Comptrollership Insights Series: Integrating Greening Commitments into Comptrollership (COR4-V03)

Transcript: Integrating Greening Commitments into Comptrollership

[00:00:01 Text appears on screen: "Welcome.]

[00:00:06 The screen fades to Jocelyne Charron.]

Jocelyne Charron (Executive Director, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat): Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. My name is Jocelyne Charron. I am the Executive Director of Comptrollership Community Development and Oversight. I am coming to you from the Office of the Comptroller General and I am pleased to present the first segment of our new series on comptrollership insights.

[00:00:32 A slide is shown with the text: "Comptrollership Insights Series: Integrating Greening Commitments into Comptrollership".]

And today, we are going to discuss the topic of integrating greening commitments into comptrollership. A subject I am very passionate about and I hope will be of interest to you. So, thank you for being with us today.

You will also have the opportunity to interact with us later. I will explain how. Before we begin, I would like to do a land acknowledgement.

[00:00:59 A slide is shown with the text:

"We respectfully acknowledge the land on which we gather as the ancestral homelands of First Peoples. We recognize all First Peoples who were here before us, those who live with us now, and the seven generations to come. As First Peoples have done since time immemorial, we strive to be responsible stewards of the land and to respect the cultures, ceremonies, and traditions of all who call it home. As we open our hearts and minds to the past, we commit ourselves to working in a spirit of truth and reconciliation to make a better future for all."]

I want to highlight that I am joining you from the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation, so, from the territory of the Outaouais region. But since many of you are joining from different parts of the country, I invite you to take a moment to recognize and honour the traditional Indigenous territory you are on, important because many of you are joining us from across Canada, so as well, a moment for you to recognize the unceded territories in which you're joining from, and welcome, everyone.

[00:01:41 A slide is shown with the text:

"Reminders"

"Wooclap Code: ZERO26"

"Reference Materials – English Presentation, French Presentation"

"Q&A – There will be time for questions at the end. You are also welcome to submit questions at any time using the Q&A feature."]

Today's session will take place in both official languages and will include segments entirely in French or segments entirely in English. I will try to help you navigate when there is a language change so that you can choose the interpretation service that is best for you. So, to access the interpretation service, please use the interpretation feature of your virtual meeting platform and select your preferred language.

We will also use, and you have on screen the barcode or QR code. Wooclap, and I invite you to take your mobile device and join with the code ZERO26. And this will essentially allow you to interact with us because we have a few questions we are going to ask you to make the segment interactive. In addition, you can access the reference materials. There are materials that have been developed by our experts today which will hopefully increase your knowledge of greening. I am having trouble with that name, but that's okay, we will get better with that during the session.

So, the detailed materials are available in both official languages and that can be kept after the session and shared with your teams or discussed as a team afterwards. A brief overview of the session. This is going to be a segment with two presentations. There will also be discussions, and you will also have the opportunity at the end of the session to ask questions. As a reminder, you can ask questions by clicking on the chat function which is integrated into the webcasting platform.

I will also remind you of this throughout to ensure that we can see during the session whether your questions are coming in. So, if you are quiet, I may remind you to interact with us when you have questions. I will be coming to you in a moment. I am going to ask you a question on Wooclap. So, here, I am going to have you work with Wooclap. I wanted to know which communities you come from. We want to understand a little bit about who our audience is today.

[00:04:02 A slide is shown with the text:

"What community best describes your role?:

1. Financial management – 37% (44)
2. Procurement – 25% (29)
3. Real property – 10% (12)
4. Project and programmes – 3% (4)
5. Materiel management – 0% (0)
6. Internal Audit – 16% (19)
7. Other – 8% (10)".]

So, we are going to ask you to go ahead and select the community you belong to. I told you that this was the first session on comptrollership insights. So, traditionally, we have offered this kind of session for the community, for financial management. Now we have expanded to really reach the communities that oversee comptrollership, so, this includes procurement, real property management, project management, procurement. So, basically, we want to know, the internal audit here, we want to know if we have managed, to get people from some of these other communities. So, again, predominantly, we are seeing a number of people from financial management.

So, welcome. And also from procurement, we will certainly talk about that during a segment, and also some from material and real property management, program management. So, thank you for also allowing me to get to know you. Now, I'm going to ask you another question on Wooclap while I'm still talking. Then we will look at the results together.

[00:05:17 A slide is shown with the text:

"How familiar are you with the greening government?:

1. I actively work on greening government related files – 14% (24)
2. I understand the basics but don't work with them regularly – 33% (57)
3. I've heard of greening government but don't know details – 39% (68)
4. This is new to me – 15% (26)".]

I wanted to get a bit of an idea of the extent to which you are familiar with the government's greening initiatives. I was wondering, is this something you are actively working on? Is it part of your daily work? It's essentially basic knowledge.

You don't work on it that much, but you try to stay informed. You've heard about it, but you don't know what exactly is being discussed. In fact, it is completely new for you. So, if it is completely new. I am sure you will learn more from our segment today. In the meantime, I am sort of using this. I was reading the news yesterday to try and understand what is going on in terms of greening. If we can see. And it's really interesting. I found that the presentation was fairly well aligned with what is happening internationally. You have probably seen the price of gas at the pump. So, for me, this tells us that various countries are looking at how to remove their dependence on fossil fuels, and therefore gas.

And so, the timing was pretty significant for the segment we have today, partly for the reasons we would want to do this as a country, as a government, as a public service and also basically, for how we can participate, regardless of the community, of our expertise that we have.

So, when I look here at the screen, I see that most people are into "I've heard of greening government but don't know details." So, we probably have a lot of curious people with us, and then understand some basics. And so, if we look collectively, we have kind of fewer experts and most people that are probably curious, which to Nick, one of our experts, will be interesting because he's absolutely passionate about greening and as well an expert in the federal public service on that topic. So, I'm sure that he'll be looking forward to sharing his passion with you and making you learn along the way as well.

[00:07:32 A slide is shown with the text:

"How does greening government impact your daily work?:

1. Significant impact – 18% (26)
2. Moderate impact – 25% (37)
3. Minimal impact – 33% (49)
4. No impact – 3% (4)"
5. Unsure – 21% (31)".]

So, my last question on Wooclap is: How does greening the government impact your daily work? So, is it important for us, as a government, to look into this issue? Should we? Do you think this will have a significant or moderate impact?

For me, I think it's important because, especially for my children, I want to make sure they have a healthy environment so they can grow up with healthy air, in a healthy climate, or on healthy land. But as a public service, understanding our role in relation to this, and also at the headquarters, with the expertise we have, how we can participate, how we can influence decision-making, opinions and advice.

So, what we're seeing here on the screen is people are saying it should have significant and moderate impact, but a lot of people still don't know how or what greening really is. So, that's nice to hear, I think.

[00:09:42 A slide is shown with the text:

"Financial Management Competency Compass"

"Thinking Things Through: Interpreting, linking, and analyzing information to understand issues and provide relevant insight – Situational Awareness, Strategic Thinking, Innovative Mindset"

"Working Effectively With Others: Working collaboratively with others to effectively achieve common goals – Stakeholder-centric, Communication, Collaboration and Mobilization"

"Showing Initiative & Being Action-Oriented: Focusing personal efforts on achieving results and making a difference – Digital Acumen, Change Leadership, Operational Agility"

"Functional Competencies: Strengthening the foundation of comptrollership abilities – Financial Literacy, Oversight and Risk Management, Compliance"

"Demonstrating integrity and respect: Developing and maintaining openness and transparency in establishing networks while demonstrating a high degree of integrity."]

So, on the next slide, before introducing our two experts, I wanted to briefly outline the framework for today's segment and what we will be attempting to highlight in terms of your competencies. On the screen, you see, you see the competency compass, and this is a compass that was developed for the CT-FIN community, so the financial management community.

It was approved by the Comptroller General last year. There's different competency profiles even for other communities. They all pretty much look the same when you're looking at the end of the day. But really, through the segment of today, we're going to try to probe a bit on situational awareness, understanding what's happening on the global level, even what Canada is doing in this space of greening and how could that influence advice, kind of projects that are approved, funding, risks for your organization, alignment of your priorities to broader Government of Canada agenda.

So, that kind of situational awareness we're going to speak is going to hopefully help you build on your strategic thinking, broadening your expertise, maybe understanding things that are just broader than your own specific area of work, obviously collaboration and mobilization as well. You can't do this alone. Greening is a team sport and it requires a lot of stakeholder partnership and support, so hopefully as well, and operational agility we're going to talk to you a little bit because obviously greening is new for the federal public service. It means transforming the way we do business, looking at things differently, so hopefully, giving you a little bit of reflection in that space and a bit of that oversight and risk management.

And then, when we were looking, there were actually targets and a bit of that compliance piece that the government had put in place that we were looking to bring zero emissions by 2030 as a government, and as well looking to have a 40% reduction of greenhouse emissions related to fleet and related to buildings as well. And so, we are reaching those targets but that kind of speaks a bit to that compliance. So, a lot of the things sometimes that even when you're looking at procurement, when you're looking at policies and directions in the space of greening, then those are things as well that we'll make sure to touch upon in our segment of today.

