Community Sustainability

Achievements

• Electric Vehicles, E-Bikes & Charging Stations

  The City is actively expanding its fleet of electric vehicles and e-bikes. Here’s what we have:

  • One electric (zero emissions) Zamboni, with a second on order, to arrive soon
  • One full electric vehicle for the operational fleet plus 2 more on order, to arrive soon
  • 4 electric cargo bikes
  • Series of hybrid vehicles
  • One hybrid bucket truck

   

  Transportation accounts for 55% of Penticton’s annual community greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, largely due to gasoline and diesel emissions from passenger and commercial vehicles.

  An effective method to lower GHG emissions is to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). Each gasoline vehicle replaced by a battery-electric vehicle is estimated to reduce emissions by 4 tonnes per year.

  EV Charging Stations 

  The City owns and operates EV charging stations and is working with multi-unit residential buildings to offer EV Ready Plans. 

   

• LED Streetlight Conversion

  This showcase energy-saving project completed in 2016 involved converting the existing High Pressure Sodium (HPS) streetlights to high-efficiency LED streetlights.

  More than 3,000 HPS streetlights were changed out to LED equivalents, reducing annual energy consumption by approximately 1 million kWh and greenhouse gas emissions by 750 metric tonnes per year. For this project, the City of Penticton was awarded a FortisBC Efficiency in Action award for energy conservation.

• Home Energy Loan Program (HELP)

  Do you want to save money on your electricity bills, but aren’t sure which home retrofit projects will help? And would you like an affordable financing option to do the renovations?

  Penticton residents are offered HELP with the City’s Home Energy Loan Program, which provides a loan service to complete energy-efficient upgrades to your home. It can work in conjunction with Fortis BC's HERO Program, which offers rebates for insulation, air sealing and more.

  Visit the HELP page to learn more and to find out how to apply.

• Bike Lanes and Encouraging Active Transportation

  Our bike-friendly city is home to a growing network of paths and routes that will connect you to lakes, parks, schools and businesses. This includes the Lake-to-Lake Bike Route, which provides a protected cycling route from Okanagan Lake to Cherry Lane Shopping Centre, with plans to extend the route to Skaha Lake, providing a safe and flat connection between the two lakes.

  Visit our Active Transportation page to find out more.

• Investing in Bike Parking and Amenities

  Getting around by bike means relying on safe and convenient places to park. We are continuously adding new bike racks throughout public spaces, while also working with businesses and residential buildings to help increase the number of bike racks on private properties.

  Visit our Bike Parking & Amenities webpage

• Developing a CommuniTREE Plan for our Urban Forest

  The City of Penticton is preparing an Urban Forest Management Plan - our Official CommuniTREE Plan. Through public engagement and best practices, the plan will establish a community vision for Penticton’s urban forest and set a course for achieving that vision over the next 20 years. It will also map Penticton’s urban forest to establish a baseline of information that can be used in future years to measure progress on implementation. The public will have opportunities to share their priorities for urban forest management during development of the plan.

  Find out more

• BC Energy Step Code

  Penticton was an early adopter and promoter of voluntary options within the BC Energy Step Code, and beginning in 2019, encouraged builders to adopt Step One for new family dwellings.

  Today, the City requires the adoption of Step Three, which provides energy efficiencies of nearly 20 per cent over new homes built following basic compliance.

  Visit our Green Build page to learn more.

• Net Metering Program

  Net metering is available for customers who use solar panels or other renewable energy generators. This makes it possible to connect to the power grid while reducing your environmental impact.

  Customers can install renewable energy generators such as wind, hydro, solar or geothermal on their premises to produce energy. They will receive a retail value credit for the electricity they produce with systems designed up to 50kW capacity. Any excess energy produced will be credited back to the customer at the existing rate for their class code each month.

  Visit our Net Metering page to learn more.

