Highlighting Surrey Schools’ green initiatives for Earth Day 2024
As students, staff and community members prepare to celebrate Earth Day for 2024, Surrey Schools is highlighting some of the green initiatives taking place around the district and what can be done at home.
The annual Earth Day campaign, now in its 54th year, is an opportunity for citizens around the world to discover and reflect upon how they can help preserve the planet, its environments and its ecosystems.
Each year in Surrey and White Rock, schools take part in various activities and learning opportunities to promote positive environmental change. For 2024, activities include street cleanups and planting sessions held by the environmental club at Salish Secondary, Earth Week bingo at Clayton Heights Secondary and Earth Day promise posters by students at Douglas Elementary.
At home, there are numerous ways to reduce energy and waste consumption, including:
- Reducing natural gas use: Natural gas used to heat homes and hot water is a major source of climate change emissions, so cut back where possible.
- Washing clothes with cold water: The cold-water option will still get your clothes clean and reduce the need to heat water.
- Taking shorter showers: Setting a time limit on showers can also reduce the need to heat water. Also, consider installing a low flow showerhead.
- Lowering the thermostat: Especially in cooler weather, turning the heat down by a few degrees overnight can reduce the use of energy by your furnace.
- Installing LED lights: LEDs consume less energy, which saves money on your electric bill!
- Putting food waste in the organics bin: Make sure your food waste is disposed of properly instead of ending up in the landfill.
- Reducing plastic wrap and plastic bag usage: Package food in reusable containers instead.
- Tracking your energy use: Sign up at the BC Hydro (MyHydro) and FortisBC websites to access your home account – challenge yourself to reduce your use!
At the district level, David McKee, Manager of Energy Management & Sustainability, said Surrey Schools has been working hard at reducing waste and streamlining energy use and other environmental efficiencies.
With more than 83,000 students, nearly 20,000 employees and 130 schools, McKee said even seemingly small steps can have a significant impact on waste reduction and emissions.
“Boiler upgrades, switching to LED lighting, battery recycling programs – all of these can add up when you have over 100 sites,” he said.
Other recent green initiatives include switching all district sites to using unbleached paper towels, introducing electric vehicles to the district fleet and transitioning schools to heat pumps.
“We recently installed heat pumps at Simon Cunningham Elementary and have seen a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) just from that alone,” said McKee.
More broadly, the district’s climate goals and targets are outlined in the annual Climate Change Accountability Report, which are guided by the province.
According to the report, the district will aim for the following greenhouse gas reductions compared to a 2007 baseline:
- 16 per cent reduction by 2025
- 40 per cent reduction by 2030
- 60 per cent reduction by 2040
- 80 per cent reduction by 2050
“Those are the numbers we’re working towards, and we have monitoring software at each site that measures our energy use and emission output,” said McKee. “Depending on winter temperatures, which can really affect our GHG output, we have a chance of hitting that first target in 2025.”
To learn more about the district’s goals to reduce environmental impact, visit the Energy Management & Sustainability department page.
For school-based tips on recycling and disposing of waste properly, see the resources on the district’s Rethink Waste page.
