Stratford to retain consultants for development of community climate action plan

Stratford will spend as much as $50,000 – half of which will be covered by a provincial grant – to hire consultants to help develop a community climate action plan that will guide the city’s efforts to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

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Following the recent approval of Stratford’s corporate energy and emissions planwhich focuses on reducing carbon emissions from municipally owned assets, the city has turned its attention to a broader community plan that can provide strategic direction and a co-ordinated approach to tackling climate change.

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“This climate action plan is a long-term plan that is being developed for the community … that is data driven and tailored to the needs of Stratford as a community,” Stratford climate change programs manager Sadaf Ghalib said at Tuesday’s infrastructure, transportation and safety committee meeting. “It’s also intended to identify specific strategies in place and actions to be implemented in the short, medium and long term. These would have a direct impact on community-generated emissions, as well as support the community in its own energy transition.

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“The plan is also intended to be a roadmap to enhance energy conservation measures and save on energy costs for the community, and help them transition from fossil fuels to clean energy while exploring economic opportunities.”

Since the plan will include strategies for reducing carbon emissions specific to sectors in the community, including buildings, transportation, tourism and industry, Ghalib said its continued development will require the collection of detailed information from many different sources. Energy usage data from Festival Hydro, for example, could be used to measure carbon emissions generated by residential heating, Ghalib noted.

While Ghalib told councilors she had completed some higher level data collection and analysis for the city already, the scope of the required work for the next phase of the community action plan is beyond what the city is capable of completing in-house.

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While the city had already spent $50,000 on consulting services and staff time to manage the first two phases of the plan’s development this year – half of which was covered by Ministry Energy funding – Ghalib recommended spending as much as $50,000 more this year on additional consulting services . It’s a price tag that actually dropped from roughly $70,000 when she made her initial request to subcommittee on Oct. 25.

To support the additional consulting costs, the city applied – and was approved – for another $25,000 in funding from the Energy Ministry, but the work must be completed this year for the city to receive reimbursement of up to half of eligible project costs.

At that Oct. 25 subcommittee meeting, members voted to recommend that council refer the additional consulting costs to the city’s 2024 budget deliberations.

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“I was the one at subcommittee who objected to the consultant and I just wanted to let the entire council know that my objection was not specifically related to a climate consultant, but to consulting in general, … The consulting reports that I’ve seen … I don’t think we’re getting much value for our money. … Everything we do in terms of climate mitigation … is going to be expensive … and I want to make sure we’re getting value for every dollar we spend because we can bankrupt ourselves trying to fix everything, so we are going to have to be strategic. I appreciate on this one that we’ve been able to lower the (cost) and I will support this, but I’m going to be questioning a lot of consulting requests this year, if they’re necessary,” Coun. Mark Hunter said Tuesday. ”

Coun. Larry McCabe suggested the development of the community plan could prove critical in obtaining future senior government funds.

“In this instance, we’re looking at something that has potential to… convince other levels of government to give you funds,” McCabe said. “If you don’t have a plan, you don’t get funding. … We are far behind other communities in taking climate action and we’d otherwise be playing catchup further, so that’s why I think we need this particular consultant.”

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