The Canadian Municipal Water Consortium’s new Strategic Sharing Group on Accelerating Net-Zero Actions in Municipal Water Management met for the second time on June 9, 2022.

The objective of this meeting was to engage in a dialogue with peers around challenges, best practices and opportunities participating utilities face in GHG emissions measurement, modelling and tracking. The meeting also aimed to explore the role of GHG emissions measurement in establishing and fulfilling each city’s and/or utility’s net-zero goals.

These objectives were achieved through a structured sharing of responses to questions posed by CWN, international updates and a case study that looked at Toronto Water’s GHG inventory. Some key takeaways that emerged from the group’s discussion were that:

  • Most Canadian utilities have started tracking GHG emissions to some extent and are taking an iterative approach towards more comprehensive tracking.
    • An important next step for utilities is moving beyond simply assessing energy use in utility operations for cost-driven purposes toward accounting for GHG emissions more broadly.
  • N2O is a significant GHG from wastewater treatment plants that many utilities are likely not fully accounting for due to limitations in estimation and measurement approaches.
  • Developing a more comprehensive GHG Inventory is an important foundation for better informing decision-making on carbon mitigation strategies for operations and capital planning that are tailored to the local context (e.g. considering carbon intensity of electricity grid, district heating opportunities, community’s commitment to net-zero emissions, etc.).

The terms of participation, primer, agenda, meeting capture and additional meeting resources are now available on the Net-Zero SSG webpage. Please treat these Strategic Sharing Group documents as confidential and use discretion when sharing with others in your organization.

The next meeting will be held in October. For more information or to join this group, contact Sandra Cooke, Director of Canadian Municipal Water Consortium, at [email protected]