One of 36 Conservation Authorities in Ontario, our purpose is to protect people from natural hazards, conserve nature and provide opportunities for outdoor recreation and education across our watershed.
Sustainability is a core value in our organization and in our strategic plan, and we aim to embody sustainability in everything we do, from the facilities we build, to the workforce we support and to the communities we help plan.
Our goal is to be a leader in conservation and be not only champions, but examples, of sustainability through our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint, minimize climate and environmental risk, enhance resiliency and incorporate sustainable operations.
2021 Annual Impact Report
In 2021 we established our baseline year (2021) and reduction target (10% annual reduction target to meet our pledge to reduce 30% absolute GHG by 2025 over our baseline year). We recognized that reducing our overall emissions, waste and consumption requires an organizational effort. We, therefore, identified an action task force team that will drive key efforts and organizational engagement. Work will include engaging in an annual action planning process to identify activities having the greatest impact on our organization, reviewing the action plan to assess how we are trending towards meeting our targets and expanding our data sets. Additionally, our Strategic Plan will aid in our work via (1) implementing organizational practices that support the social, environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability with the overall objective of transitioning infrastructure and operations from grey to green solutions and (2) identifying and promoting climate change approaches for watershed resiliency.
2020 Annual Impact Report
Conservation Halton has been working to baseline our emissions across our lands, parks and facilities. Our new strategic plan, Momentum 2021-2024, has identified climate change and watershed resiliency as well as transitioning from grey to green solutions as key strategic objectives.
In 2020, we safely reopened our parks through our digital Park Reservation System to enable green space access, protected 9756 terrestrial and aquatic areas, completed 75 floodplain, wetland and watercourse restoration projects, launched a volunteer program to support restoration projects and community learning, launched a “From the Ground Up” program to engage students in environmental stewardship and collaborated with Cogeco to launch a television series about conservation for children.
We partnered with local libraries to make 190 park passes available for the community to borrow as well as with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to host ceremonies in our parks.
2019 Annual Impact Report
Conservation Halton joined Sustainable Hamilton Burlington in March 2019 and we have since been actively working towards understanding our current state of emissions and impact as well as the value of our natural resources and land holdings. We have identified organizational champions in our Green Team and struck a core project team to help drive sustainability initiatives across the organization.
This past year, we implemented work from home policies to reduce staff commute, oversaw a tree planting program that resulted in over 60,000 trees planted, engaged local schools to reuse and repurpose ash logs from hazard trees and restored over 15 hectares of land. We rolled out digital transformation and low impact design initiatives to reduce the use and waste of physical assets and promote green infrastructure.
2020 has brought CH renewed enthusiasm to continue focusing on sustainability as a key pillar of CH as we embark on the planning of our next strategic plan.
2018-2019 Annual Business Report
Conservation Halton joined Sustainable Hamilton Burlington in March 2019. This signifies a major commitment in putting our strategic plan into action. We have identified sources of baseline data to collect and are in the process of developing an implementation team.
Staff attended several Sustainable Hamilton Burlington events in 2018, including the Cities in Action Bay Area Climate Change Summit. Staff presented at the Bay Area Youth Summit on the subject of protecting the natural environment in the face of climate change. We are excited to be embarking on this journey of sustainability in partnership with SHB.
