Close Alert Banner
Skip to Content
  • myStratford

City of Stratford Logo

Contact Us
  • Visit Us
    • Parking
    • Public Restrooms
    • Destination Stratford
  • Live Here
    • Applications, Licenses & Permits
    • Britannia Street Housing Project
    • Cemetery
    • Children's Resources
    • Climate Action
    • EarlyON Perth County
    • Education
    • Emergency Services
    • Extreme Heat
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Garbage Collection
    • Heritage Stratford
    • Library
    • Maps
    • Parking
    • Pet Ownership
    • Property Taxes
    • Social Services
    • Stratford Police Services
    • Transportation
    • Utilities
    • Wastewater and Stormwater
    • Water
    • Wildlife
    • Senior's Resources
  • Play Here
    • Community Organizations
    • Advertising
    • Facilities
    • Parks & Forestry
    • Recreation Programs
    • Register for Programs
    • Sports Wall of Fame
    • Upcoming Events
  • Do Business
    • investStratford
    • Available Properties
    • Bids and Tenders
    • Business Licensing
    • Community Profile
    • Our Industries
    • Stratford Perth Centre for Business
  • Inside City Hall
    • A to Z Services
    • Accountability and Transparency
    • Accessibility
    • Advisory Committees
    • Animal Control
    • Applications, Licenses & Permits
    • Awards
    • Bid Opportunities
    • Budget
    • By-laws
    • City Council
    • Contact Us
    • Cooper Block
    • Departments
    • Employment
    • Market Square
    • Mayor
    • Municipal Accommodation Tax
    • Municipal Elections
    • News & Public Notices
    • Privacy Statement
    • Procedural By-law Review
    • Respectful Community
    • Strategic Priorities
    • Terms of Use
    • Website Feedback
HomeLive HereClimate ActionGreen Recognition Program

Green Recognition Program

  • Open new window to share this page via Facebook Facebook
  • Open new window to share this page via Twitter Twitter
  • Open new window to share this page via Pinterest Pinterest
  • Open new window to share this page via LinkedIn LinkedIn
  • Email this page Email

Live Here

green climate change symbols

Program Overview

The purpose of the Green Recognition Program is to promote sustainable practices within the community and raise awareness of initiatives being undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

This program is a community call to action, and part of our efforts to meet the City’s emissions reduction targets of 30% by 2030 and net-zero by 2050.

The recognition program aims to inspire community members to take meaningful action towards addressing the impacts of climate change through a wide variety of green initiatives, and directly contribute to our GHG reduction targets.

It will also serve as an educational tool to amplify community-led efforts and sustainable practices, celebrate the success of initiatives underway and encourage further participation from the community.

Recycling symbol     Waste Reduction and Diversion:

This category highlights the efforts of residents and businesses as they reduce and divert waste from the landfill, through innovative initiatives.

Light bulb    Energy Management and Electrification:

This category highlights the efforts of the community toward decarbonization and achieving energy and cost savings.

House with leaf     Green Building Award:

This category highlights the efforts of residents and businesses that have made progress toward improving their buildings, through a variety of measures like air-tight envelope, upgrading insulation, installing LED lighting, or integrating other energy efficient retrofits.

map icon with pointer     Tourism:

This category aims to highlight the efforts of the community and contribute to a low-carbon visitor economy.


2024 Recipients

The City of Stratford and the Energy and Environment Committee would like to recognize the following green leaders in our community:

Waste Reduction and Diversion:
Rotary Club of Stratford
  • Created and implemented an ‘organization-wide’ sustainability policy, as well as a ‘green events initiative’.

  • Ongoing efforts toward waste segregation, reuse, recycling and diversion from the landfill.
Stratford Public Library
  • ‘Drop and Swap’ programs held in 2023 helped divert unwanted items from the landfill into the hands of people who can prolong their useful life. Significant community-wide participation resulted in approximately 500 kgs of waste diverted from the landfill.

  • The Library continues to host Terracycling boxes for art supplies, disposable masks, and is also a collection point for used batteries for recycling.
Lot8 (small business: Kim McCallum)
  • Lot8 designs and creates sustainable, functional products that reduce our reliance on plastic and divert textile and food waste from the landfill.

