We are committed to environmental and social responsibility while delivering our housing programs and services.
Sustainability is key
At BC Housing, we recognize that our actions impact local communities and ecosystems across the province. Our new Sustainability and Resilience Strategy, released in July 2023, will guide our sustainability work moving forward. We are over a decade into our sustainability journey, and we continue to deliver on our core mandate with sustainability and resilience objectives in four areas.
Planning
Sustainability and Resilience Strategy
Our new Sustainability and Resilience Strategy includes performance measures, targets, and an Implementation Plan containing actions that will help us move towards our sustainability and resilience goals over the next three years.
Climate Adaptation Framework
In 2017 we published our new Climate Adaptation Framework which aligns its’ goals and tactics with the livegreen Sustainability Plan. It recognizes that not only should we aim to reduce our negative contributions to carbon pollution and environmental footprint, we must also take action on the climate change impacts already affecting our work and communities across B.C. For example, increasing annual average temperatures and more frequent and intense heat waves present health risks to our tenants and building occupants (See more on our Extreme Heat page). The adaptation framework helps us prepare and respond to those changes in weather patterns and to unprecedented extreme weather events.
Reporting
The targets and measures are also outlined in our Sustainability and Resilience Strategy.
Climate Change Accountability Report
The Climate Change Accountability Report (previously the Carbon Neutral Action Report) focuses on our actions related to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from all buildings that BC Housing owns and leases, our vehicle fleet, and office paper. This includes hundreds of residential buildings across the province and over one million square meters of floor area. Since 2010, BC Housing has reduced its carbon footprint by 18 per cent through energy efficiency in new construction and energy retrofits, and management in existing buildings.
Sustainability and Resilience Report
The Sustainability and Resilience Report describes BC Housing’s sustainability and resilience performance for the 2022/23 fiscal year and compares these results to the targets set in our Sustainability and Resilience Strategy.
Employee Council
The livegreen Employee Council is BC Housing’s employee-driven “green team”. The Council’s purpose is to initiate activities that raise awareness about sustainability, and to help BC Housing employees make more sustainable decisions at work, home, and in their communities.
Each year, Council creates its own strategic plan to identify sustainability-related activities under four focus areas – home, workplace, food, and commuting/travel.
Examples of past activities and promotions include Meatless Mondays, Bike to Work Week, Commuter Challenge, Paper Challenge, waste reduction campaigns, and hosting information sessions on sustainable local food.
The work of the livegreen Employee Council has contributed greatly to BC Housing being named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers every year since 2015.