As the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces strive to reduce their energy use and environmental impact, DCC support to the Client-Partners continues to grow.
The Defence Energy and Environment Strategy (DEEs) includes 18 targets for energy and environmental action. As Maria Drake, Regional Service Line Leader, Environmental Services, National Capital Region, explains, DCC is supporting programs and projects in all these areas and more, across all of its service lines and regions.
"From including green initiatives in its procurement and energy performance contracts, planning and building a net-zero building, to tracking and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions, DCC was there to support and continues to be ready to support," Drake says.
By the end of the year, for example, DCC will have awarded nine energy performance contracts worth more than $200 million. Related projects will help DND meet the government's objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, as well as lowering energy and operating costs at bases and wings across Canada.
The 3,389-m2, $15.7-million Explosive Ordnance Disposal Training Facility at CFB Gagetown—completed in 2019 with construction managed by DCC—runs almost completely off the grid, thanks to geothermal heating, and its own well, water treatment system and septic system.
DCC is working with the Client-Partners and other government stakeholders, including Environmental and Climate Change Canada, to reduce the number of contaminated DND sites under the next phase of the 30-year Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan.
A physical waste audit of a DND site in Meaford, Ontario, and a desktop audit of several other facilities is shedding light on non-hazardous waste generation and diversion rates.
And the list goes on. "Every service line is working to further enhance the value-added services we are already providing," says Drake.