So, first, let's begin. I have done enough talking.

[00:11:23 A slide titled "Presenters" is shown with a photo of Nick Xenos, Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and a photo of Sarah Evans, Director General, Environment and Sustainable Management, Infrastructure, and Environment, Department of National Defence.]

I would like to introduce you to the two experts who are with me today. You are being spoiled.

[00:11:34 The screen fades to Nick Xenos and Sarah Evans appear in separate video chat panels.]

We have two truly outstanding experts in this field, who are passionate, who are making a difference in the federal public service, in relation to greening. I might manage to say it properly by the end of the segment, but anyway. So, we have Nick Xenos, who is actually a colleague. Nick is the Executive Director of the Centre for Greening Government within the Treasury Board Secretariat. And he works with federal departments and agencies to achieve carbon-neutral, sustainable, and climate-resilient government operations. So, really a very important role, especially for how we transform government operations to align with greening objectives. Nick holds a master's degree in business administration and is definitely someone who is very passionate about this subject.

And we also have Sarah Evans who was a former colleague, but who is now at the Department of National Defence. Sarah is the Director General of Environment and Sustainable Management within the Infrastructure and Environment Group. So, if we think about the Department of National Defence, obviously, a significant amount of real property, significant impacts on Canada, and so having a component, having a priority for the environment is essential. Sarah was also previously at the Treasury Board, and she also holds a master's degree in project management. So, two very dedicated and very expert people in our discussion today. So, Nick, over to you to present this first topic to us.

[00:13:16 A slide is shown with the text:

"Learning objectives"

"Discover:

How climate change impacts the Government of Canada.

Why the Greening Government Strategy

Importance to comptrollership community

Understand:

Comptrollership community's role in greening operations."

"Did you know? The Government of Canada is owner and manager of the largest fixed asset portfolio in Canada: GC owns 30,000 buildings, 20,000 engineering assets, and over 40,000 fleet vehicles and buys over $40B/year."]

Nick Xenos (Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board Secretariat): Thank you, Jocelyne. Very happy to be here today and I am very happy to be here with you, with Jocelyne and Sarah, two of our biggest champions and our best spokespeople on greening, so permanent members of the Centre for Greening, I think.

I am very happy to be here today. I am also very happy to see the Wooclap polls. It gives us an idea of who we are talking to, which is great. So today, we are going to learn a bit about the repercussions of climate change for the Government of Canada. Why have a Greening Government Strategy and what it is. And why it is important to us and to our community. And to better understand what we can do because that's what it is, it's taking action. That's where it's important. And what we often don't think about, and we saw it in Wooclap, is how we can be agents of change, how we can engage in climate action, in our work.

And what's important is that our work is currently very important because if we ask Canadians to go and be net zero or carbon neutral in their environment, in their day, well, we, as the federal government, have to do it too. Otherwise, if we didn't have an exemplary administration, why would we convince others to do it if we can't do it ourselves? And we, the federal government, are a bit special. We are one of the largest organizations in the country. We have 30,000 buildings, we have 20,000 pieces of infrastructure, and we have a fleet of over 40,000 vehicles. And we buy more than $40 billion a year. So, we have a lot of expertise, a lot of knowledge, and even if on a day-to-day basis we think we don't have resources, we still have more resources than an average house in Canada.

And I'll say this part in English because it's really important to say it in both languages. If we're asking Canadians to be net-zero and adapt to a changing climate and take climate action, we should do it ourselves as well, and we're big and we're one of the biggest in the country with over 40,000 vehicles, 50,000 pieces of infrastructure and buildings, and we buy $40 billion worth of stuff. And so, the expertise and resources we have are unparalleled. And so, if we can't do it, then why should we ask Canadians to do it, right? Very simple.

We will go to the next slide.

[00:15:58 A slide is shown with a diagram showing annual temperature change from 1948-2024 in Canada along with text that reads:

"Context – climate impacts"

"Canada is experiencing more climate-related events (e.g., extreme heat/wind/precipitation, wildfires), affecting government assets, services, and activities, and creating disruptions to Canadians and incurring direct costs on government"

"Forthcoming assessment (ECCC):

Over past 75 years:

Canada has warmed by 2.0°C

Canada's North has warmed by 2.6°C

With current policies [compared to pre-industrial]:

Global average temperature will increase 2.7°C

Canada's average will increase 4.9°C."]

So, the first thing to focus on is, how is climate change affecting Canada? Most of us good Canadians are like, a little bit warmer, that would be nice, one less jacket or whatever, and it's going to be way in the future, 2100 or whatever, so do we worry about it now? But like Jocelyne said, it's important for our kids. But also, we're feeling it ourselves right now too.

So, what most people don't know is that Canada, as a terrestrial northern country, is warming at twice the global average, and our North at three times the global average. So, already, Canada has warmed by two degrees and our North has warmed by 2.6 degrees. So, that's very significant. And with current policies that the world has currently adopted, the global average temperature will go to about 2.7 degrees, which, as we said, Canada is warming double the global average, means almost 5 degrees Celsius for most of Canada. And in the North, you could see on the map there, the darker areas are areas that are warming more. So, for Northern Canada, it'll be 7, 8, 9 degrees.

So, as we're stewards of public property, materiel management, buyers of things, we need to think that we're actually buying stuff for a five-degree difference in temperature. We're managing buildings, ecosystems, nature, and the impacts of climate change on our finances, and our bottom line is going to be we need to be thinking, as prudent stewards of public funds, we need to be thinking that we're going to adapt to a five-degree world.

So, just to make it really clear now, I will ask, okay, so what does that look like, right? It's two degrees already warming and it's going to be five degrees in Canada. So, what does that mean? Well, we're getting more climate-related events. You're seeing extreme heat, wind, precipitation, wildfires. Those are affecting our assets, and I'll give you examples in our activities, and it's creating disruptions to Canadians and means direct costs to our fiscal frame, to our budget. And so, this is why it's so important, right? To think about what can we do and how can we take action in our daily work.

We can go to the next one.

[00:18:22 A slide is shown with images of climate disaster sites in British Columbia, Alberta, and Yellowknife with text that reads:

"Climate impacts - examples"

"Estimates of annual cots to federal gov't (2021): Historical – $0.59-2.7B, 2030 – $2.9-7.9B, 2040 – $4.6-10.7B, 2050 – $6.1-13.5B"

"BC Atmospheric River 2021 – $24M + $23.2M (DND estimate)"

"Parks Canada 2024 wildlife suppression supplementary funding – $157M"

"Yellowknife Evacuation 2023 – $1.9M + $67.4M (DND estimate)"]

We conducted a study and looked at 20 past programs and 40 future programs to see what the cost will be to the federal government and federal operations, our real property, our operations, etc. We estimated the cost in millions of dollars, and you can see the examples here. From past data, it cost us up to $3 billion per year. And in the not-too-distant future, 2030, it is estimated to be between $3 and 8 billion. 2040, $4 to 10 billion, etc. And, that is very conservative because we didn't look at all the federal programs, just a subset.

Let's think of some examples. Yellowknife was evacuated two summers ago. So, like the northern defence. There, the regional headquarters for Defence, among other departments, were evacuated from Yellowknife. So, these are public servants who said, "okay, evacuate your city, go somewhere else, but continue our operations, which are critical." So, we can imagine public servants in a hotel in Edmonton with their kids on their lap. And, we try to do our operations or, you know, we can imagine Service Canada trying to deliver employment insurance after a forest fire has devastated a city.

So, they adapted and developed large mobile trailers to continue delivering services to Canadians. So, that's impressive. Jasper, the national park, part of it was devastated. So, again, they needed an additional $150 million to repair the infrastructure, etc. The atmospheric river in British Columbia, there were many floods. The three main roads to Vancouver were cut off. So, imagine if you were Canada Post, if you were any government department.

If you want to deliver goods to Vancouver, you go through the States or by ship. So, when we think about our security too, being able to deliver services across the country, without going to other countries, is perhaps a good thing as well. So, the costs are already there, we can already see them in the departments. Often, we say, "Oh, it's an event, an act of God, once, it's just bad luck." But we see with climate change, we can specify how much the risk is increasing.

So, if something was once every 100 years, an event, one year every 100 years, now, we can say it is one year every 50 years or every 10 years. So, there are ways to calculate the risk of these things. We can go to the next one.

[00:21:22 A slide is shown with the text:

"Greening Government Strategy – policy authority"

"Greening Government Strategy is a Cabinet Directive grounded in legislation and government policies"

"Greening Government Strategy: A Government of Canada Directive"

"Legislation:

Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act

Federal Sustainable Development Act

Federal climate plan:

2030 Emissions Reduction Plan: Clean Air, Strong Economy

TB Policy Suite:

Policy on Green Procurement

Directive on Management of Materiel

Directive on Management of Procurement

Directive on the Management of Real Property

Policy on the Planning and Management of Investments"

"Greening can also support other government priorities, e.g., Buy Canadian, cost savings, resiliency, etc."]

