SUCH WAS THE CASE with the Toronto Zoo, which established its first sustainability strategy in 2007 and then refreshed it in 2022 as the City of Toronto adopted 2040 net-zero targets for its own operations and those of its agencies.

The zoo’s primary carbon issues involve heating the animal enclosures, maintaining appropriate humidity levels and dealing with lots of animal waste and wastewater. Scope 1 and 2 emissions (those generated by operations and the energy used in those operations) account for 17 per cent of the zoo’s greenhouse gases, says environmental sustainability manager Kyla Greenham. The zoo, she adds, is now buying EVs to replace its diesel-powered vehicles and converting the energy systems in its 105 buildings.

But even though she was confident the zoo had a handle on where it was headed in its sustainability journey, Greenham enrolled the zoo in the federal Net-Zero Challenge program to get a better handle on how to calculate scope 3 emissions (those generated within a supply chain that includes a great deal of animal feed). “I was always kind of uncomfortable with the scope 3,” she says. “It’s a much larger concept. We’re currently doing our scope 3 inventory, and we will be re-writing our net-zero target emission later this year to incorporate [it].” 

FOR EAGLE WING TOURS, a whale-watching outfit in Victoria, the program functions almost like a peer review or certification of what it has already been doing with its fleet for well over a decade. Owner Brett Soberg explains that the company, which runs tours in the Salish Sea, went carbon neutral in 2009 through a combination of measures, from greening its own administrative operations to buying carbon offsets.

In recent years, Eagle Wing, working with sustainability consultants Synergy Enterprises, set out to transition its fuel use from petroleum-based diesel to renewable diesel, a chemically identical form of diesel refined from grains and sourced in part from a local First Nation. The two fuels are interchangeable, in terms of the engine, and similar in price, except the renewable cuts the company’s emissions by 85 to 95 per cent. “Renewable diesel is something that exists on the West Coast,” he says. “It is available. We can get our hands on it. It’s one of the most practical near-term solutions available to our sector.”

Working with Victoria’s port authority, which provides fuelling services, Eagle Wing has negotiated a temporary hook-up while the agency converts to the low-emission product, per its own sustainability plan. “We’ll have something by May or June this year, which is brilliant. We’ll be light years ahead of our goal, which is to reduce our emission by 50 per cent by 2030.”      

Eagle Wing enrolled in the Net-Zero Challenge to confirm its strategy to reach net-zero emissions through fuel switching, efficiencies and, at the very end, some modest investment in local carbon offset credits. Soberg says though Eagle Wing has a fairly sophisticated understanding of what its carbon footprint is, he was attracted to the federal net-zero program because it was thorough and used international standards. “There’s a rigorous process,” Soberg explains. “For us, that was important because in our business, which is a very competitive market with 30 companies that do something similar to what we do in Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria, third-party verification is key to addressing the greenwashing that does occur in our industry.”

THE MOST FORMIDABLE CHALLENGES, perhaps, face industrial firms like Logistik Unicorp, a Quebec City-based manufacturer of uniforms, including specialized ones used by the Canadian Forces and law-enforcement agencies. The company’s plant has been LEED and ISO certified for environmental standards for several years, but Logistik viewed the Net-Zero Challenge as a catalyst that would push it to make wholesale changes in the way it makes its products.

“It pushed us to take a more rigorous and holistic look at our impact,” says Laura Hamel, communications and PR advisor, noting that Logistik signed on in May 2023.

With the support of external experts, Logistik assessed the materials it was using, completed a full greenhouse gas inventory and developed a three-year action plan. In particular, the company needed help to develop a strategy to transition to a circular materials approach — eliminating waste by keeping materials in use. In Logistik’s case, this meant a commitment to invest in research and development into recycling fabrics. “We are actively testing the approach through life-cycle assessments [evaluating the environmental impacts of a product, process or service throughout its entire life],” Hamel says. Logistik can use that information to rethink how products are designed from the beginning of the development process to prevent waste and improve sustainability. “The objective is to move from isolated pilots to a more systematic integration of eco-design principles across our portfolio.”

Three years in, she describes the Net-Zero Challenge program as valuable, saying Logistik and other companies benefit from the guidance it provides. But, Hamel adds, given the complexity of such corporate transformations, participants “could also benefit from greater access to early information on upcoming expectations, requirements and regulatory developments.”