2014 annual report

2014 Northern Environmental Action Team

Annual Report

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Table of Contents Message from the President Pg. 5 Message from the Executive Director Pg. 6 Waste Reduction Pg. 8 Energy Education & Compost Pg. 9 Water & Food Security Pg. 10 Sponsors Pg. 11 Audited Financial Statements Pg. 12

Mission. Empowering individuals, businesses and institutions to engage in environmentally sustainable practices.

We lead by example, creating awareness, educating, inspiring and demonstrating innovative solutions.

Vision. A healthy, vibrant community, whose members adopt environmentally

sustainable actions in their daily lives.

2014 Board of Directors

2014 Staff

Jarrod Bell, President Douglas Ross McCracken, Vice President Colleen Brown, Secretary Margaret Fenton, Treasurer Morgan Peltier, Director Bruce Kosugi, Director Ben Rauscher, Director Ruth Ann Darnall, Honorary Director

Dzengo Mzengeza, Executive Director Karen Mason-Bennett, Program Coordinator Tammy Hrab, Communications Coordinator Jennifer Bourke, Eco-Advisor, Fort St John (Until April) Susan McGarvey, Eco-Advisor, Fort St John (from May) Rochelle Thomas, Business Energy Advisor / Eco-Advisor at large Catherine Henry, Eco-Advisor, Dawson Creek (on maternity leave) Shana Labatch, Eco-Advisor, Dawson Creek Jen Slater, Eco-Advisor, Chetwynd Julia Roberts, Summer Student Liz Biggar, Eco-Advisor, NRRM (until February) Owen Law, Eco-Advisor, NRRM (February to April) Jacquie Johnston, Eco-Advisor, NRRM (from May) Domini Pope, Bookkeeper Heather Stark, Janitor Val Bailey, Scrapbooking Sally Emory, Advisor

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Message from the President This will be my last President’s report for NEAT as my family and work responsibilities continue to grow. I will resign from the Board in early 2015. Looking back on my years with NEAT as a volunteer I greatly appreciate and have been impressed by the time spent by staff and volunteers to help meet NEAT’s Vision. Thank you for your time and expertise.

2014 continued to be a recruiting year for the NEAT Board as well as another excellent year of programs put on by NEAT Staff and Volunteers through Northeast British Columbia.

The dual reality of a transient population and the mainstreaming of being “Green” are challenges for maintaining members of the board.

Quite often we have seen interested board members come and go due to changing locations of their work. While we have little ability to impact the locality of work of Board members NEAT may be able to draw Board members with specific focus. The “Green” mainstream has given the general public a false impression that everything is well in terms of our Environment. While NEAT has made and encouraged tremendous strides in the 25 years of its existence, there is much more to do and many task more difficult than what NEAT has already accomplished.

I encourage the organization to choose specific areas that meet the Mission and Vision and find partners, staff, and Board members that are passionate about the cause. Waste Reduction education will generate funds to sustain the organization but I would suggest that NEAT choose to target an area where they believe they can activate members of the community. Some possibilities would be food security or water conservation/protection.

In conclusion I encourage those of you for whom the environment and working together with partners are passions to please consider volunteering and joining our organization as a member and a Friend of NEAT. Thank you to our Volunteers, Members, Staff, Partners, and Directors for helping to build a NEAT future. Your efforts help build our vision of a healthy, vibrant community whose members adopt environmentally sustainable actions in their daily lives.

Goodbye and best wishes, Jarrod Bell Northern Environmental Action Team Past President

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Message from the Executive Director Our Journey Continues ……………………..

2014 marked NEAT’s 25th anniversary. Throughout the years, we have come a long way and made a positive impact on environmental awareness and education in Northeast BC. NEAT had a humble beginning in 1989 where we ran the local recycling depot. At this time these services were non-existent, but NEAT made it work with one staff member and a group of volunteers. Today, we run a complete range of environmental programs with approximately nine staff members. Our programs expanded from just promoting recycling to providing education and awareness in resource conservation including solid waste, water and energy. We also developed programs around greenhouse gas reductions through the promotion of idle reduction.

There have also been some remarkable changes in the past year. MMBC (Multi-Material BC) introduced a province wide Packaging and Printed Paper Stewardship program in May focused on the collection of residential materials. Many in the province have joined the MMBC residential curbside recycling program, however, other than the PRRD transfer stations there are no municipalities signed on so far in Northeast BC. The City of Fort St John and the Village of Pouce Coupe are thinking of implementing residential curbside recycling in the near future. We are hoping that all the cities in the region will sign on with the program that will see curbside collection of recycling in each municipality. The goal behind the MMBC program is to shift financial responsibility for end-of-life management of packaging and printed paper from governments and their taxpayers to the businesses that produce these materials.