• Cool It! Climate Action Program

  During the 2022/23 school year, the City of Penticton provided support to the BC Sustainable Energy Association’s (BCSEA) Cool It! Climate Leadership Training Program in partnership with First Things First Okanagan (FTFO). Ultimately, the Cool It! Program was delivered to six elementary classes, reaching 155 students. These students collectively completed 948 actions focused on climate change and sustainability. Scroll down on this webpage to read more about this program. 

Action Plans

• Community Climate Action Plan

  The City has updated the Community Climate Action Plan in 2020-2021 in order to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions and energy use, and to consider actionable climate adaptation measures. 

  The Community Climate Action Plan (CCAP) provides policies and actions that provide guidance for future decision-making to help us achieve our targets. Actions include improving the energy efficiency of buildings, improving alternative transportation methods (such as bike routes), and reducing and diverting waste from landfills, to list a few.

  We are committed to reporting our greenhouse gas emissions while implementing strategies to ensure our community becomes more energy-efficient.

  Read the 2021 Community Climate Action Plan

• Corporate Energy and Emissions Plan

  Following the adoption of the Community Climate Action Plan in 2021, City Council is now looking closer to home when it comes to reducing emissions by passing the Corporate Energy and Emissions Plan.

  The purpose of this plan is to reduce corporate greenhouse gas emissions and energy use, and to consider actionable climate adaptation measures.

  The new targets for corporate emissions are a short-term target of 25 per cent below 2009 levels by 2025 and a long-term target of net zero by 2050. The plan also calls for an energy reduction target of 15 per cent below 2009 levels by 2030.

  The plan is broken down into five categories:

  1.     New buildings and infrastructure
  2.     Existing buildings and infrastructure
  3.      Renewable energy
  4.     Transportation
  5.      Enabling action and corporate leadership

   

  Read the Corporate Energy and Emissions Plan

   

• Video: Love our Blue Skies? A Message from our Local Youth

• Video: Developing the Penticton Climate Action Plan

• BC Climate Action Charter

  The Okanagan is one of three places in Canada identified as having Nationally Significant Biodiversity. Penticton is a signatory to the BC Climate Action Charter to take action on climate change. This involves measuring and reporting our greenhouse gas emissions while implementing strategies to ensure our community is complete, compact and energy-efficient.

• Benefits to Reducing Energy Use

  • Decreasing the dependence on fossil fuels helps to minimize vulnerability to fluctuating energy markets.
  • Managing carbon emissions helps to minimize impacts on climate change.
  • Promoting a green economy (clean technologies, renewable energies, water services, green transportation, waste management, green buildings and sustainable agriculture and forests) can create new jobs and business opportunities.
  • The activities that support energy conservation are aligned with other sustainable community objectives such as building compact, complete communities, more efficient infrastructure, walkable neighbourhoods, and protection of farmland and natural areas.

Test Your House’s Energy Efficiency

Cool It! Climate Action Program

• More Details about the Cool It! Climate Action Program

  The program has two main components: an interactive climate change education workshop delivered at the commencement of the program, followed by participation in a four-week, action-focused climate challenge

  Students were given a Climate Challenge Card - an interactive PDF document containing 25 unique actions that could be used digitally or printed out and completed by hand. When an action is completed, students check-off the corresponding square on the card as well as enter additional answers 3 and information where required.

  In the workshops, all students explored the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change, and learnt about taking climate action with their friends and families and in their local communities.

  Students’ actions through their participation in the Cool It! Climate Challenge resulted in an estimated total reduction of 36.7 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (tCO2e).

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Fuel Free...Almost

Local Government Climate Action Program (LGCAP)

• LGCAP Reports

  Here are the latest reports, available for download: 

  2023 LGCAP survey submission report

  2022 LGCAP survey submission report 

• CARIP Reports

  CARIP provided funding support to local governments in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move forward with achieving their climate action goals.  This program is no longer operating. The following reports show how the City met the Climate Action Revenue Incentive Program requirements in previous years.

  • 2018 
  • 2017 
  • 2016 
  • 2015 
  • 2014 
  • 2013