So, we see the impacts of climate change. So, the government developed a Canadian act on net zero emissions accountability, the Net-Zero Accountability Act, and the Sustainable Development Act. And in these acts, we developed an emissions reduction plan for Canada, and this includes sections that say we should do this for our operations and our assets. So, we are really included in the act, which says that for our operations, we must have a plan to reduce our greenhouse gases, we must be taking action, and reporting annually, to Canadians, how we are doing. And so, we developed the Greening Government Strategy, which also has commitments that are included in other Treasury Board policies and directives.

And greening the government, which we often call "verdir le gouvernment" in French, because "écologisation" is difficult to say. We all have problems saying it. But it there is a lot of synergy with other government objectives and that is where it's really important to keep in mind the wider context of the government, what are the government's priorities? Whether it's buying Canadian, economic, or resilience. So, all of this can also be advanced with the Greening Government Strategy. We will go to the next slide.

[00:22:59 A slide is shown with three graphs displaying sources of all federal emissions between 2024 and 2025 along with text that reads:

"Scope 1: GHGs produced directly from sources controlled by GC (combustion fuels in vehicles, space heating"

"Scope 2: GHGs indirectly generated from consumption of purchased energy (electricity, heating, and cooling)"

"Scope 3: Indirect GHGs resulting from suppliers, emissions from products used, etc."]

So, the first thing we said was: what is our government's carbon footprint? We cannot tackle the problem if we do not know how, where and how to describe the problem. So, for all of us, as individuals, when we think about our carbon footprint, we think about how we heat our homes and the electricity in our homes. What are we driving or what mode of transportation are we taking?

And everything we buy throughout the year, all of that has a carbon footprint. So, for the government, it's just that, as we said, it's a bit bigger. There aren't one or two vehicles, there are 40,000. So, there's not just one house. We have 10,000-15,000 houses at Defence, and then there are 40,000 buildings, etc. So, we provided an overview here. On the left are greenhouse gases we would call direct, Scope 1 and 2, this is the oil or gas that we burn directly to heat our homes, to heat our real property or our electricity, or that we put in our aircraft, in our ships or in our cars.

And you can see that most of our emissions come from heating our buildings, heating our buildings or the gas that we put in aircraft and ships and cars. Those are direct greenhouse gases. On the right, we have indirect gases, which are the carbon footprints for making the things we buy. Everything we buy, someone has to, there's a factory somewhere that makes the product, that uses heating, that manufactures our product and transports it to us. So, if we look at this, we have analyzed all our procurement and identified where the largest footprint is and where we should focus.

The first category is vehicles, ships, aircraft, scientific equipment, etc. The second is energy. If we think about oil, we have to extract it from the ground and then bring it to us. And then we put it in our cars and burn it. So, there's also a footprint there. And something like construction, concrete, steel, etc., tools, you have to make all the computers, monitors, etc. So, there are all sorts of ecological footprints with all of these. We will go to the next slide.

[00:25:35 A slide is shown with the text:

"Greening Government Strategy (GGS) – overview"

"Objective (In-line with PARIS2015, COP21, CMP11):

Net-zero emissions overall by 2050

40% reduction of real property and conventional fleet emissions by 2025

Enhanced climate resilience of critical assets, services and activities by 2035

Overall green government operations

Strategy (GGS) developed to get there:

Align Policies, Engage Partners, Measure Performance

Real Property

Mobility and Fleet

Procurement and Clean Technologies

Climate Resilient Operations

Implementation:

TBS providing direction, guidance, Greening Government Fund

Expert depts. providing support (TBS/NRCan/PSPC/NRC/ECCC

Departments (and Crown corporations taking action)

Performance:

42.5% reduction in GHG emissions to date (real property and conventional fleet)

11.4% reduction in emissions from National Safety and Security operations"]

So, we developed the Greening Government Strategy with four, with four pillars, is where we focus.

So, we focus on real property, mobility and fleet, procurement, and climate-resilient operations, and you can see our target is 40% reduction of emissions from real property and conventional fleet. And as Jocelyne said, we've hit 42.5%. So, we met that target in reducing our emissions by 2025. And every five years, it ups by 10%, and we also are aiming for our national safety and security emissions to get to net zero by 2050 and we've reduced those by 11% to date. We also want overall climate-resilient critical assets, services, and activities, and green operations. And so, TBS provides direction but departments are actioning this. And so, procurement professionals, real property, fleet are the ones actioning this. Next slide.

[00:26:33 A slide is shown with a photo of a net-zero emissions building at 2575 blvd Sainte-Anne (Québec City, QC) and a photo of an RCMP vehicle along with text that reads:

"GGS – key commitments:

Buildings: Transition to net-zero, carbon, and climate resilient buildings; retrofits are low-carbon design; use clean energy

Fleets: Electrify federal fleets and use low carbon fuels for air/marine

Procurement: Integrate environmental considerations into purchasing decisions

Climate resilience: Incorporate climate risk assessments into planning and operations"

"West Shore RCMP unveil two more EVs, as federal force starts shift to zero-emission fleet"]

What are the key commitments? For buildings, for new buildings and for renovations, we want these to be with a goal of net zero carbon buildings. We want to use clean electricity across the country. So, we are buying clean electricity. For our vehicle fleet, we should start by buying zero-emission vehicles.

And then, if there's exceptional circumstances, we can look at exceptions.

For procurement, it's really about incorporating environmental considerations into purchasing decisions. For climate resilience, in our operations and asset planning, we should consider how we can incorporate climate change. We already have some good examples like the RCMP. With the Greening Government Fund, we funded the first electric cars for the RCMP, and they are currently testing them.

I tried them on the test track at the RCMP in the east end and wow, they accelerate like nobody's business. So, it's really exciting, really good. Next slide.

[00:27:44 A slide is shown with the text:

"Importance to the Comptrollership Community"

"Climate impacts cost governments money – but action can reduce costs and build resilience"

"Fleet:

Apply TCO (total cost of ownership) – may mean more capital but will lower operating costs (e.g. less gas costs)

Need more EV charging infrastructure, change how paying for gas vs. electric charging

$35M savings in conventional fleet by reducing fleet size and fuel use*

Real property:

Buildings aging faster, sea level rise, freeze-thaw cycles; rebuilding infrastructure after extreme events

Need net-zero buildings, net-zero resilient capital plans to prevent future losses

$150M savings in buildings due to actions such as reduced energy use

Procurement/material:

Consider life cycle management (operating vs. capital), resilience, goods as a service, better materiel management, waste management/diversion

Save money on waste, gas, operations, rightsizing (buildings, goods)

56M savings and 3.6 kt GHG due to reduced purchase of cell phones**

Services and operations:

Financial impacts ($5M to evacuate QC prison, evacuation of Yellowknife)

Project management:

Apply life cycle thinking – capital vs. O&M

Best value (i.e. quality vs. up-front cheapest good)

Travel:

Renting an EV may cost more upfront but less on gas

*23-24 vs. 05-06 baseline

**estimated based on 14,000 in '24-'25 vs. 80,000/yr over '19-'22"]

What's the importance to the comptrollership community? Let me give you some concrete examples of how it matters to what we deal with every day. So, we're always thinking cost, savings, benefits, that kind of thing. If you take electric vehicles, for example, Jocelyne mentioned it, if you're going to fill up at $1.50, $2 a litre in gas, you can imagine that an electric vehicle will pay back very quickly. Electric vehicles cost a little bit more to buy but then operating is like zero-cost.

I went to Montreal, visited some friends. I went to a very hip neighbourhood. Nobody could find any parking. I had an electric vehicle. So, I had a charger right in front of the place I needed to be. I saved $20 in parking. It cost me $3.60 to charge, to go to Montreal and come back. So, $3.60 and I saved $20 in parking. I think I made $16 on my trip to Montreal. So, multiply by 40,000 vehicles, you're going to save a lot of money. So, you don't have to pay gas prices. Those are things that we can avoid by going electric. We can downsize the fleet. Having a fleet is very expensive, as you know. It's a very expensive asset. So, how can we maximize the use of that fleet? And we've got tools to do that, Telematics with Natural Resources Canada for example. So, we think we save about $35 million in savings on fleet, for example, a year, is what we've estimated by downsizing the fleet and going electric.

Real property, buildings are aging faster, sea level is rising so you need to build docks and things higher, freeze-thaw cycles, rebuilding infrastructure after extreme events. You could make them climate-proof and put higher quality at the front end and plan for this kind of thing so that you don't have to rebuild these things every time. So, we have estimated we're saving $150 million in energy costs to our buildings since the beginning of the Greening Government Strategy.

Procurement materiel, think life cycle management, operating versus capital, think of the resilience of your supply chains, think of goods as a service, better materiel management and waste management diversion. We can save money on less waste. We can save money on our operations, on rightsizing, buying the right size of assets that we need for our operations. For example, the decision by Shared Services to reduce the number of cell phones, how many people have cell phones and we just work cell phones and we leave them there, we don't use them because we're on Teams? Every cell phone costs a lot of carbon to make and costs money to have. So, do we need all those cell phones, for example, right?

Services and operations, Corrections Canada had to evacuate a maximum security prison in Quebec due to wildfires. So, you can imagine. My hat's off to Corrections for successfully doing that in a very short timeframe because, of course, you're warned you need to evacuate the prison. Their business continuity plan and their work, they were able to evacuate the prison. But of course, that has millions of dollars of costs and you got to put the prisoners somewhere, and you don't just kind of Uber them out. You need to figure out how to transport them, etc., right?

