Charter, and do not meet international standards required to be eligible for open market sales.
Richmond has taken a number of steps in the past years to reduce its own carbon footprint, which is about one per cent of the overall community; The new Steveston firehall has pending LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold status, while the new Minoru pool is expected to achieve the same. The Oval itself is LEED Silver.
The city claims to have reduced fleet emissions by three per cent since 2007, despite the fleet growing. In large part this is a result of the city’s purchases of hybrid and electric vehicles.
