Day 2 recording: Integrating Carbon Reduction Goals into Municipal Asset Management
Integrating Carbon Reduction goals into Municipal Asset Management
During this inspiring session, we heard from municipal experts on how they are integrating climate change mitigation into asset management policies, planning and procurement policies and practices.
Session speakers:
Dharmen Dhaliah, Senior Manager Climate Change & Asset Management, Strategic Initiatives, Town of Halton Hills
Dharmen is a visionary and inspirational leader with a career-long record of strategic asset management, maintenance & reliability engineering, and project management success in complex organizations. He is a bilingual professional with proven talent for aligning business strategy and objectives with over 28 years of industry expertise in leading the development and implementation of organization-wide asset management strategies in public and private sectors. Currently Dharmen works for the Town of Halton Hills as Corporate Asset Manager. He holds a Master of Business Administration degree and is a Professional Mechanical Engineer, Certified Asset Management Assessor, Project Management Professional, Maintenance Management Professional, and Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional. He is member of the Board of Directors for Asset Management Ontario and active member of the ISO Technical Committee TC 251/WG5. Dharmen is a seasoned instructor, workshop facilitator, and sought-after speaker on organization-wide asset management and ISO 55000. Dhaliah is the published author of two books “Physical Asset Management: An Organizational Challenge” and “Organization-Wide Physical Asset Management – A Systems Approach” , and creator of the “Holistic Physical Asset Management Game”.
Website: https://www.dharmendhaliah.com/
Michael Dean, Senior Climate Change & Energy Planner, Climate Change and Asset Management, Town of Halton Hills
Michael leads the Town of Halton Hills’ Low Carbon Transition Strategy. He is involved in integrating climate change mitigation principles in land use planning decisions, developing and implementing a wide range of climate change and energy plans, policies and strategies, including the Town’s Corporate Energy Management Program. Michael serves as the Town’s “energy champion/subject matter expert” providing advice to Council, Town departments, the public and external agencies.
Michael has been working in climate change mitigation at the municipal level for almost a decade and is committed to taking meaningful action at the local level to address the climate emergency.
Michael has a Masters in Planning from UofT and a Masters in History from the University of British Columbia.
Samir Yammine, P.Eng, Manager of Asset and Energy Management, City of Saint John, NB.
Samir received his Bachelor degree in electrical engineering and completed the two years Master of Electrical engineering coursework from Dalhousie University. His responsibilities include providing strategic leadership and direction to the Senior Leadership Team and Common Council in developing and implementing the Corporate Asset and Energy Management programs as well as the Community Climate Change Program. The objective of these programs is to ensure the efficiency and effective management of the City’s infrastructure (estimated to be nearly $2 Billion as of 2016) as well as setting priorities, strategies, policies, environmental initiatives and approaches for capital investment and life cycle management. Since 1998, Samir has developed, implemented and managed over 100 sustainable energy and green projects on new and existing city infrastructure. As of 2015, these projects have resulted in annual energy saving of over $2.3 million and a reduction of 9000 CO2 Tons of GHG emissions. These projects initiated by Samir have won the City of Saint John many national and regional awards such as the Premiers’ Award for Energy Efficiency and FCM-CH2M HILL Sustainable Community Awards in the Energy Category presented by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Notwithstanding, Mr. Yammine has helped secure over $28 Million in funding toward various sustainable environmental initiatives, and has been a guest speaker at many conferences, workshops, and webinars across Canada.
Jade Schofield, Project Manager- Sustainability & Climate Change, Strategic Initiatives- Office of the CAO, Town of Whitby
Jade has worked in the municipal field for 9 years and prior to this six years in the not for profit sector in the UK. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Environment Science from the University of Plymouth, UK, and Trent University, ON, as well as, a Masters in Environmental Applied Science from Ryerson University, ON. Jade oversees the Sustainability section at the Town of Whitby, and her work integrates a variety of focus areas as it pertains to sustainability advancement within the community as well as ensuring Whitby does its part to meet global goals for reducing the impacts of climate change. Some of her key accomplishments include- going through the PCP Milestone program 1-5 (twice), leading the development and implementation of a range of municipal sustainability, climate adaptation, climate mitigation and energy plans at both a corporate and community level; working with a range of what may seem as unlikely partners for climate action including NASA, United Nations, & the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters; and most recently leading the development of the Whitby Green Standard- the first tiered green development standard outside of the City of Toronto. Jade also volunteers her time as a Director for the Ontario Urban Forest Council and sits on the conference board for Forests Ontario, as well as judging the North American Envirothon (a bi national youth competition held in high schools annually), and occasional guest lecturer at UofT and York University. Jade thrives on collaboration, and the ability to apply a multi-disciplinary approach to advancing sustainability and climate change actions. However, her personal interests are very attached to nature and the outdoors whether that is in the back country hiking & canoeing, or looking after the farm and her two horses Buckaroo and Ember.
Dustin Carey, Capacity Building Officer, Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program, Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM)
Dustin Carey is a Capacity Building Officer with FCM’s Municipalities for Climate Innovation program. After receiving his Master of Climate Change degree, he applied his understanding of climate science to the fields of climate adaptation and natural disaster resilience at the municipal scale. Specializing in flood mitigation and municipal asset management, Dustin has led national training programs to enable local governments to better respond to climate risk. He wrote the Climate-Resilient Asset Management chapter of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Managing Infrastructure Assets for Sustainable Development Handbook and is the Secretariat co-lead of the Municipal Climate Services Collaborative.
