Oakville’s response to the climate emergency now has a leading organization – and soon, will have boots on the ground.
Future Energy Oakville (FEO) has been established to help bring the vision of a sustainable energy future closer to reality.
The independent, community-based organization will work on implementing Oakville’s Community Energy Strategy by engaging homeowners, businesses and community members in actions to improve energy efficiency and reduce local greenhouse gas emissions.
The strategy calls for “a robust and actionable implementation approach,” Deniz Ergun, a research policy analyst with the town, told councillors during their April 26 meeting. “It recognizes that an energy transformation requires the community to work together.”
The strategy’s 2041 goals include cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent, improving energy efficiency by 40 percent from 2016 levels, and returning at least $7 billion in energy savings to the community.
Founded with three board members, FEO will add board members and hire an executive director.
Community buy-in is "magic sauce," says mayor
As part of a five-year commitment to the organization, the town is providing $200,000 in funding and administrative support.
On April 26, town council approved a service agreement with FEO. The organization is tasked with developing a business plan, seeking funding and establishing partnerships, communicating about community-related energy issues and opportunities, and coordinating work on priority projects.
Establishing an independent, community-based organization was a goal of the Oakville Energy Task Force.
It is also the best way to bring people together to move forward with change, said Mayor Rob Burton, who noted that most emissions result from decisions made by individuals related to how they live and travel.
“Community engagement and community buy-in is the magic sauce without which nothing is going to happen,” he said.
“We simply don’t have dictatorial powers to order people. Until we all want to do it, it isn’t going to happen.”
Aim higher, suggests HACEN
Councillors did hear from several delegates who urged a faster approach to addressing climate change issues.
Direct municipal action, possibly as part of a regional project, would allow more rapid progress on emissions, argued Mervyn Russell on behalf of Halton Action for Climate Emergency Now (HACEN).
By endorsing the establishment of FEO, the town “deliberately freed itself of directly reducing community energy use” and created a private-public partnership where volunteer private partners would do most of the heavy lifting, he added.
Hart Jansson, also of HACEN, noted that big houses, multiple cars and higher consumption levels make Oakville emissions higher than the national average and still rising.
He suggested the strategy’s emission reduction goal is outdated and too low, arguing that Oakville could get to about an 80 percent emission reduction by 2040.
As FEO establishes itself, council should take “urgent supplemental action,” particularly on the goal of encouraging home energy retrofits, said Jansson, who pointed to a Halton Hills pilot program as a model.
But Cindy Toth, vice-chair of the Halton Environmental Network, lauded the creation of an independent organization to accelerate change.
“Other community energy plans have not gone far into implementation due to the expectation that the municipality should do all the administration, funding and implementation,” she said. “That is unreasonable and short-sighted.”
The three founding board members of FEO are John Matthiesen, Wayne Steffler and Zaheer Muhammad.
Matthiesen, FEO president and chair of the board, was a former co-chair of the Oakville Energy Task Force and is a senior director with the engineering consulting Hatch. Steffler, FEO’s treasurer, is Sheridan College VP of Finance and Administration. Muhammad is a director of strategic business development with Siemens Canada.
