Carbon neutral: Canadians get going

A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that a rise in temperatures of two to three degrees Celsius by the year 2050 could spell global disaster, with hundreds of millions of people forced to leave uninhabitable homes.

That’s one reason for a growing movement – among individuals, families and companies – to go carbon neutral.

Paul Allen and Monica Lambton and their family, of Montreal, have decided to move as a family towards living carbon neutral over the next few years. Novex, a major courier in British Columbia’s lower mainland, including the city of Vancouver, is revamping its operations to reduce environmental impact, including hybrid cars, natural gas vans and biodiesel trucks.

These seemingly small actions are part of a larger carbon-neutral movement aimed at cutting down emissions caused by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas. We create emissions in our daily lives, particularly when we drive, but also when we fly, or use power generated by fossil fuels.

Many Canadians are not waiting for governments or business to go green. They are changing their lives so they can make a difference.

Paul Allen says his family started with their home. They took advantage of what was then the federal Energuide Program to install a heat pump to complement the oil furnace. They also insulated the attic in their more than 40-year-old home.

By switching from a minivan to a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle, Paul and Monica estimate they’ve reduced fuel consumption almost 40 percent. They’d like to buy a hybrid, but due to cost, it’s in their long-term plan (2012) for now.

Instead of using their dryer, which is one of the highest energy-consuming appliances, they hang their laundry in the basement during the winter and outside in the summer. Their dishwasher runs every second day. And the hot water tank temperature is turned down.

Paul, who works at Concordia University, takes the train from suburban Beaconsfield, rather than driving. They have other plans: to reduce air travel, replace windows, and purchase solar panels.

"Monica and I have also talked about reducing the use of the car. We try and take shorter trips with the kids and walk where possible. I’ve been lobbying the city to build more bike paths. We use bikes to go to the pool in the summer."

Living in an environmentally responsible way is an important goal for the family, which has become more focused in the past few years. Monica has sent e-mails to neighbours to encourage the use of emission calculators that raise awareness of how much everyday activities impact the environment.

Their children, ages nine and five, are also getting into the act, participating in recycling and reducing garbage.

Companies can join the carbon neutral movement too. A courier company might be the last business you’d expect to be environmentally conscious, but Robert Safrata, CEO of Vancouver’s Novex Couriers, is proud that his operation is the first commercial same-day courier to go green, and make a profit doing it.

Safrata now has 20 ultra fuel-efficient vehicles, including 16 hybrids and four natural gas vans. The company’s dream is to have ultra-low-emission vehicles constitute its entire fleet.

In a video on the company website, a Novex driver estimates that his hybrid can now get 850 kilometers from a tank of gas. He says he probably saves about five pounds a day of carbon dioxide emissions.

Safrata says the hybrids have been a major capital expense, but now his drivers are sold on them. Instead of driving $3,000 "beaters," they are driving $30,000 hybrids, and their take-home pay is better.

The emission reductions are impressive: 100 percent reduction in hydrocarbons and nitrous oxide and 82 percent reduction in carbon dioxide, tested by the provincial air care plan.

"We’re not an environmental business. We’re a courier business. But the way we do business has changed," Safrata says in the video. "We have shareholders. And we are shareholders. But we are also members of the community. And we look beyond what we make this quarter and next quarter."

The courier company also plants trees to offset its carbon imprint.

Safrata is one of the "green" business owners who are presenting Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth to Canadian audiences.

And he’s not alone. Recent opinion surveys show senior executives and major corporations are more conscious of their environmental responsibilities.

The carbon-neutral movement represents a challenge to the so-called free market ideology that has dominated the world economy.

Dr. Harry Spaling, an associate professor of geography and environmental studies at The King’s University College in Edmonton, contends that the market does not take note of the real cost of what the earth supplies.

After all, rainfall is free. Fresh water from a glacier is free. "A free market faith also produces many things that are free such as smelly gases from refinery row, oil spills and emissions from tail pipes and chimneys," Spaling wrote in an article linking the Kyoto protocol to faith.

"Kyoto is a religion and it requires a faith response. A Christian response might include a confession of human complicity in the abuse of creation through misplaced faith in technology markets and ideologies."

The other Christian response, he suggests is a climate-care policy that values all creation. That is what the carbon neutral movement is all about. It includes not only reducing emissions, but also purchasing carbon offsets, which help create sustainable industry.

The carbon-neutral movement has now become mainstream with sporting events, movie studios, conferences, big corporations, governments, schools and churches all starting to move towards carbon-neutral operations, either by reducing emissions or purchasing offsets.

Climate change may be a global problem, but it is one that can be addressed one family, and one business, and one community at a time.

Bob Bettson is an Anglican priest and freelance writer in Calgary.

The Catalyst, spring 2007, Volume 30 / Number 2