Executive summary

The reporting period represents year two of implementing the CCRA's Sustainable Development (SD) Strategy 2001-2004. The strategy has four goals:

1. Prepare managers to contribute to SD;
2. Enable employees to contribute to SD;
3. Green operations to contribute to SD; and
4. Enhance programs to contribute to SD.

The first two goals are meant to help managers and employees with sustainable development. They are intended to enable all key contributors to integrate sustainable development "thinking and doing" into all aspects of the CCRA. By achieving results on these goals, we will ultimately achieve results on the other two substantive goals. The results of these goals are expected to reduce the negative impacts of both the operations and programs of the CCRA on the environment: pollution prevention, resource conservation, and limiting environmental risks and liabilities.

We had a total of 38 ¹ targets to complete. We completed 25 targets (66%), and progressed on 11. No progress was made on two ² targets. To date, we have completed 78% of the targets scheduled for completion within the first two years. This brings us to an overall 59% completion rate for the three-year strategy, which has 83 targets.

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Goal 1 - Prepare managers to contribute to SD

The highlights for Goal 1 included furthering the integration of sustainable development in the business planning process. Among our efforts was the adaptation of the Sustainable Development Lens for release in 2003-2004. The lens is a tool developed to help policy makers and planners include sustainable development considerations in their plans and policies. The Corporate Audit and Evaluation Branch completed most of the consultations required to conduct the audit of the SD Strategy 2001-2004. The final report will be presented to senior management in the next fiscal year, and the findings will be used to guide the update of the new strategy. We provided increased reporting guidance to the SD Network through the call letter, which helped to solicit more reporting on results. We also advanced the development of an electronic reporting system for sustainable development, which will be available for use by the SD Network for the 2002-2003 performance reports. We were unable to move on the carry-over targets of recognizing SD as a corporate value and incorporating SD in corporate management tools such as the balanced scorecard. Our analysis revealed that these results are more likely to be realized over the longer term.

Goal 2 - Enable employees to contribute to SD

To advance Goal 2, the SD Division intensified liaisons with the SD Network and encouraged and helped those without an SD committee establish one in their respective areas. We then delivered SD awareness sessions and presentations to branch management, SD committees, and employees ³ . By establishing and training the committees, we enable them to effectively organize and increase SD awareness activities within their respective areas. Of note are the many awareness efforts led by our regions. We piloted the SD awareness survey among the SD Network to test the usefulness of the questions. Based on the results, we will reduce the scope of questioning and focus on a few identified areas. We will continue to deliver these awareness sessions, and integrate sustainable development concepts into existing learning programs. These approaches are explained in the Learning Strategy for SD, which will be formalized in 2003-2004.

Goal 3 - Green operations to contribute to SD

The vehicle that drives our Goal 3 targets is the Environmental Management Programs (EMPs). We completed the inaugural year of their implementation and review, accomplishing a total of 82% of EMP targets. The highlights were the preparation and Agency-wide release of the Reduction in Internal Paper Consumption Directive and Guidelines, and the Paper Talk Web site. We also established a baseline for internal paper use for the Agency. The three will set the stage to help employees reduce paper use and help the Agency measure the impact of paper reduction measures. In the area of water quality, we completed detailed risk assessments on the remaining 72 rural border-crossing facilities ⁴ . For energy conservation, standard clauses were included in a total of 82 new leases, while all three major construction and renovation projects started in 2002-2003 incorporated energy efficiency measures. We finalized a list of priority sites for more work under the Federal Buildings Initiative (FBI) ⁵ and will seek to negotiate contracts for all identified priority sites under the initiative. For contaminated sites management, we cleaned up seven sites and established a three-year action plan to address our inventory of contaminated sites. We continued to integrate environmental specifications into major supply contracts, and purchased nine vehicles that can feasibly use alternative fuels.

Goal 4 - Enhance programs to contribute to SD

Most of our Goal 4 targets are to be completed in 2003-2004 and mainly relate to increasing electronic options to reduce the paper burden. The highlight for 2002-2003 was that the Policy and Legislation Branch successfully negotiated the electronic filing of Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) listings to reduce the need for paper.

We also started the important process of updating the current SD Strategy. The process will involve consultations with internal and external stakeholders to produce a document for tabling in the House of Commons in December 2003.

Since our first strategy in December 1997, the CCRA has been on a path of continual improvement in SD implementation: for the first strategy, we completed 42% of targets for the three-year period and to date, have completed 59% of the current strategy targets. We will not complete all targets by the end of March 2004, due to the timing of targets, the ability of the responsible offices to implement, and resource availability. However, we are aiming for an 80% completion rate. For the final year of the SD Strategy 2001-2004 we will intensify our SD awareness efforts, particularly focusing on increasing efficiency in our internal paper use. Managing our contaminated sites will continue to be a priority, as well as exploring cleaner energy sources and addressing our water-quality responsibilities. We are also committed to finalizing the new SD Strategy 2004-2007 by the end of the 2003.

The lessons we learned for the period are not new. We previously identified the need to provide more guidance to the SD Network, more tools to enable SD integration, and articulate sharper SD targets. We envisaged that these steps would improve overall performance on SD targets. We started to address these issues by developing more learning and guidance tools and intensifying our liaisons with our SD Network. We will also address the issue of articulating sharper targets in the strategy update process. We are not yet able to determine the impact of these interventions, as implementation is not complete. However, we have seen increased employee participation in SD action and initiatives in those areas that have implemented the recommendations of the SD Division. Another challenge facing SD implementation is the frequent change of personnel within the SD Network. This is not a factor that can be easily controlled or predicted, however, it often slows SD progress in areas where it is evident. We envisage that our consistent learning efforts will mitigate the impacts of this factor.

¹ The breakdown is as follows: 14 to be started and completed in the period, 14 ongoing, and 10 were brought forward from 2001-2002.

² See goal 1 for more details.

³ The SD Division is not in a position to deliver awareness sessions to all employees - we however respond to requests as feasible.

⁴ Detailed risk assessments were done on 13 sites during 2001-2002.

⁵ The FBI offers an organization an approach to save money through energy efficiency improvements to buildings.

Date modified:

2004-03-12