Project management, thinking best value upfront, right? So, what's the quality if you buy a pen and it runs out in three days because it was the cheapest pen and you got to buy another one and then another one and then another one? Is that better than buying a quality pen and having it over five years, for example, right?

Travel, we're seeing it with employee travel. They don't need gas. They don't need a gas card anymore, but they want to charge and it might only cost $2 to charge instead of $50 to fill up on a gas tank, but is our financial system able to accommodate that? And how do we reimburse somebody for charging $2 of electricity as opposed to a $50 gas card, which is a well-established system.

So, those are examples but we have to kind of rethink our financial sort of system. Is it adapting to it? Think of our project management in the long term, which many of you, of course the project management community knows this, real property, community, etc., is aware of all these things, and it's how do we manage these things in this new environment? Next slide.

[00:32:17 A slide is shown with the text:

"Key considerations:

How can your department get to net-zero operations in the most cost-effective way without impacting operations or by enhancing operations?

How does climate change affect your department's services and activities (operations) and assets, and hence finances?

How can you apply oversight and risk management in the context of climate change? What actions can your department take to reduce impacts and adapt to climate change?

How do you invest in the right places (e.g., apply a climate change lens on investment plans, IBP planning, corporate risks, integrating net-zero climate resilient measures in Real Property Portfolio Plans (RRPS)), including how to prepare/plan for unforeseen events that are now foreseen? "]

So, key considerations, so couple of things to think about. How can your department get to net-zero operations? So, every department has a sustainable development strategy, a real property portfolio plan, an investment plan that should reflect all that. And so, your net-zero carbon plan for your department, and talk to your environment leads which are usually within the CFO community and your CFO, how can the decisions you take in terms of procurement, materiel management, and real property, and investment planning and project planning, all kind of fit in that cog and help move it forward so that we can get there? Because every decision you make on these things should all be going in that same direction, of course.

And then, what does it mean for your risk management, for your operations, for your assets? The maintenance schedules, because of climate change, we think maintenance schedules will be advanced by 10 years. What about your operations? How are they going to be climate-resilient? How are we going to reduce the impacts so that we can continue serving Canadians with critical services? And then, applying that climate lens to all of those things that we just talked about?

So, this community is on the front lines of climate action, believe it or not, you may not have thought about it, but how we heat our buildings, how we transport, how we manage our materiel, how we think of projects and cost them, all of those things are actually the things that we need to do to implement climate action and take charge, and that's what we need to do, Canadians need to do in their every day and then we need to do as a large organization, and we can lead the way.

So, thank you very much. That gives you some ideas. I'm happy to have a good discussion later.

Jocelyne Charron: We will have time for discussions. As a reminder, you can use the chat function in the platform to share your questions with us. We will come to those later. Now, we have the segment with Sarah. So, you are going to be seeing some tangible examples from a department. But thank you, Nick, honestly for giving our audience a little inspiration for what they can do, why it's important, how we can integrate some of this into the processes, into the functions that are already in place.

We are not asking you to start new things. We are asking you to integrate concepts into existing processes and established ways of doing things, which is essentially the reason for today's session. We saw to a certain extent with the OECD, you know, we see the impact of procurement. And when we choose, for example, to create an opportunity, it can lead to changes in behaviour. So, if we can achieve some success, by making pushes at the procurement level, in changing the way suppliers will respond to government demands.

If we set objectives, what gets measured gets done. So, if we also set requirements, this will create behaviours in the chain of production. So, I think that it's kind of the call to action or the call to curiosity that you're sharing with us. So, a big thank you. And these are also good, tangible examples for those listening. So, Sarah, come talk to us for a little while. Now, we have the literacy. We understand the why, we have some understanding of the importance. We also see what this means on Canadian soil; unfortunately, we have had difficult issues related to some fairly devastating forest fires. So, what, in tangible terms, is happening at the Department of National Defence? Over to you, Sarah.

Sarah Evans (Director General, Environment and Sustainable Management, Department of National Defence): Thank you, Jocelyne.

[00:36:21 A slide is shown with the text:

"Greening Defence: Presentation to Comptrollership Insights Series – Canada School of Public Service, April 30, 2026"

"Sarah Evans, Director General, Environment and Sustainable Management, Department of National Defence"]

It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon with you and Nick. As Jocelyne said, my name is Sarah Evans. I am the Director General of Environment and Sustainable Management. It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon to discuss greening defence. And Jocelyne, if you had difficulties with the pronunciation of "écologisation." An Anglophone like me has no chance of pronouncing that word correctly. All right. Next, thank you.

[00:36:54 A slide is shown with the text:

"Defence Real Property Asset Portfolio:

Over 600 properties across Canada

2.2 million hectares of land (6% of federal land inventory)

21,000 buildings (38% of federal buildings)

20,000 works, including jetties, runways, training areas, and roads

2024-2025 valuation: $100-billion portfolio replacement value, $8.2-billion in deferred maintenance, $2.4-billion annual operating budget

2024-25 liabilities: $2.7-billion in asset retirement obligations, $785-million in remediation liability, $121-million in UXO remediation

150+ species at risk"]

So, first of all, in terms of context, so what's happening at Defence? So, in terms of context, Defence is huge. So, depending on what indicators you use, we've already been talking a lot about indicators this afternoon, we are arguably the biggest and most complex real property holder in government with over 20,000 buildings, over 20,000 engineering assets such as jetties, which are where we park our ships, runways for our fighter jets, roads, water, and wastewater linear infrastructure for our assets.

So, for folks who have never seen a military base or wing, each one is like a cross between a small municipality and a large industrial complex. So, the replacement value of our real property portfolio is estimated at over $100 billion. We also have significant challenges with deferred maintenance and liability associated with contaminated sites stemming from our past operations, as well as unexploded explosive ordinances which are essentially bombs that didn't go off the way that they were supposed to during training exercises. None of these figures that I'm going through today include Coast Guard assets who recently joined the Defence team following a September 2025 order in council. Next slide, please.

[00:38:15 A slide is shown with images of military vehicles and a chart showing types of materiel and their value in millions of dollars in 2025.]

We also have a large portfolio of materiel. This includes ships, a variety of vehicles, machines, etc. And with the materiel, we are talking billions. Billions. We spend about $8 billion each year on 140,000 procurements. Next step.

[00:38:42 A slide is shown with the text:

"Strategic Defence Drivers"

"Our North Strong and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada's Defence"

"Canada's Defence Industrial Strategy"

"Strategic investments for a changing global landscape:

In 2025, the Government of Canada committed to a major transformation of the Canadian Armed Forces through sustained, long-term investment.

Canada achieved the NATO defence spending benchmark of 2% of GDP by the end of FY 2025-26. This will be followed by a further increase to 3.5% of GDP by 2035, marking a decisive shift from past episodic funding.

Investments in fixing the foundations and enhancing the resiliency of infrastructure are essential to sustaining operational capability in a changing environment.

Canada has recently released its first-ever Defence Industrial Strategy to strengthen Canada's defence industrial base, business network, supply chains, and innovation networks."]

Now, of course, we don't have all of these assets for the sake of having all of these assets. We have them in order to enable the operations of the defence team and the Canadian Armed Forces, including meeting our international commitments to NATO and to NORAD. And as part of these commitments, we have significantly increased defence investments, including recently meeting our NATO 2% commitments. Next slide please.

[00:39:09 A slide is shown with the text:

"Strategic Greening Drivers:

Defence Climate and Sustainability Strategy 2023-2027

Federal Sustainable Development Strategy 2022-2026

Greening Government Strategy

NATO Climate Change and Security Action Plan

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Treasury Board policy requirements

Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan"]

At the same time, we work in an environment of very complex laws, regulations and policies with many different departments that have a significant number of rules, indicators and mandatory reports. Next, please.

[00:39:31 A slide is shown with the cover page of the Defence Climate and Sustainability Strategy 2023-2027 along with text that reads:

Aligns with government priorities and partners – integrates the FSDS, GGS, UN, and NATO greening commitments.

Accountability and measurable progress – sets targets and tracks results over time through annual progress reports.

Reduce environmental footprint – acknowledges DND as the largest federal energy user and GHG emitter; sets direction to prioritize net-zero real property, greener fleets, sustainable procurement, and waste reduction.

Climate-resilient defence operations – identifies need to assess and adapt infrastructure, equipment, training, and missions to climate-driven risks at home and abroad."]

So, how do we manage? In order to guide us through this complex environment, to make progress towards achieving the objectives of the Greening Government Strategy, we created our own Defence, Climate, and Sustainability Strategy which we update every few years to align to our evolving context. Our departmental strategy supports us in aligning our departmental efforts with the broader policy context while also recognizing our operational reality. I'll now take a closer look at those four key pillars that Nick introduced of the Greening Government Strategy and how we're implementing the policy direction within the Department of National Defence for each of those four pillars. Next slide, please.

