City of Guelph committee OKs plan to become 100% renewable by 2050

The City of Guelph wants to be100 per cent renewable by 2050.

On Monday afternoon, Coun. Leanne Piper presented a motion to a city council committeeto have the municipal government, and all of the buildings it owns, become renewable within the next three decades.

It was met with unanimous support.

"It's 32 years out, but it's still a very ambitious goal," said manager of the climate change office, Alex Chapman.

Chapman also presented an update for the Community Energy Initiative, which is Guelph's energy plan.

The energy plan says Guelph as a community has a goal to be net-zero on carbon by 2050. While it's ahead of schedule for its carbon reduction targets, he said it's lagging behind when it comes to energy intensity reduction goals.

"We would be expecting to be about 20 per cent down from where we were in 2006, and in fact, we're only two per cent down," Chapman said.

He said contributingfactors could be delays in retrofit programs for residential buildings to make them more energy efficient as well as the trend toward people buying bigger and more "energy-intensive" homes and cars.

Chapman said the motionto become 100 per cent renewable is "one step beyond" the net zero carbon goal for the community, as it would only apply to the municipal government itself, and not the entire municipality.