The Innovation for Defence,
Excellence and Security program
recently issued a challenge calling for proposals
to retrofit existing, older buildings
across National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces
to lessen the organization's impact on the environment.
Mats Striegler, Senior Advisor
for the Directorate of Portfolio Innovation,
Infrastructure and Environment Group joins us today
to tell us more about this important challenge
and what it means for Defence, Canada, energy consumption,
and the reduction of global carbon footprint.
So, thanks for joining us today, Mats.
To kick us off, can you maybe talk to us a little bit
about what the key drivers were behind launching this challenge?
So the key drivers are fairly simple to explain.
All you have to do is think about the news
that's been in the news cycle for the last couple of years,
just increasing every year. You can think about
what's going on in BC right now and Northern Ontario.
The floods in Germany, the fires in Australia,
the Fort McMurray fire. All of this is a result
of the climate warming and the climate changing as a crisis.
And that's as a result of our GHG, Greenhouse Gas, emissions.
So that's the driver is that we have to reduce
that carbon footprint and we've been mandated by the government
to reduce that footprint
and it's going to be at a much more accelerated pace.
DND, as a federal department,
we're responsible for about... right now,
a little less than 50%
of the government's operating emissions and of that 50%,
90% comes from our building portfolio.
We have a massive portfolio across Canada.
Understood. So the primary focus
is to find an alternative heating mechanism
that is going to reduce the carbon footprint
for our facilities.
And you mentioned the sheer number of facilities
that is operated by DND/CAF across the country.
Are there any other potentially positive benefits
that we could hope to yield from this challenge
in our fight against climate change?
Yes, one of the biggest benefits is of course costing.
I mean, right now...
the only potential way to meet that challenge right now
is to transform our entire portfolio into net-zero.
That's literally billions of dollars.
It would be massive.
Aside from the housing stock, the operational stock,
warehouses, the messes, the barracks, the hangars.
That's 10,000 buildings.
And a lot of those buildings are massive buildings
that would take 60, 70, 80 million to upgrade.
So having to do that
would be just an enormous burden of cost on the department.
We wouldn't normally have to do that.
Those buildings would still be there
and operational for 40 years.
So if we can find a way to transform heating
in those buildings with a low-carbon system
without having to re-skin the building, do major upgrades
and introduce new mechanical equipment inside the building,
new roofs, those major insulation upgrades
that are required, we're going to have that huge cost burden
removed from us in the future.
Thank you for being with us today
and good luck with the challenge.
It was a pleasure. Thank you.