2024 Clean50 Lifetime Achievement Award – On September 28, 2023, Peter Love was recognized for his career, which included being one of the main voices/faces of energy conservation in Ontario for the last 25 years by promoting a "Culture of Conservation". This award was in recognition of the roles he has played, which have included leading two advocacy organizations, co-founder of two for-profit energy service companies, Chief Energy Conservation Officer of Ontario, and teaching at two universities. As CECO, delivered more than 600 public addresses in four years, focussing on the three E's of energy conservation: Employment, Economy and Environment. His career stared with the team at Pollution Probe in the early 1970's that developed the now familiar material conservation paradigm: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Centre for Community Energy Transformation Receives 2024 Clean50 Award for Top Project – Since 2021, the City of Brampton, Region of Peel, City of Mississauga, Town of Caledon, and Sheridan College, have worked collaboratively to expand the potential impact of CCET. An Advisory Task Force, consisting of community champions, was established to provide strategic guidance and help transition CCET from a conceptual framework to an established not-for-profit. A 2024 Clean50 Top Project recognizes the innovative effort of two levels of government to establish CCET as a not-for-profit with a clear mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the community. energytransform.ca
Lead Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Foresight's powerNEXT Initiative – Peter love was asked to lead powerNEXT, Foresight's power technology network, which hosts industry matchmaking events. The first of this series was on power generation and was hosted September 28, 2023. This series of matchmaking sessions will draw on the previously established small group reverse pitch format, with a panel of end users or independent power producers and utilities bringing a targeted sector focus to each event, including power generation, transmission, distribution and energy storage. These matchmaking sessions aim to build connections between Canadian power technology SMEs and key audiences for their products and services, as well as help these audiences better understand innovation cycles and startup needs foresightcac.com/powernext
Peter Love appointed Chair of Centre for Community Energy Transformation. – This is a new not-for-profit, community-based organization focusing on accelerating the achievement of municipal climate and energy goals. Initial multi-year funding was supplied by the City of Brampton, with the City of Mississauga, Region of Peel, and Town of Caledon also contributing. Learn more at energytransform.ca
Peter Love appointed Treasurer of Muskoka Conservancy. – Since 1978, they have permanently protected 51 properties with 4,000 acres of wetlands and forests, as well as 60,000 feet of shorelines. Learn more at muskokaconservancy.org
“Five Strategies to Encourage Personal Action to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions”. – This paper was the term paper written for the 4th year University of Toronto course, “Environmental Psychology” in 2022. It is also included as a Case Study in the updated textbook, Fundamentals of Energy Efficiency.
Canadian Centre for Energy Transformation – Peter Love appointed Chair of Canadian Centre for Energy Transformation. This is a new not-for-profit, community-based organization focusing on accelerating the achievement of municipal climate and energy goals. Initial multi-year funding was supplied by the City of Brampton with the City of Mississauga, Region of Peel, and Town of Caledon also contributing. Learn more at energytransform.ca
Muskoka Conservancy – Peter Love appointed Treasurer of Muskoka Conservancy. Since 1978, they have permanently protected 51 properties with 4,000 acres of wetlands and forests, as well as 60,000 feet of shorelines. Lean more at muskokaconservancy.org
Reflections on COP26: 26th meeting of the Conference of the Parties, organized by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
I did not attend the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, but will say at the outset how very proud I am that my oldest daughter was there and speaking on behalf of the B Corp movement in the UK. I will assume that most of the people who read this have been following the discussions and have read many summaries, so I will not repeat these. Instead, the following are a few of my reflections on issues that I consider of most interest. As I think it is important to see what was actually agreed to, not what was reported to have been said, I have included direct quotes from the final Pact.
