Reflections on 2021
As the year winds down and the beginning of winter (and unfortunately, the omicron variant) encourages a form of hibernation, we’re all drawn back into our homes.
This time of year always prompts in me a more mindful and reflective state of mind, one I often wish I could sustain throughout the year.
In spite of a turbulent year caused mostly by COVID, I am proud of how far we have come. Just over 2 years ago, Goldfinch Energy wasn’t even much of an idea and if you were to ask, there were only a handful of homeowners in Toronto who could say they’ve reduced their greenhouse gas emissions. Today’s landscape looks very different, with new growth and fast progress across many homes.
With my own home, my partner and I are about one third of the way with our plans (you can read about them here). Our efforts are not just about reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also driven by a need to have more space (the basement renovation was driven by a desire to have more than 1 bathroom in a house with 5 people) and a desire to be more comfortable at home (before we insulated the attic and flat roof and sealed our ductwork, the second floor wasn’t very comfortable in the summer or winter). I continue to believe that reducing greenhouse gas emissions at home doesn’t need to be the single goal that drives home renovations and that every homeowner’s path to getting their home off of fossil fuels is unique to their family’s goals and realities.
I’m happy to share that this year we addressed the top of our house. Our attic and flat roof are now well insulated and support enough solar panels to offset our electricity consumption both now and in the future when we switch our heating, stove and hot water to electrically-powered appliances. Next year we’ll tackle the bottom of our house with the basement renovation.
Across the city of Toronto, neighbourhood and community groups have taken tremendous steps to bring together, motivate and educate each other in the importance and possibility of taking climate-action right at home. Trish and I are honored to have been invited to support several of them. Most notably the The Pocket Change Project and Harbord Village’s Net-Zero Project. All of the many groups and its members have demonstrated the power and potential of collective action that links both advocacy work and individual action.
Just last week, Toronto City Council adopted the TransformTO Net Zero Strategy which outlines a path for the city to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. The strategy, linked here, contains a lot of ambitious goals and a focus on existing buildings (which represent over half of Toronto’s greenhouse gas emissions). The most exciting aspect of the strategy (to Goldfinch Energy) is the goal to phase-out the use of natural gas in buildings by 2040. That’s a big deal!
At an individual level, many members of the above-mentioned groups have (or are in the process of) taken big steps to reducing their home’s greenhouse gas emissions. Goldfinch Energy is fortunate to have worked with many fantastic homeowners this year and helped support six homeowners to get their homes entirely off of gas for heating (photos of a few are below). We also supported dozens of homeowners who made big reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions by switching their heating to a heat pump and have worked with hundreds to help them with an energy audit and cleantech assessment so that when their furnace or AC breaks or they are planning a renovation, they too will reduce their home’s greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s been an incredibly rewarding year and we are also grateful to the many like-minded business partners we’ve met. We look forward to building upon in 2022.
Ramona lives in a beautiful semi in the west end of Toronto. She made some big decisions this year. We met in June. By September she insulated her attic and made her home more airtight. By October she removed her gas furnace and replaced it with a heat pump. She also removed her gas hot water tank and replaced that with a heat pump. To offset the electricity consumption, in December she installed solar panels. It was a pleasure working with her to slash her home’s greenhouse gas emissions from 6.7 tonnes/year to ZERO.
She is featured (above) next to her heat pump and (below) pointing at the inverter which converts the electricity generated by the solar panels to AC current for Toronto Hydro’s grid.
