Mining and society are intricately connected. We are so dependent upon mining that it is far more realistic to question how, when, and where we will mine than to question if we will mine.
But this brings forth some serious challenges. The resources we depend upon are finite, and we are consuming an ever-increasing amount of them. At the current rate of growth in consumption, it will not be long before we will need more resources than our planet can provide. What will we do then?
More significantly, what can and will we do to prevent this scenario from unfolding?
‘Rethink’ is an exploration into how society can become sustainable and what roles all of us play in achieving this goal. It is a call to action to begin the change now, with the recognition of the factors that can drive or inhibit such change. Most importantly, it is a dialogue on how we get from ‘here’ to ‘there’.
Thanks to a grant from Squamish Savings, myself and one other staff member were able to attend Climate Smart Business training. The training, consisting of three sessions, support for calculating our emissions and generating an action plan, as well as access to GHG emissions tracking software, has provided us with both an emissions baseline as well as specific goals to work towards.
For those that have been following our environmental efforts, you will perhaps wonder why we have engaged in a second audit of our environmental impact so shortly after completing our Greenstep audit back in July.
The second audit builds upon the first in two ways. First, it provides a second independent look at our impacts. Second, the ongoing access to the Climate Smart software will allow us to track our GHG emissions, providing real figures by which to assess our efforts.
So how climate smart are we?
Here are the major findings of our GHG audit as well as what we have identified as potential areas to focus on reducing our emissions from.
For this audit, we used our 2014 numbers for two reasons. First, we used our 2014 numbers for the Greenstep audit. Using the same data makes comparing the recommendations easier. Second, using 2015 as our baseline would have required estimating our emissions for December, as we needed to submit our measures in November.
The largest contributor to our GHG emissions was staff commuting, accounting for close to 39% of our total emissions. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise, given our somewhat isolated location. Carpooling is the most obvious method to attack this emissions source, at least for those staff whose work demands their physical presence at the Museum site. We have had several staff members organize their own carpools, but we have not attempted to create a carpool mentality to date, which is something we will need to explore. Carpooling, combined with remote working, offer the potential to significantly reduce our emissions with little investment, making this a priority action step.
The second largest contributor to our emissions was heating. When it comes to heating at the Museum, two locations immediately stand out. Both of these locations are heated by propane. The first is our woodshop, which being a historic building is not insulated. The second is our gold panning water. Over the past couple years, we have made small improvements to the wood shop, but there is still a fair amount more we can do. On the smaller scale, we can take steps to better seal the building. On a larger scale, we can look at ways to insulate it. Gold panning presents a different set of challenges. The reason it is heated is not for visitor comfort. Wet hands are not pleasant when the cold winds are blowing through in December, no matter how warm the water in the troughs is. The water is heated to prevent freezing. It currently however is quite warm, and because the water is constantly flowing out of the troughs and into the adjacent pond, the heating system runs all day long. Options include: turning down the water flow at night, but not so low as to allow algae to grow, and covering the troughs with thermal blankets; reducing the temperature of the water to the minimum needed to prevent freezing; and evaluation of not operating the gold panning area during the winter months (or longer-term, closing it in). Unfortunately, we do not have a breakdown of how much propane is used by each of these areas, but together the propane usage accounts for 26% (rounded up) of our GHG emissions for 2014.
The third largest contributor to our emissions was garbage; contributing 14% (rounded up) to our GHG emissions for 2014. Our garbage generation will need to be tackled on two fronts – internal and visitor generated. Internally, we have implemented programs to reduce our waste from our staff kitchens as well as the gift shop. We are still examining ways to further reduce our internal waste generation, including how to reduce the waste from exhibit development. The more difficult challenge is reducing the waste generated by our guests. We recently purchased new waste receptacles, made possible with a grant from the Whistler Blackcomb Foundation Envirofund, which we hope will improve the separation of materials at time of disposal. Longer term, we will need to look at how we can eliminate landfill-bound waste production for our guests while on site.
The chart below is from our Climate Smart GHG report.
Our next step is to assess what actions we can do short term and long term to reduce our GHG emissions. The strength of the Climate Smart program is their GHG tracking software. It is one thing to say ‘let’s fix this’. It is quite another to be able to say ‘by doing X, we have reduced our emissions by Y metric tonnes CO2 equivalent since we began tracking’. These measurements will move us from making ‘feels good’ changes to making climate smart changes.