BC Community Climate Funding Guide

Spurred on by a $100,000 grant from the CleanBC Building Innovation Fund, the City of Fort St. John is constructing a new net-zero-ready home for the community’s RCMP detachment. The building will use significantly less energy than the current station and bring substantial cost savings and emissions reductions to the community. It features locally sourced mass timber, a solar-ready roof, energy-efficient HVAC systems and a thermal performance-maximizing envelope.  

Through a combination of federal and provincial support, the City of Kamloops completed a $13.5 million project to upgrade the energy efficiency of its Canada Games Aquatic Centre. The project started with a need to replace the centre’s critical ageing infrastructure. But – thanks to provincial and federal funding – it turned into an opportunity to simultaneously improve the environmental performance of the building. Bolstered by more than $1.1 million from the provincial government through the CleanBC Communities Fund and $1.37 million from the federal government, the city was able to install a heat-recovery system that uses the heat that evaporates off the pool to warm the new air entering the building. This reduces the centre’s reliance on natural gas and lowers its greenhouse gas emissions – taking Kamloops one important step closer to meeting its climate goals.

A $500,000 grant from Forestry Innovation Investment’s Mass Timber Demonstration Program is helping build one of the first zero-emissions mass timber buildings in Canada. The District of Saanich’s new fire station – slated for completion in 2023 – will feature a steel and timber post-and-beam system with a cross-laminated timber roof, all topped off with solar panels. The station will showcase innovative uses of B.C. wood and serve as a template for how mass timber can be used in a building designed to withstand emergencies – all while meeting ambitious environmental targets.

With a $500,000 boost from the Active Transportation Infrastructure Grant Program, the City of New Westminster is creating the Agnes Greenway, a 1.2 kilometre mixed-use transportation corridor that will link Douglas College and the city’s residential neighbourhood to the Pattullo Bridge. The Agnes Greenway will mean safe walking, wheeling and biking between key locations, with a separated two-way lane for cyclists, improved sidewalks for pedestrians, and new greenspaces with stormwater infrastructure, trees and benches. A second phase of the project will extend the path to the New Westminster SkyTrain station and the city’s waterfront.

Through funding from CleanBC’s Community Energy Leadership Program, the District of Summerland added heat pumps to their wastewater treatment plant (their most energy-intensive major facility) and reduced their energy use by almost 800 gigajoules annually.