Claire Upcycled (small business: Claire Scott)
  • A sustainable, eco-friendly local brand that upcycles material from existing fabric and discarded material into ‘new’ clothing to elongate their life cycle.

Habitat for Humanity ReStore
  • The store offers a venue for people to donate miscellaneous items they no longer need, without the need to dispose them off to the landfill.

  • Items donated to and sold at the store get a second lease of life, thus contributing to a circular economy.

Energy Management and Electrification
VicWest Building Products
  • In 2023, Vicwest completed its solar photovoltaic project at their Stratford facility. This array of 1,206 solar panels is capable of supplying 86% of the facility’s power requirements. It is estimated that annually, this array will generate approximately 600-700 MWh of electricity, which can power 60-70 Ontario houses for a year. Such a system is also anticipated to reduce the GHG emissions generated by 40 tonnes of CO2e.

  • Additionally, through collaboration with Festival Hydro, VicWest is directing excess renewable energy produced to the Stratford electricity grid- thus supporting the broader community with its energy needs.

Green Building Award
DYNA-MIG
  • Ongoing decarbonization and carbon reduction efforts throughout plant operations. Between 2022 and 2023, DYNA-MIG has successfully reduced carbon emissions by 14%, improved water efficiency by 11% and reduced waste by over 33% from the previous year.
  • Implementation of energy efficiency measures, reduction of natural gas consumption, and the reuse of manufacturing plant heat during winter season.
  • Several environmental initiatives that focus on water conservation and waste reduction also underway.
Brad Robertson
  • Successfully retrofitted an existing heritage-designated home to be more energy efficient whilst maintaining its architectural and heritage elements.
  • Deep retrofit included smart design measures such as an airtight building envelope, incorporating daylighting techniques, insulation upgrades, installing triple-glazed, highly efficient windows, as well as replacing the natural gas furnace with a high-performance air sourced heat pump and a mechanical ventilation system.
  • It is anticipated that these upgrades will result in substantial cost savings, especially those from reduced natural gas usage in space heating and cooling.
Tourism and Events
Stratford Downtown BIA
  • Recognized for its annual event “Car-Free Friday” to encourage downtown businesses and those employed in the downtown core to use active transportation as an alternative to driving personal vehicles. Instead of relying on passenger vehicles for their daily commute, participants had the opportunity to walk, bike, roll, use public transport and carpool to work.
  • This initiative also helped highlight the numerous co-benefits of car-free travel, including improved air quality, safer roads and enhanced health and wellbeing.
Destination Stratford
  • Recognized for its 2023 edition of the Lights On Stratford (LOS) festival.
  • All lighting exhibits use low voltage, low power-consuming LED technology, which is significantly more energy efficient and powered by hydro, which is a clean energy source.
  • With a pedestrian friendly route, LOS also provided patrons the opportunity to benefit from the free shuttle bus through the main festival locations, in collaboration with Stratford Transit.
Multiple Category Recipients
MTE Consultants for Three Categories: Waste, Energy and Green Building
  • Significant efforts towards organic waste management, ongoing recycling of office supplies, hosting an annual e-waste collection drive, organizing cleanup activities on Earth Day, and recycling single use personal protective equipment (PPE) through TerraCycle’s Zero Waste box initiative.
  • The organization has also been encouraging employees to use active transportation and carpooling, installation of secure bike racks - both these initiatives implemented as an effort to reduce vehicular emissions, and enhance local air quality.
  • MTE’s Pollinator Garden Project involved the design and construction of two pollinator gardens at the Stratford office demonstrating their commitment to sustainable practices and environmental stewardship.
Schaeffler Canada Inc. for Three Categories: Waste, Energy and Green Building
  • Schaeffler Canada Inc. has placed a large focus on organization-wide sustainability, including managing energy consumption, reducing its carbon footprint and establishing specific goals, such as those for energy efficiency and landfill diversion. They were successful in creating and implementing a program for recycling, and successfully achieved an annual waste diversion rate of over 85%, with approximately 720 tonnes of waste being recycled and diverted from landfill in 2022-2023.
  • In partnership with Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Schaeffler Canada Inc. installed a 4MW Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) on its Ontario St site, which has minimized the facility energy usage during peak consumption period, thus resulting in reduced strain on the provincial hydro as well as achieving annual cost savings.
  • In 2023, Schaeffler implemented projects that resulted in water reduction by over 2% from previous years, and annual savings of more than 300,000 liters of water.