[00:40:16 A slide is shown with the text:

"GGS Commitments: real property"

"Departmental policy and plans:

DAOD 1000-11 and 4000 series, infrastructure and environment management

Defence Real Property Portfolio Strategy

Green Building Directive

Base-level net-zero emissions plans

Green power purchase agreements:

Alberta, Saskatchewan, and others being planned

Solar power project at Base Gagetown

Energy performance contracts:

27 implemented at bases across Canada, reducing GHGs by over 27,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent

Net-zero residential buildings for CAF members:

All new residential construction built to net-zero or net-zero ready standards"]

First, a subject close to my heart: real property. In addition to the above strategy, to implement the Greening Government Strategy. We have specific policies and directives from our department. We also have agreements to buy green energy and energy performance contracts, which are very innovative tools. Next, please.

[00:40:49 A slide is shown with the text:

"GGS Commitments: procurement and materiel management"

"Departmental policy and plans:

DAOD 1000-4, Policy Framework for Materiel and Asset Management

DAOD 3015-0, Green Procurement

DAOD 3015-1, Management of Green Procurement

Procurement Administration Manual

Green Procurement Job Aid

Greater focus on net-zero procurement:

Disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and reduction targets in procurement contracts since April 2023

Life cycle assessments required for procurement over $25 million initiated after April 1, 2025

High environmental categories (HICATs) criteria implemented by end of 2026"]

Secondly, in terms of procurements and materiel management, we similarly have internal directives as well as job aids and have taken a specific focus on green procurement. We have found that given that we are such a large department, that it is important that we are very clear in terms of what is needed from folks within DND in order to align with meeting our departmental objectives. Next slide, please.

[00:41:17 A slide is shown with a photo of a Canadian Armed Forces member charging an electric vehicle along with text that reads:

"GGS Commitments: mobility and fleet"

"Departmental policy and plans:

Decarbonization plans for national safety and security fleet

Royal Canadian Air Force Path to Net-Zero Strategy

Zero-emissions light-duty fleet by 2030:

100% zero-emission or hybrid vehicles for DND commercial light-duty vehicle fleet based on availability

Net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from national safety and security fleet by 2050:

Low-carbon fuels in marine and air fleets"]

Third, for our fleet, a key aspect of achieving the objectives of the Greening Government Strategy is the procurement of low-carbon fuel. Our team works very closely with Nick's team. As Jocelyne said, it is absolutely a team sport. And the other teams provide essential support for us. Next step, please.

[00:41:47 A slide is shown with a DND climate hazard map along with text that reads:

"GGS Commitments: climate-resilient services and activities:

Climate Risks: increasing extreme weather and natural disasters, sea-level rise, and Arctic warming

Operational Change: increasing humanitarian and disaster missions, and Arctic operations

Impacts: greater vulnerabilities like wear and damage to equipment and facilities, higher maintenance and recapitalization costs, and heavier reliance on resilient infrastructure and utilities

64% of real property assets are at high or higher risk of climate impacts by 2050

Critical assets must be assessed by 2030 and action taken to mitigate risk by 2035"]

Finally, in terms of climate risks and resilience, this is an area where we've done some work but we definitely have more to do. We worked with AECOM to complete a portfolio-wide climate change vulnerability assessment. The image that you see on the screen is from their report. From a DND perspective, climate change has a significant impact on our operations, including increased humanitarian-related deployments, higher need for disaster relief, changing operational environments, in particular in the Arctic, as well, of course, as significant risks for our infrastructure portfolio, but we are working to better understand the risks and impacts. We are also working in real time to integrate vulnerability findings into our real property development and project plans, as well as implementing the updated National Building Code which includes design standards aligned to future climates. Next slide, please.

[00:42:56 A slide titled "Questions" is shown with the text: "Sarah Evans, Director General Environment and Sustainable Management: Sarah.Evans3@forces.gc.ca"]

I'm going to stop here, Jocelyne, and give you back the floor because I prefer discussions. And I know we are going to discuss a lot of good questions this afternoon.

Jocelyne Charron: Absolutely. You can see that we are already getting questions in the chat. So, people were listening. They are curious about the conversation this afternoon. So, that's good. We have questions that we have already prepared, and I will also address the questions that are being sent to us in the chat. But maybe first, before that, I have a question. And obviously, I come from the finance function community, I am a CPA. We can see that Canada is starting to look to accounting principles for how to integrate environmental reporting.

So, there are already other countries that have this kind of framework. In Canada, we are starting to look into this a little. So, for me, today's conversation is super important because we want to create at least some curiosity, raise the level of literacy on this subject, and help people bridge the gap between their role and another. And also, how we can help each other even within our departments, given that we may only have a small part of the strategy or the functions. So, I think it will create a positive impact around us.

One of my questions, which is not an easy one, is really, I feel as a government, we're always kind of looking at, when we do procurement, we'll be looking at that kind of lower cost, right? But a lot of when you were looking in terms of greening, sometimes it is more expensive on the shorter term. But you're saying, Nick, for example, a pen, well, if it's a pen that's bought and is going to only work for six months, then it goes into the landfill, we don't cost the cost of landfills. And so, what is that circular economy and impact on the circular economy? I think my video has stopped working, but here I am again.

Nick Xenos: You're back. Yes.

Jocelyne Charron: I am. I'm so sorry about that. It kind of just did that on its own. Sorry about that. So, yeah, so the whole circular economy part of that, and we'll go to that kind of lower-cost procurement. So, how can departments weigh the long-term savings and environmental benefits of greening investment against those shorter-term budget constraints and competing operational priorities? And we know that we are facing that, right? With the context of some of the (inaudible) reductions. So, I think there's something we can do better here. We may have not found the right balance, but some thoughts on that.

Nick Xenos: Yeah, I can start. Great question, and it's kind of a full question between circular economy and the sort of short-term, long-term cost. But maybe, I'll just say a few words on circular economy first. If you think about it, right? Circular economy is something fairly natural. Historically, humans have done that a lot if you think in ecosystems, right? There's no waste in an ecosystem. One animal's waste is another animal's food, right? And everything goes in a circular method. And so, if you go into nature, there's no pile of waste. We don't sort of cut down all the trees, make desks, then throw the desks in the garbage and cut more trees and make more desks and throw them in the garbage. That's a very inefficient way to interact with the planet, if you will. So, there's a lot of good examples of good circularity that are also good for cost savings, right? If you reuse things, then it's cheaper. If you buy used, it's cheaper. If you use things more optimally, it's cheaper.

So, when we think of the costs, we often just look at the capital cost of purchasing, right? Not the cost of using, not the cost of operation, not the cost of how long it's going to last, not the cost of wasting something, not the cost of rebuying something, and not the overhead costs related to that thing, right? So, I'll use a leaf blower. I always use my leaf blower. My father-in-law gave me a leaf blower and he thought he was being nice and he gave me a leaf blower. And when I think about it, I use the leaf blower maybe six hours a year, but I need a shed to store the leaf blower and then I need to manage all of my time of moving the leaf blower out of the way so I can get to the shovels and my winter tires and all those kinds of things. And then, some people have, some of us have, a full shed or a full garage of leaf blower equivalents. And so, we need another garage or we need a bigger house or we need to heat all that or we need to cool it all.

So, you got to think of those overhead costs, and our colleagues in the materiel management sphere know those, right? They live it every day, right? So, is it better to just, my neighbour comes over to my house and says, can I borrow your leaf blower? And I say, please borrow my leaf blower, so that they could use it and I could use it 12 hours a year instead of six. He doesn't need to store it. He doesn't need to anything. Even if I charge them a dollar, somebody, some entrepreneurial kid in the neighbourhood, could just buy a leaf blower and charge everybody $5 for using it, or they could charge $10 and do it themselves, do the job in addition.

And so, now, you've taken an asset that is used 1% the time. You're going to use it 80% of the time. You're going to amortize its cost over that. And then, all of a sudden, you're not going to need 100 leaf blowers in the neighbourhood. You'll just need one, which has a much less environmental footprint. So, when we think about costs, think about all of the costs. Think about the cost to buy, to use, and to dispose. And then, think of aligning greening with the synergies of the day, cost savings for example. Okay, how can we save money by doing something that's also greener? And that's where you get the biggest impact. A hotel. A hotel now says we won't wash your towels unless you put them on the ground, right? On the floor. They used to wash them every day. How many of us wash our towels every day? We don't wash our towels every day.

Jocelyne Charron: I love that example, yeah.

Nick Xenos: It keeps the price down of the hotel room and it's not something we needed anyway. So, you got to look for those synergies, I would say.

Jocelyne Charron: Yeah, I feel for the hotels that for them it's a cost saving, right? So, they've generated a cost saving under the branding of greening and took that opportunity basically to reduce operating costs on their end, which I think is genius in a sense. And then, as well, to that environmental footprint, yeah, I think we can use a towel twice. I completely agree, yeah. So, in terms of our costing, and we probably have some costing experts or we have some financial experts on the line, it's maybe even in terms of telling that broader, that longer-term story, that life cycle, and even embedding those concepts into your analysis. So, you can start to create a little bit of that awareness and maybe influence some of the decisions.

