It has been said many times that Whistler has its work cut out for it if it wants to hit the ambitious climate targets the municipality has set for the year 2030. The thing is, many of the measures meant to significantly reduce emissions—optimizing waste streams, retrofitting the Meadow Park Sports Centre, and increasing energy standards beyond the provincial baseline for new buildings, among others—have already been completed or are well on their way.
That’s part of the reason why the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) has set its sights on large commercial buildings, which are, after passenger vehicles, the second biggest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the community, representing 24 per cent of Whistler’s total GHG output in 2021. (Passenger vehicles made up 52 per cent.)
Falling under Big Move 5 of the RMOW’s so-called Big Moves Climate Action Implementation Plan, the local government has set a target of reducing emissions from large commercial buildings by 40 per cent, and residential buildings by 20 per cent, from 2007 levels in the next seven years. So far, building emissions have declined only six per cent from 2007.
It is, admittedly, an uphill battle.
“Reducing emissions from existing buildings is especially challenging,” according to the RMOW’s 2020 Big Moves report. “While technical solutions are available, from replacing individual building components such as windows or updating furnaces, to comprehensive overhauls of the whole building, few if any jurisdictions have successfully scaled up strong action that materially reduces emissions from the existing buildings sector.”
A strong appetite
Part of the challenge is that many of the measures to reduce emissions have come from one-time efforts, such as declining the GHG intensity of hydroelectricity locally, and Whistler’s shift from propane to natural gas. Due to declining costs, the RMOW said natural gas connections have increased, and commercial consumption rose 21 per cent between 2015 and ’20, before the anomaly of the pandemic reduced emissions resort-wide.
An effort that began in 2019 that was hampered by COVID-19, the RMOW intends to re-engage the commercial building sector, and primarily hotels, on ways they can reduce operational emissions, including building retrofits.
Without much in the way of legislative tools to force hotels’ hands, the RMOW is “taking an educational approach to connect hotel management with information and resources about reducing operational emissions,” efforts that are in the early stages, a municipal communications official said in an email.
“We have to look at our toolbox of incentives,” Councillor Arthur De Jong said. “The obvious incentive is the economic upside of becoming more energy efficient; how much savings our hotels can achieve by being more energy efficient.”
Saad Hasan, past chair of the Whistler Hotel Association, told Pique there is a strong appetite from the sector to optimize energy use, and that many resort hotels took the downtime the pandemic afforded to upgrade their facilities.
“The reason for that [appetite] being strong is that many association members, hotels, have bigger brands and … those brands also have their own targets, which are quite often fairly aggressive,” Hasan explained.
That much is true for the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, owned by French multinational company, Accor. The Fairmont’s sustainability chair, Robyn Gallagher, said the luxury Upper Village hotel has already implemented measures to reduce its propane use, installed low-flow showerheads and LED lights throughout the building, and is considering adding electric vehicles to its currently all-gas-powered fleet.
Building retrofits, however, may prove a taller task, given the steep cost.
“Some of those buildings were built in the ’70s. That’s a long time, and [some buildings are] held together with a little duct tape, probably. So, how do we make sure that those businesses can still survive when we’ve just come off of COVID?” Gallagher said. “I think it is an amazing thing we’re trying to do, to cut down on these greenhouse gases, but we still need to make sure there’s space at the table for everyone to be able to do that.”
Tracking emissions
Although the Fairmont and other resort hotels already have energy tracking installed, the systems don’t often drill down further than the building’s overall energy output. Gallagher said one way the RMOW could assist hotels is through providing a consistent tracking system across all hotels and commercial buildings that could identify energy output by specific use.
“We’re really re-looking at the way we track things. Right now, Accor itself has given us a new program to track all the propane, all the natural gases, all of that stuff coming out. So we’re trying to figure out where our footprint is, and I think that’s going to be the bigger [issue] right now: getting everyone onboard with the same tracking program,” she said.
De Jong pointed to an initiative the City of New York—which has a similar target of reducing covered buildings’ emissions by 40 per cent by 2030— has implemented that requires all buildings covered under Local Law 97 to file a report with the City detailing their emissions performance by May 1, 2025, and then every year thereafter.
“I believe that New York City has the most progressive policy on commercial building operations in North America,” De Jong said. “As I understand it, it’s not heavily prescriptive, it’s more, ‘Here are the goals, find a way to achieve them.’”
Between grants, tax breaks, in-kind advertising of sustainable hotels, and streamlined development and building permits, there are several perks local hoteliers would potentially like to see to help incentivize these efforts.
“Because much of this change requires approvals and development permits and things like that, those should be readily available to anyone who wants them,” Hasan said.
A possible barrier to this work that Hasan foresees is the fact many hotel properties in Whistler are managed by stratas, which may be reluctant to take on the costly work required.
“How will the municipality help some of the disparate stratas, both commercial and residential? They are not driven by bigger brands and they may or may not have the deep pockets to make these changes,” he explained. “What some of the bigger hotels have been able to do is bring in a lot of information, contacts and ideas to councils, and councils have been very receptive to move with it.”
The RMOW said it is still in the planning stages of its engagement with the hotel sector, and will share more information as it becomes available.