The LiveSmartBC Small Business program came to an end at the end of March and was handed over to BC Hydro and Fortis Gas. Many businesses benefitted through the incentives offered by the program and were able to make significant energy savings for their businesses and the province. We served over 1200 businesses and helped saved more than 560 MW of energy in the Northeast region.

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During the year the Board and staff completed the five year Strategic Plan for 2015 – 2020. As a filter for prospective programs and partnerships the Board of Directors provided five key areas for programs in the future which are: Waste Reduction ICI /Residential, Energy Education, Composting, Water, and Food Security.

The Waste Reduction Promotion and Education Program contract with the Peace River Regional District was renewed for a year at the end of 2013 and a request for proposal was issued in February 2015. We have been informed that we will be offered another five year contract. In February 2015 the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality decided to take the services we were providing in-house and did not renew our contract.

Although we face a number of challenges such as funding and lack of volunteers we are thankful for the partnerships and support we continue to receive. We want to thank the City of Dawson Creek, District of Chetwynd, Encana, Spectra Energy, TransCanada, RBC Blue Water, North Peace Savings and Credit Union, TD Friends of the Environment and others that partnered and supported us. We also thank Community groups such as the Farmers’ Market, the North Peace Cultural Centre, Restorative Justice Society, Communities in Bloom and others, along with businesses such as Rosenau, Home Hardware that partnered with us to support various projects during the year.

As we continue our journey, we look forward to another fruitful 25 years of service to our communities fulfilling our vision of a “healthy, vibrant communities whose members adopt environmentally sustainable actions in their daily lives.”

Thank you to our Board and Staff for your commitment to NEAT, you are an awesome team! A special thank you to Jarrod Bell our President who has stepped down after many years of services on the Board.

Dzengo Mzengeza Executive Director

Facebook Friends

Water Works

1,393 200

Donated Jars

29,106

People Received Information

1,619 Students

80

Food Secure Kids

2014 At a Glance

640

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Waste Reduction NEAT continued our strong history of waste reduction programming throughout 2014. We were able to focus on some new programs including a compost research project called Rot ‘n’ Research which leveraged volunteer participants to help evaluate the diversion potential of backyard composts, while school programming and the institutional, commercial and industrial sectors continued to be a focus.

The summer saw the advent of some new programming and partnerships that increased our community reach dramatically.

Eco-Quest, Whimsical Wednesdays and Fearless Fridays, as well as, partnerships with the Fort St John Public Library and the Friendship Centre saw us reach more than 500 children throughout the summer.

Our focus this year was on guiding residents back through the waste reduction hierarchy from recycle back to reduce and reuse. We have challenged residents to rethink the way they interact with waste and change their behaviour where they see fit.

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Energy Education Exploring where your energy comes from and the impacts of production are important conversations in our energy based economies. Programming explored alternative energies and focused on harnessing cleaner, greener power as well as reducing overall consumption.

Participants used the sun to bake cookies at Pro-D Daze and explored the energy demands of their communities over the next 50 to 100 years in the Energy Mix. Students came out of these programs with a better understanding of why conversations about future energy production and resource conservation should be happening now and are better prepared to participate in them.

Compost Composting continues to be an accessible and affordable way to reduce waste for residents and businesses alike. Rot ‘n’ Research is a project that tracked the organic diversion of residents throughout the Peace in order to determine the diversion potential of backyard composting. Participants received a compost thermometer and a digital scale and kept track of the temperature of their compost piles as well as the weight of their organics.

Results will be tabulated into a northern composting guide and will help guide future efforts to divert organic waste from the landfill.

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Water

Water Works: Exploring the Value of Water at Home and Abroad was held for the first time in Dawson Creek with the generous support of Encana. This two day event saw Grade 10 leadership students driving a conservation message forward to their peer group and exploring the role of water in their community. Overall. more than 500 students attended presentations and feedback was very positive.

Food security is a developing focus area for NEAT and continues to expand through project specific funding. The Learn to Can session was well attended and was also offered free of charge through Women’s Resources and Northern Health to participants that would otherwise be unable to afford to attend.

The Community Can entered its second year in 2014 and was sponsored by the North Peace Savings and Credit Union. Together approximately ten participants canned more than 200 jars for donation to the local food bank.

Food Secure Kids also has expanded, being offered to four classrooms in Fort St John in 2014. Produce students grew was transplanted into the Community Garden and was available to residents throughout the summer.

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Food Security

Water continues to be a strategic focus for many of the municipalities in northeast BC. NEAT has worked to broaden the conversation from just conservation to stewardship and quality preservation as well.

Sponsors To Everyone that Believes Converting Awareness into Action is Valuable.

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