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Inventories: What is measured in this plan?

Local governments have varying degrees of influence over different sources of emissions within their boundaries. Our emissions come from both ‘local’ sources (emissions that are created here) and ‘global’ sources from local consumption (emissions that include everything from the extraction of raw materials through to processing and transport as well as emissions that may be counted elsewhere but are still ultimately our emissions).

Penticton's GHG reduction target references only local (territorial) emissions. These emissions are measured in the Energy and Emissions Inventory using the BC Methodological Guidance for Quantifying GHG Emissions. The major categories of emissions included in this inventory are: buildings (residential and commercial), transportation (passenger and commercial) and waste.

This plan does not comprehensively address large industrial operations (e.g. mining, sawmill), embodied carbon (the emissions associated with creating something), or life cycle emissions (how many GHGs are emitted over the lifetime of an energy source or object). This is outside of the scope of what municipalities can meaningfully address currently, but is an important thing for everyone to think about when they are buying goods or services. How was your item created, how far did it travel, how is it packaged? These are all important questions to consider when buying consumer goods.

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