2023 Recipients

The City of Stratford and the Energy and Environment Committee would like to recognize the following green leaders in our community:

Waste Reduction and Diversion:
Keystone Hospitality
  • Source produce locally and grow some of their own

  • Support farms that adhere to sustainable practices

  • Focus on bulk sales to reduce paper and plastic packaging material

  • Reuse cooking oil as biofuel

  • Partnered with local business to reduce packaging waste from takeaway containers

Eco Club, Stratford District Secondary School
  • Demonstrated efforts in organics waste management and diversion through an on-site composter

  • Aimed to build a closed-loop system: organic and landscape waste is composted to nutrition-rich soil for the school's garden. Produce grown in this garden is given to the student-run restaurant for meal preparation.

Vicwest
  • Aim to achieve zero waste to landfill by 2025
  • Since 2020 Vicwest Lorne Avenue has reduced waste by 40%
  • Ongoing tracking of waste through internal and external systems
Rotary Club of Stratford
  • Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) recycling program including disposable masks, gowns, head and foot protection, and face shields

  • Green Event Program, wherein all fundraising and other events minimize the use of plastic, ensure waste segregation (recycling and organic waste collection) in suitable receptacles

Rosehurst Stratford
  • Kitchen garden growing produce including herbs and vegetables for guests

  • On-site composting system for food waste, paper and yard waste

  • Use of natural water retention techniques and drip irrigation system

  • Egg shells used as fertilizer, negating the need to procure synthetic fertilizer

  • Phase-out of single use plastic containers for soap, shampoo and conditioner for guests

The Green Hair Spa
  • Ongoing waste diversion includes single-use plastics, PPE, excess hair colour waste and hair clippings

  • Reuseable and biodegradable foils that are made from construction waste and converted to stone dust at end of life

  • Refill and bottle return program for select hair products

MTE Consultants
  • Implementing organic waste collection have successfully diverted 224 L of organic waste from landfill

  • Organization of e-waste drive for electronics

  • Office supply waste recycling program to discard old writing instruments through another local business' writing instrument recycling program

  • Participate in ink and toner cartridge recycling through another business' program

  • Introduced Terracycle Zero Waste Boxes in our offices for recycling personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks and hard hats. Equal importance given to education and awareness amongst staff

  • Employee engagement and community outreach

  • Reiterate company's sustainability commitment with an updated Corporate Sustainability Policy

The Gentle Rain
  • Waste reduction efforts - reduced 4-5 garbage cans to one can per week

  • Installed Terracycle boxes to recycle makeup containers, oral health products, razors - blades, handles, tubes & bottles that are not normally recyclable, and all asscociated packaging

  • Supply plastic waste (that would otherwise end up in landfill) to a business in New Hamburg to create recycled plastic products such as plastic lumber

Sam Ogilvie and Lorne Bolton
    Large scale recycling program and ongoing efforts for recycling
Energy Management and Electrification
John Hotson
  • Received Federal rebates (Canada Greener Homes Grant)

  • Home energy audit to identify deficiencies

  • Upgrade of insulation to R50

  • On-site energy generation through installation of solar panels

  • Realized cost savings from fuel switching, e.g. electric lawnmower

  • Switched to an electric car to reduce emissions even further

Laura Clark
  • Installed geothermal source to fulfil heating and cooling needs of home

  • No natural gas usage

Carolyn Schmidt
  • Switched to an electrical vehicle to eliminate need for fossil fuels for transportation
  • Charge vehicle during off-peak times, use regenerative braking, moderate speeds, minimized use of air conditioning/heating
Green Building Award - new and existing:
Vicwest

Decarbonization efforts throughout operations, including but not limited to:

  • on-site renewable energy generation
  • use of daylighting in the office
  • fleet transition to electric vehicles
  • rainwater harvesting and waste diversion strategy
Tom McKay
  • on-site renewable energy generation to supply energy and hot water requirements
  • wind turbine and use of storage batteries to supplement energy needs
  • water collection system and upgraded insulation

