2023 saw a small but dedicated group of local volunteers, led by the Manitoba Green Action Centre, join together to perform a Green Audit of Altona’s largest public facility, the MEC (the Millenium Exhibition Centre including the Rhineland Pioneer Centre and the Altona Curling Club). Melissa, Michael, Shayna, Winnie and myself worked hand in hand with leaders from the MB Green Action Centre to better understand how these buildings affect not only their own environment but the people of the community that use the facility as well.
Monthly meetings saw the Altona CAT (Climate Action Team) assess and analyze the facilities through 6 specific impact lenses: building & energy, transportation, waste, food, water and green infrastructure. These meetings focused on how the MEC was currently performing in each category as well as forming ideas on possible improvements that could be made. Data supplied by the Town of Altona as well as audits performed by the team gave an overall picture of how the building performed in each category. One example is that during the waste audit it was discovered that while we currently send 61% of our waste to the landfill only 30% of our total waste is landfill material. 21% is actually compostable and another 10% is recyclable. Another regarding water usage saw that 90% of the entire MEC water consumption was related to building and maintaining the ice surface.
These observations were analyzed and improvement ideas were divided into three categories of action: short-term, mid-term and long-term. Short-term actions were those that could be easily implemented, had a smaller effective cost and had an immediate impact on the building’s performance. Mid-term actions would likely involve a little more effort or cost with positive gains being farther in the future and long-term actions were costlier, more substantial investments for the facility. Ideas were considered across all 6 of the areas of analysis with some possible actions being: programmable thermostats to properly adjust heating/cooling during usage, reducing water usage by improving flooding techniques, improving green spaces both indoors and outdoors and helping the general public to better understand the environmental impacts of not only the MEC, but buildings in general in the community.
This environmental assessment looked at the MEC specifically but the skills and knowledge passed down from the Manitoba Green Action Centre will hopefully continue to be utilized by the Climate Action Team. The Green Audit could be applied to almost any building and help Altona take steps towards a greener, more environmentally sustainable future.
David Sawatzky
Please see the whole report here: Altona Green Audit