I know that there is reporting that's getting done annually by Finance Canada that was trying to understand how much is in terms of those future liabilities that we still don't know that climate disasters will create on then the fiscal framework, right? When you're seeing such as the fires in Jasper, so that was a draw on the fiscal framework. And so, when you're looking at those natural disasters and how much the government will have to invest, one, understanding what that looks like, but two, trying to put dollar signs on that because it's not will it happen, it's when it will happen, right? It's not an if, it's a when, in starting to kind of build that into our decisions, into our planning. So, I think as a country, we are realizing the importance of that but may not have all of the strong practices that others might. But absolutely, we can kind of learn from others as well that have pioneered before us and maybe kind of up our level of literacy in that space. So, very interesting. Thank you. I think we've all also been to hotels and saw those shifts in their operating procedures, right?

So, I'll move a bit to the question in the chat. We have some planned questions as well but we want to make sure that we're answering some of the questions that you have. So, I think it's just maybe for you, Sarah, to your segment on DND. Does DND have a department EV charging strategy and can you speak to the challenges? So, EV charging is the charging stations for your electric vehicles, and I know that we had, I was at ISED previously, we had a lot of shifts to EV vehicles, but then there were a lack of charging stations, especially in remote locations. So, the business case to move your fleet to full EV makes it hard when we don't have that charging station really available, especially because Canada is such a large country. Sometimes as well, it's not economic to bring some of that infrastructure across coast to coast, but I'm sure that's a reality for DND. So, Sarah, interested to hear your views on this.

Sarah Evans: Yeah, thanks so much for the question. It's definitely been a challenge for DND and something that we're making progress on but something we continue to work through. So, the way that we work to implement, so I spoke in my presentation about sort of our high-level departmental policies and directives. Part of how we turn those into reality, is we work with each of what we call L1s, which is essentially all of our branches across the department. So, the Canadian Army is an L1, the Air Force is an L1, the Navy is an L1, etc. And then, what we do is we have key folks within each of those branches that we work with in order to determine how we operationalize our policies and our directives and create procedures in a way that it works for them.

So, a lot of our fleet when we talk about EV charging within other government departments is probably most comparable to what the Army is doing because they have many of our land bases. And so, they have, in addition to sort of tanks and what you think of as being military fleet, they also have a lot of similar vehicles to what other government departments would have in terms of general fleets. And so, we've worked with them to be able to put policies and procedures and directives in place in a way that it works for them. And then, we actually have specific decarbonization plans for each of those key L1s, including the Army, which of course incorporates significantly that EV infrastructure and our space that we're moving in that direction in terms of our fleet, and it's definitely been a challenge.

I was actually recently travelling and I had a great chat with a major warrant officer who was giving me a ride back to the airport, and he was driving an electric vehicle. And so, I was asking him about, how does EV charging work on the base? What are some of the challenges and things that you've been having? And he was telling me about how they needed to put in place a specific procedure for when to move the vehicle after it was fully charged, which was something that I never would have thought of was an operational challenge when we were looking to implement vehicles at defence, but it was because if you think about it, you don't have as many chargers as you have vehicles. And so, at some point, someone's bringing a vehicle back to the base. All of the other chargers are full. And then, the question becomes, which vehicle do you move, who decides who to move that vehicle, where do you move that vehicle?

Sometimes when people hear about that, that sounds kind of ridiculous. But then, you realize when you're talking about operations of the scale of national defence, that's the level of specificity that we actually need in terms of our procedures to actually be able to implement something like EV charging infrastructure. And so, in order to make it work, we had all kinds of challenges, because we have different teams who buy the vehicles compared to the teams who buy the infrastructure. So, in some cases, when we were first trying to roll things out, we had bases with charging infrastructure but no vehicles, and other bases where there were vehicles but no charging infrastructure. So, certainly, yes, we have worked together with all of our L1s to put together specific decarbonization plans that work for them in considering their operational reality, and part of those is the question around EV charging. I hope that answers the question, Jocelyne.

Jocelyne Charron: It does answer the question, and I find it interesting because you're dealing with potential life and then the requirement to act urgently to deploy the vehicle, you can't be taking a vehicle that's a quarter charged because that could mean a failure on the operation, right? Or you're not protecting the lives. So, I can understand why that protocol is so important given the DND's mandate and the kind of activity that they have, and it was a little bit the same at ISED when they have the vehicles that go for monitoring the telecommunications spectrum and then you have an interference on the spectrum and interference for an airport, for example, and then they have to deploy really quickly. So, they're real challenges when you look at that. The type of government activities and operations we have are sometimes really close to Canadians and do have a lot of importance. So, you're coming down to operating procedure. I understand. I feel your pain, Sarah. There was a question on the chat about the collaboration with others. I know NRCan is working on that, Transport's working. Is DND working? How are we working between departments to answer some of that infrastructure on EV stations across Canada? I'm assuming we're collaborating.

Sarah Evans: Absolutely. It's absolutely a team sport. So, we're working with all kinds of expert support departments. We're also working with other large custodians that we can learn from them, and something we're also trying to get better at is learning from ourselves. So, if there's one base where they found something that works, can they share those lessons learned amongst? So, we also have communities of practice internal to the department. And then, we work very actively with communities of practice across the Government of Canada, and this is one of the great things that we rely on Nick and his team for. Nick and his team do a great job of bringing together all the key players all across government. So, when we're tackling a specific challenge, we're trying to figure out how to make something work, my first call is usually to Nick and his team because then they usually have a lot of experience. They have a lot of contacts across government, with industry as well, and I think they play a really important role for all government departments in terms of bringing folks together so that we can all learn from each other, because I do believe that there's no new problems. These are just problems that somebody else somewhere has probably figured out how to implement and we just need to make sure we all work together to figure out how we can improve and implement all of these things together. And then, sometimes, we need to adjust and that's okay too, but I think that coming together is the best way and the best chance that we have to be able to meet our objectives.

Jocelyne Charron: I love that. Okay, so for those of you, we looked at the Competency Compass earlier, we said we were going to talk about collaboration, there you go, whole-of-government collaboration right here in the making, and I love what you're saying honestly, Sarah, and it's kind of about sometimes we act as a siloed department. We don't see happening across the departmental walls. So, having a central agency that is playing a little bit of that catalysis across really kind of helps it to bring it together. So, thank you. I think that's a tangible example. And as well, even if people didn't know why you would reach out to Nick, there you go.

We have a question, a few questions, about the differences between the regions. So, I think in some instances, these kind of strategies and ideas work well when you have critical population, critical masses. But then, it becomes so hard when you have sometimes not sufficient infrastructure, not sufficient population. Any kind of views on that, Nick? I've reformulated some of the questions from the chat but I think they're touching to the fact that especially given the challenges of the massive geographic footprint of Canada and this distribution of population. I'm sure you've looked at that, right? When you're looking at the data and the sub-climates, yeah.

Nick Xenos: Yeah, for sure. No, it's a great question. Sometimes, the solutions are regional, right? And I've lived in different parts of the country, here, out east, out west, Vancouver, up north as well in Iqaluit, and so very different country with very different solution sets, if you will, and very different partners, right? And different reasons to do things. Up north, it'll take you a dollar of transportation costs to use a dollar of fuel. So, you might have a real incentive up north to reduce your fuel use and be much more energy efficient whereas in maybe somewhere in the south, in Quebec, let's say, where they have cheap hydroelectricity, you might not worry about energy efficiency as much as switching over to hydroelectricity for heating as quickly as you can, for example. So, there'll be different incentives and different local solutions in those different areas. So, you also can push on different things. Some of the discussion on circular economy might be easier in a big city with services and things like that. So, you'll do it for those reasons because it's easier to do in a big city with a lot of resources and a lot of players who can reuse wood, who can reuse steel or whatever. In the North, you might do it because shipping something up is so expensive that you want to maximize the use of your materials and reuse those, because getting something from the south, there isn't a Canadian Tire kind of next door to you. So, everything you have, you want to reuse. And so, there's different ways to look at it.

In terms of collaboration, I also want to just mention how it relates to this is that while we do what we do in the federal government's footprint, the Greening Government Strategy applies to the Government of Canada's operations, we are partnering with, I chair something called Buyers for Climate Action where we partner with the three biggest cities, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, and the B.C. and Quebec governments, and we share our experiences. So, we could say, hey, we need a solution in B.C. or we need a solution in Quebec or Montreal. Then, we have other partners where we're buying stuff, they're buying stuff, we're doing stuff, they're doing stuff, and we can share that expertise, and what we find very quickly is the amount of expertise we have federally is amazing, just between our community here and then our technical experts at Natural Resources Canada on telematics and the most optimized way to use a fleet, at National Research Council on building codes and the Construction Research Centre. The technical expertise that resides in departments like DND, that has a heavy technical expertise in managing its operations. And then, PSPC develops, let's say they've developed a tool to use price of carbon when making decisions to build, how green to build a building. So, when one department develops a tool, we could share that to all departments. When experts in one department are available, we can lend that to others. Different departments have mandates, policy mandates, in these areas, transportation. So, we lean on them for, where's the country going, where do they want to go, how do we apply that to our own policies? So, we can be regionally specific, we can be in line with where our partners and our experts are, lots of good opportunities and expertise out there.

