The Town of Bonnyville is moving forward with discovering ways to reduce its carbon footprint. The Town will explore options with the company, Eco-West, on how to reduce greenhouse emissions on such Town operated equipment, like street lights and fleet vehicles. Mayor Sobolewski says by becoming more eco-friendly the Town would in turn be more efficient and reduce costs.

“It reducing our overall footprint and it’s more efficient; so our cost would not be as much,” which is the overall goal, says Sobolewski.  “They’re going to look at Town-owned buildings, but mostly street lights and our fleet equipment to see if there’s opportunities there.”

Eco-West works with neighbouring municipalities, including the Town of St. Paul and the Municipal District of Bonnyville, so the company is already familiar with the area. On top of that, Eco-West has many partners, which brings funding opportunities to the community. “We’re going to go further with Eco-West, because they have the pipeline that can go through and get funding through the FCM (Federations of Canadian Municipalities).” Mayor Sobolewski says Eco-West’s ability to aid in funding and discover grant opportunities was a huge factor in choosing to go with the company to explore ways to reduce the Town’s greenhouse emissions.  “We’re going to approach it further and see if we can get something done.”