   

  • Climate Action
    Toggle Section Climate Action Menu
    • Green Recognition Program
  • View Full Live Here Menu
    Toggle Section
    • Applications, Licenses & Permits
      Toggle Section Applications, Licenses & Permits Menu
      • Bicycle Licensing
      • Birth, Death, Marriage Certificates and Change of Name
      • Business Licence
      • Encroachments
      • Lottery Licensing
      • Marriage and Civil Ceremonies
      • Pet Ownership
      • Special Events and Municipal Alcohol Policy
      • Outdoor Special Events
    • Britannia Street Housing Project
    • Cemetery
    • Children's Resources
    • EarlyON Perth County
    • Education
    • Emergency Services
      Toggle Section Emergency Services Menu
      • Ambulance
      • Fire
        Toggle Section Fire Menu
        • Community Reports
        • Communications
        • History
        • LODD Memorial
        • Stations and Apparatus
        • Suppression
        • Emergency Preparedness
        • Fire Prevention
          Toggle Section Fire Prevention Menu
          • Fire By-Laws
        • Public Education
          Toggle Section Public Education Menu
          • Fire Extinguisher Training
      • Health Care
      • Police
    • Extreme Heat
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
    • Garbage Collection
      Toggle Section Garbage Collection Menu
      • Green Bin
      • Hazardous Waste
      • Landfill Site
      • Leaf and Yard Waste
      • Recycling Collection
      • Textiles
      • Treasure Hunt Weekend
    • Heritage Stratford
      Toggle Section Heritage Stratford Menu
      • Award Programs
        Toggle Section Award Programs Menu
        • Blue Plaque Program
        • James Anderson Award
      • Heritage Permits
      • How to Designate Your Property
      • Designated Properties
      • Non-Designated Properties
      • Heritage Conservation District
      • Heritage Conservation Loan and Grant Programs
    • Library
    • Maps
    • Parking
    • Pet Ownership
    • Property Taxes
      Toggle Section Property Taxes Menu
      • Property Assessment
      • Property Tax Rates
      • Tax Bill Information
      • Tax Bill Payment Options
      • Tax Calculator
      • Tax Sales
    • Social Services
      Toggle Section Social Services Menu
      • Anne Hathaway Daycare
      • Children's Services
      • Homelessness
      • Housing
        Toggle Section Housing Menu
        • Housing Access Centre
        • Perth and Stratford Housing Corporation
      • Ontario Works
    • Stratford Police Services
      Toggle Section Stratford Police Services Menu
      • About Stratford Police
      • Services and Reporting
        Toggle Section Services and Reporting Menu
        • Background Checks
        • Police Fee Schedule
        • Freedom of Information Requests
        • Community Equity Action Team
      • Crime Prevention
      • Careers
    • Transportation
      Toggle Section Transportation Menu
      • Stratford Municipal Airport
      • Parking
      • Rail
      • Roads
      • Transit
      • Parallel Transit
      • Pedestrian Crossovers
      • School Travel Safety
    • Utilities
    • Wastewater and Stormwater
      Toggle Section Wastewater and Stormwater Menu
      • Fats, Oils and Grease
      • Sanitary Service Ownership
      • Sewer Subsidy Programs
      • Draining Your Pool or Hot Tub
    • Water
      Toggle Section Water Menu
      • Water Annual Reports
      • Water and Sewer Rates
      • Drinking Water Source Protection
      • Frozen Water Services
      • Discoloured Water
      • Service Line Warranties of Canada
    • Wildlife
    • Senior's Resources

Contact Us

Subscribe to page updates

Stratford logo

  • Accessibility
  • Terms of Use
  • Sitemap
  • Contact Us
  • Employment
  • Website Feedback
  • Privacy Statement

© 2019 The Corporation of the City of Stratford, P.O. Box 818, Stratford, Ontario, N5A 6W1, 519-271-0250

View our Facebook Page View our Twitter Page View our LinkedIn Page
By GHD Digital
Close Old Browser Notification
Browser Compatibility Notification
It appears you are trying to access this site using an outdated browser. As a result, parts of the site may not function properly for you. We recommend updating your browser to its most recent version at your earliest convenience.