Jocelyne Charron: Definitely, and I think there was, in the chat, a little bit about that collaboration with the private sector, and I think that this government has been kind of very proactive in trying to reach to industry to find some solutions to government in Canada, economic challenges. And even so, I'm assuming as well, the collaboration with the private sector in terms of greening is probably a space that we're already quite mature in, right? I'm going to say.

Nick Xenos: Yeah.

Jocelyne Charron: And interesting to see that we collaborate with the provinces and territories as well on that, and municipalities, yeah.

Nick Xenos: I can give an example. Under the Policy on Green Procurement, we have a standard on greening construction materials, on greening concrete and steel. And so, we worked with the Cement Association of Canada. They had greener solutions and they wanted us to buy more of those greener solutions and were wondering why we weren't buying more of it. So, we developed a standard to benchmark, to say exactly, this concrete product has this carbon footprint and this one has this one. And so, then, we developed a procurement standard that said we want to buy concrete that's 10% better than average or 20% better than average, and they could produce the data that would show that, which they hadn't before and hadn't realized the buyer needs that, the procurer needs that. So, they all of a sudden now could produce stuff that they could sell more cement. We could now have a very clear benchmark for when we buy a greener cement. And now, they want every municipality in the country to adopt that standard so that we can harmonize across public governments buying greener concrete. So, it's an amazing example, and I think Sarah probably has more examples.

Jocelyne Charron: No, I like that, right? So, if we define one, we could just reuse and then the industry as well can respond into a common set of requirements instead of having to fabricate a whole bunch of different greening products and know that it's going to be profitable or have that mutual partnership and benefit at the same time. So, that makes sense to me. I like it. As we speak of Canada and Buy Canada, we had a question for Sarah in terms of, is DND implementing a Buy Canada policy? So, it's so interesting as well. So, we're going to layer in some Canadian flag, kind of being proud Canadians as part of that initiative in terms of the evolving tariffs with the procurement policy, and to what extent are the environmental and climate change considerations creating implementation challenges? I'm assuming they're just adding to your list of challenges, Sarah.

Sarah Evans: (laughs) It definitely just adds to the list, Jocelyne. I mean, we always have lots of challenges. Procurement is always challenging. We're certainly working very closely with our contracting agencies. So, for folks who aren't familiar with Defence Construction Canada, within the infrastructure and environment space at the Department of National Defence, we actually have our own Crown corporation which is part of PSPC's portfolio, which is a fantastic tool in our toolkit to help us move forward with innovative procurement at sort of an expedited rate. So, long before we had the Defence Investment Agency which has recently been announced, we had, within the real property and environment space, Defence Construction Canada. And so, we've been working closely with Defence Construction Canada in order to implement the Buy Canadian policy which also, of course, applies to Crown corporations.

And while yes, simply the sheer volume of requirements is always creating challenges for us within procurement, the green aspects of it specifically, it's not becoming a particular challenge for us in terms of Buy Canadian. As Nick said, in general, Canadian things tend to be greener. Also, in terms of the construction space, a lot of what we already buy, many of the firms that we already work with, are already Canadian. And so, I think it's a bit of a misnomer that people think we can't do both. Is it a challenge? Absolutely. Are we always looking for ways to expedite procurement? Absolutely, but I'm certainly an advocate of, we can't throw the green requirements out the window in order to be able to meet what we need in terms of our procurement needs, but a lot of what we're doing within this space, I think, is really a win-win, as Nick was saying. So, we're buying greener things. We're buying Canadian things. We're able to check off many of those boxes in terms of policy objectives that we're all working together to achieve.

Jocelyne Charron: I like that. And as well, I think, right now, when you're looking at the global market and even the reputation of the country and the stability of the country in terms of investment and getting, I guess, the vendors and suppliers to trust that Canada will provide those markets in terms of Canadian walls, in terms of greening so that they can start the R&D on their side, choose to kind of build in Canada, build green, and then to know that the government will respond, right? Provinces will respond, the federal government will respond, so then you're able a bit to solidify those markets and maybe kind of leap a little bit more. So, I think we've seen in Canada when we're looking at somewhat of what's happening in the geopolitical context, that our sound values and our stability in terms of the country and then the policies that we have kind of make those kinds of things more trustworthy in terms of the market and in investment, right? So, not at all related to this conversation but why not bring that in, right? I'm going to go to the group. I want to know.

I'm going to ask you on Wooclap. I'm making you work again here. You're sending me questions, which I appreciate, but at the same time, a little question on Wooclap for you.

[01:08:58 Text appears on screen: "Code: ZERO26"]

We have others questions too. We will get to those afterwards, but while you are answering, we wanted to know, now that you've learned more about greening government, how can you incorporate it into your work?

[01:09:12 A slide is shown with the text:

"Now that you've learned more about greening government, how can you incorporate it in your work? "

1. By integrating environmental considerations into financial planning and budgeting – 22% (20)
2. By supporting or enforcing the inclusion of greening commitments in relevant procurement – 39% (35)
3. By incorporating climate-related risks into risk management and internal controls – 21% (19)
4. By tracking and reporting on environmental performance indicators – 12% (11)
5. By incorporating life cycle costing to ensure up-front capital costs are weighed – 21% (19)
6. I'm not sure yet, I need more guidance – 17% (15)".]

So, we will see. Initially, people weren't too sure. They were wondering, you know, I don't have much knowledge. I'm not quite sure how to apply it.

But now we'll see whether people feel more comfortable incorporating some of these principles into their work. So, we could incorporate it into environmental considerations, financial planning and budgeting, by supporting or enforcing the inclusion of greening commitments in procurement requests. I think that in terms of procurement, we have a bit of an idea of what to do because there are a lot of guidelines that have been given. By incorporating climate-related risks into risk management and internal controls. I think that's also something we could do quite easily.

Even asking questions means that quietly, slowly, we will raise the level of discussion, and perhaps also the level of comfort with the subject. By tracking and reporting environmental performance indicators. So, the Greening Government Centre does, in fact, have a lot of indicators and they track changes over time based on the indicators. We can see that we are making progress as a country, and as a public service. By incorporating lifecycle costing.

So, we talked a little about planning early, incorporating into the lifecycle, the pen that lasts three months versus the pen that lasts five years for investments. Even if it doesn't change decision-making, at least it will be incorporated. It may become part of the dialogue, and maybe you're not sure yet. So, we're going to see what it shows us on the screen.

So, a lot of people are saying they would integrate it in the financial planning and budgeting cycle, even if you have templates, yeah, and if you want, even integrating in your call letter, integrating in your template. Do you have any greening considerations related to this investment, related the planning? Do you feel that you have long-term environmental risk that you're sitting on that you need to bring forward? So, those are kind of easy, plunking a question here and there in a template. It doesn't have to be the full gamut but eventually, we'll get there, right? Yeah, greening, supporting greening, inclusion for greening commitment, and into risk. I feel risk as well, right? Often, your risk frameworks in your government, in your departments will go up to your deputy head. They often will go to your governance table. So, even if you are responsible for risk, I think that those are great areas to start to have that narrative broader than just in your each respective of bringing that narrative higher within your organization, so interesting to see.

So, I think that my takeaway to both, for you, Sarah and Nick, we've made a difference in terms of now people seeing where they could use greening within their own jobs and maybe make a difference for Canada. So, that's fantastic. I'm going to give us A+ on our objective of the day, and then continue on to some of the questions. Maybe for you, Nick, I'm putting you on the spot, but they're asking if there's best practices for small departments. I kind of feel small departments have such a different reality, right? Sarah works with DND, huge. They have capacity, they have a big imprint, they can dedicate a DG to this, but what if you're really small? Where can you start? Where do you think there would be maybe some of the kind of highest return on investment in terms of effort or activities that they could do?

Nick Xenos: Yeah, no, super question. I think when you're small, you're also nimble and you can pilot things quickly and make decisions quickly and you don't need to have procedures for 10,000 people, right? And you can talk to the individuals quickly. So, there's advantages to being small, and you could pilot things and do interesting things, and then we'd be happy to hear about it because, of course, you could do it more quickly and nimbly. So, I would say, look at a few things. Chances are, if you're small, you probably don't have real property that you own and you probably don't have much of a fleet. So, really, it's about procurement. It's really about what do you buy as a small entity, and what are the, we call them the HICATs, the high-impact categories. So, what are the things that you buy the most of? And start with those, and say, okay, most of our procurement is this, so what can we do and what criteria can we ask? And AI is actually really impressive on AI criteria for greening procurement because there's a lot of work that's been done across a lot of different categories of things we buy.

So, it could be travel, right? It could be one of the things that a small entity does a lot of. So, then, you could think about, how do we maybe do more virtual meetings or how do we, when we need to travel, find alternate ways to travel? Take the train between Montreal and Ottawa, for example, instead of flying. And so, you might want to tackle travel or you might want to tackle professional services or other things, supplies, office furniture, etc., right? And you may want to go to GCSurplus and get used stuff for free basically, instead of buying new stuff. I would say, tackle the things that you do the most of. Often too, smaller agencies might actually have more programing, and so you may want to look at your programing. Maybe you invest in grants and contributions or something, and you could look at what components you can put there. You can also think about sharing with other small departments and agencies. We can help connect you to a lot of other small ones and see what they do. Climate resilience is always important. Whether you're small or large, you can be affected by climate events. And so, keep that in mind. How can you ensure a resilient supply chain and resilient services and activities to Canadians?

