Our very own Blatchford was recently shortlisted for an Emerald Award in the Climate Adaptation & Resilience category.
Presented by the Alberta Emerald Foundation (AEF), the awards are among Alberta’s most recognized environmental honours, celebrating the individuals, organizations, and projects driving meaningful change across the province. Winners will be announced on June 4.
An honour to be included among such inspiring company
The shortlist represents the top projects and organizations selected from this year’s nominations, highlighting Alberta’s impact, innovation, and leadership in the environmental space. The Climate Adaptation & Resilience category recognizes initiatives that help communities, ecosystems, or industries adapt to climate impacts or build resilience by strengthening their ability to withstand, recover from, and thrive amid environmental change.
Blatchford is making an impact on climate change
These excerpts from Blatchford’s Emerald Award nomination describe the initiative’s environmental impacts and outcomes:
- Reducing GHG emissions: While about 40% of Edmonton’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) comes from buildings, Blatchford’s buildings – which are green-built and use renewable-sourced energy for their heating and cooling – release less GHGs than a traditional home. At full build out, the community is anticipated to save about 30,000 tonnes of GHG emissions annually. This is equivalent to the emissions from about 6,225 passenger vehicles driven for one year.
- Supporting local industry – green homebuilding: Blatchford’s custom Green Building Standards and District Energy connections are providing valuable experience and knowledge to the local homebuilding industry in green home construction and connecting to district energy.
- An award-winning District Energy Sharing System: At full buildout, Blatchford’s District Energy Sharing System is anticipated to be one of the largest of its kind in Canada – if not the largest. Today, homebuilders have already built hundreds of high-efficiency homes in the community that are connected to the system. The system is getting noticed, over the years receiving recognition that includes:
- Award of Merit: 2023 Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) Awards
- Outstanding Project of the Year Award – Small Project Category: 2023 Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) Awards
- Award of Excellence: 2022 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards
- Innovation Award: 2021 International District Energy Association (IDEA) Awards
- Leveraging learnings and inspiring others: Learnings from Blatchford’s District Energy System – such as integrating multiple renewable energy sources – are informing the City’s first District Energy Strategy. This strategy will implement more district energy systems in Edmonton and is an integral part of the City’s Community Energy Transition Strategy, which has a goal for 36% of GHG reductions to come from energy system transformation. This strategy recently inspired the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ new Accelerating Community Energy Systems Grant to advance community energy systems (CES) in Canadian municipalities.
Learn more
edmonton.ca/Blatchford
emeraldfoundation.ca