Jocelyne Charron: I agree with that. I love the tip about where you have frequent activities and kind of zone in on that, and I remember when I said we were implementing some of these initiatives and the first thing for me was to understand, where do we have a lot of market, where do I have a repeat? And then, if I can somehow realign these activities to meet some of the socioeconomic goals that we had, I kind of felt, quickly, I could see an impact. So, understanding your activities kind of mirroring them to that objective will probably create some positive impact, although your footprint might be smaller, but I really like that idea.

Nick Xenos: Maybe I can just add, it might be an area like textiles. Maybe you only buy 20 uniforms for your small entity but you could find a provider that provides either used or recycled or some interesting solution that we can then port to a larger department. And as a small department, you could pilot it quickly. And then, we can go to Coast Guard or RCMP or Defence and say, hey, can we scale that solution, right? So, there's some interesting things that can happen.

Jocelyne Charron: Yes, true as well. Exactly. What do you think? We didn't think about but I did hear, maybe this is a myth, but they're mentioning, for example, the ecologic impact of using ChatGPT because it kind of creates a lot of demand on the IT fund and there's a lot of energy costs associated to that and compute costs. So, do you have any thoughts on the greening as it relates to some of the emerging technology and threats to infrastructure in that sense? That's very new in terms of conversation, right?

Nick Xenos: Yeah, it's a good question. And with the Canada School, we partnered to do actually a digital footprint of AI. So, you could do a search for that webinar as well, and we just did it, actually, I think a couple of months ago. We brought in an expert, an external expert.

So, when you think of AI and digital solutions generally, there's kind of hardware, there's energy use, and then there's kind of designing our services. So, think first the hardware, so AI but also our monitors, our computers. All those things take a lot of carbon to make. And so, think about, for example, one large monitor has a smaller carbon footprint than two monitors. So, we're working with IT, Shared Services, and say, why don't we go to one large monitor instead of two? It still operationally does what actually arguably is better and less carbon footprint, right? And then, you could reuse those monitors. And if you make the stand, it's something you can take off or put on easily, then you could reuse that. After government is done with it, other people can use it, right? And so, there's things to do. How can we have less hardware? Let's use our laptops for four years instead of three years. We're going to save millions as a government, right? So, that's the hardware. Then, think of the energy. So, AI takes a lot of energy. So, it's sizing the AI search properly, not using generative AI if you don't need to use it because generative AI creates a new image as opposed to searching existing data. So, let's use the right AI solution for what we need and use it when it's appropriate. And then, in our procurements, let's ask our service providers to give us services with 100% clean electricity. So, then, we know that the AI we're using is running on renewable energy, clean energy as opposed to fossil fuel-based energy.

The third thing is designing our services properly, and we're not bad at this in government. We often will design our websites and things to be low bandwidth so that people can access it in rural Canada, for example. You don't need to put video on everything if you don't need to, right? If you just can make everything more accessible and easier to click on and use more data and less video, for example, then the demand on AI will be less, the demand on data centres and cloud services will be less. And so, we call that digital sobriety. I like the French expression. Design your services to be appropriate to what you need for your outcome. And then, sometimes, digital solutions will actually save us a lot of footprint, right? With a bit more logistics kind of work and digital solutions, you could have a carpool app, right? And then, all of a sudden, not everybody needs to drive to work, for example, or you could have a digital way to implement inspection. And so, you need to visit things less if you have certain digital solutions. The Air Force is using simulators to do training hours for flying jets. You still need to fly jets but maybe you could do some things on the simulator. You might use less fuel, right? So, there's different aspects of the digital and AI side and different ways you can tackle it.

Jocelyne Charron: I like that. Yeah, exactly, and even thinking how technology can actually reduce your current footprint, and then maybe that can neutralize some of the ecologic imprint you're having with the AI, like you're mentioning. So, those are great points and tangible.

And we have a few minutes left. We have a lot of questions, which I'm so happy to hear because that means that people are interested. We're giving comments that are sparking their curiosity, and then they get to drop by your amazing expertise which is lovely, but I was kind of curious to see. So, there's a lot of policies, there's expectation, there's the Greening Government Strategy, obviously we're doing a lot at the whole of government, but at the end of the day, it's as well how much we're going to prioritize that in the respective departments. So, Sarah, I was kind of curious to see from your perspective, how is greening being embraced by your senior management? Are executives at DND, you spoke of level 1s, are they aware? Do you feel that they are operating with greening at the heart of how they should design and deliver? What are your views on that in terms of the buy-in of our executives to this government priority?

Sarah Evans: So, what I find actually, the most challenging level is sort of the middle. So, when I returned to DND, I was actually very pleased, so when they do regular executive orientation sessions at DND where all executives who are new to DND or newly returned to DND are part of the executive training day. And at part of that, many of our senior leaders speak, including our senior deputy ministers, our Chief of Defence Staff or Vice Chief of Defence Staff. And so, at that session, every single one of those senior leaders, which is sort of deputy minister or military sort of equivalents of deputy ministers, all spoke about environment and greening and climate within their remarks. The Department of National Defence is quite attuned because of the operational impact. So, I think for me, front and centre, when you're trying to get folks' attention on climate issues and greening issues, is to speak about it not from a sense of it being sort of a nice thing to do for the future and for our kids but the reality of the impacts it's having on the operations and the reality of our departments.

And so, for a department like National Defence, climate change impacts are having a huge impact in terms of our ability to plan our operations, yes, in terms of real property, as I mentioned, real property, of course, is a topic close to my heart, but in terms of the operations of the Canadian Armed Forces. So, for example, Op LENTUS, which is the operation to support provincial and territorial authorities during climate change emergencies, so the number of times the Canadian Armed Forces is being called upon to support in those climate-related emergencies, is increasing. There's lots of security considerations around land access, logistics, threats to personnel, health, property damage, both in terms of our domestic operations and then when you look at operations abroad. There are many questions tied to geopolitics. So, in terms of everything that's happening right now within the geopolitical space, climate change increases the need for provision of foreign aid in response to extreme weather events. There's all kinds of climate change impacts in terms of infectious disease patterns, disrupting migration patterns, creating resource scarcity, government destabilization.

And all of these things are issues around the world that the Canadian Armed Forces, along with our NATO allies, are being called to respond to. And so, for me, that's why our senior leadership very much is aware of climate and greening and the related challenges. What I find we have the biggest challenge with at National Defence is sort of that big middle, so folks who sort of live and breathe this on a day-to-day basis where many of the folks based on the initial Wooclap are sort of in that bucket, myself included, we obviously know about it because we live and breathe it every day, and I find that senior management's really engaged, but where we're struggling is the in-between, so trying to work to make sure that the in-between understands, and that's why we're trying to really push with a lot of community development, training within the department, putting together detailed procedures, detailed directives, speaking to folks within their language, so that they understand why this is important to them and why we all need to work together in order to meet these objectives.

Jocelyne Charron: I like that, and I think the political context and the geopolitical context is probably making senior management very aware, and we're understanding as well the interdependencies right across the globe. So, I kind of feel like right now, if we weren't sure, we're probably paying attention a little bit more than before. We're almost out of time but I wanted to ask Nick one practice you think that we should change on our daily basis to kind of make an impact. What would it be? One thing and then we're going to close.

Nick Xenos: Perfect. Yes. One thing, just being more aware. I'm so encouraged by how many people have joined this session, right? and learning about how climate's impacting their job and what they can do in their job. And I think if you're a real property owner, electrify your heat, if you're talking transportation, buy an EV or electrify your transportation, if you're buying stuff, think about what you're buying, so learning, just learning. And on the last slide of our presentation, there's a bunch of courses the Canada School has, Environment Canada worked with them, just to learn more about climate change, its impacts, and how you can be on the front lines of climate action.

Jocelyne Charron: Thank you. Thank you for that, being aware, being curious. We had a lot of curious people with us today, so that's wonderful.

So, that brings today's event to a close. I would like to thank our two speakers, Sarah and Nick. It has been a pleasure speaking with you, and also with everyone who joined the event. This was slightly different from our usual topics related to comptrollership, but it is actually a topic that unites us and one on which we can engage in greater collaboration to create a positive impact for Canadians and for the federal public service. So, this was truly an enriching event for me. I hope it was also enriching for everyone who joined this session. Your feedback is important to us and I invite you to complete the evaluation questionnaire that you will receive by email. I can assure you that we read them and that is how we have made improvements on previous sessions and we hope that this one was still enriching for you too.

The School has more events and they're actually wonderful to work with. So, thank you as well, the School, for hosting us and supporting us through this. So, I encourage you to visit their website. Nick also pointed you to some of the greening material that is available to use, and you can look at the reference material as well that was shared as part of this session today.

So, once again, thank you very much. I wish you a lovely afternoon, and I look forward to seeing you again in our next session. Thanks, everyone.

[01:28:04 The CSPS logo appears on screen, then the URL canada.ca/school.]

[01:28:08 The Government of Canada logo appears on screen.]