Reflections on COP26 (This article was published on the Pivot Green web site)
Reflections on Recent IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Asessment Report
Anyone reading this has probably already read the key headlines from the recently released IPCC Sixth Assessment Report such as "Global warming is dangerously close to spiraling out of control", "Unless immediate, rapid, and large-scale action is taken to reduce emissions…," and "Red Alert". This note will thus focus on one image and five important reflections that received less coverage. A picture is worth a thousand words – a great image of the current situation was used as the introduction and conclusion of an article by The Economist. The image features Sheriff Brody of Jaws fame when he realized that the terror could no longer be hidden. Reflections on Recent IPCC Asessment Report
ESG: Navigating the Board's Role
Peter was the first Canadian to have successfully completed the University of California, Berkeley School of Law's new program in the role of directors regarding Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) issues. ESG: Navigating the Board's Role
Accelerating retrofits to reach our carbon reduction targets
Several Canadian companies have developed innovative, data-driven tools to make energy efficiency more scalable. By giving homeowners better access to solutions by the community of competing energy efficiency firms and leveraging their expertise, they can help homeowners better understand the opportunity that exists in their homes – and put them directly in touch with an energy adviser and trade contractor to get started. Read more about this opportunity in this article.
An Old Dog Learns New Tricks: Application of Social Psychology to Encourage Canadian to Conserve Energy
For 50 years, I have been involved in creating and managing voluntary energy efficiency programs, as well as managing agencies set up to design and deliver these programs. It is amazing to me that so few of the lessons from social psychology and behavioural psychology in particular are used in these programs. Through both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I never took a psychology course and although, like many, I read a few of the popular books on the subject (Nudge, The Undoing Project, Fostering Sustainable Behavior, the Power of Habits). At age 70, I decided to change that and returned to university to take a first year course on Psychology; I have just completed a second year course on Social Psychology and plan to take a third year course on Environmental Psychology this fall. This article is a summary of my research research paper (PDF) on this topic.
Peter Love Appointed Professor at Yorkville University, Canada's Largest Private University
After having been a guest speaker at a few classes and open events at Yorkville University's New Westminster campus, Peter was appointed Professor in the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) Program in 2021 to teach the 3rd year course "Energy Policy, Legislation and Social Environment". This course had been using his textbook with its case study on energy efficiency in BC, written by Andrew Pape-Salmon, as a required reading for the last few years. This course is being taught on-line. yorkvilleu.ca
Fundamentals of Energy Efficiency: Policy, Programs and Best Practices.
This free on-line textbook has been written as a resource for professors and students at colleges/universities as well as employees whose jobs requires a better understanding of energy efficiency. It consists of three sections. The first covers the theory, policies & programs and includes 31 figures and 85 definitions. The second consists of 7 case studies and includes chapters on four provinces (Nova Scotia, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia). The third has various course materials such as templates for cabinet submissions, briefing notes and building assessments. Download free copy at
energyefficiencyfundamentals.org/textbook/
Our politicians need to understand why science matters Toronto Star – July 13, 2018
The dismissal of Ontario's chief scientist and elimination of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science sends unfortunate signals that science doesn't matter. But where will high-paying jobs and future economic prosperity come from? You guessed it — innovation driven by science. Read the full article
Potential Future Role for Energy Conservation and Efficiency In Ontario
The current Ontario government was elected based on a number of promises that were made during the campaign. These have become a focus of their initial activities. While there has largely been on focus on what the new government has done to keep those promises, there are many important issues where their future activities have not yet been defined. One such issue is energy conservation and efficiency with its multiple benefits to energy system reliability and costs as well as huge employment benefits. One recent report estimated that in Ontario alone, the net increase in GDP could be as high as $12.5 billion per year with an average net change in employment of about 53,000 full-time equivalent jobs 1. Although energy efficiency was not specifically mentioned in the recent Speech from the Throne, the government did commit to "working harder, smarter and more efficiently". And more interestingly, they did commit to "lower your hydro bills". I find the use of the word bills, not rates, very interesting and important. That is because there are two ways to reduce hydro bills; reducing the hydro rates and by reducing hydro consumption. Encouraging energy conservation and efficiency has been proven to be a very cost effective way of reducing hydro and other forms of energy consumption. And lets not forget that "Conservative" and "Conservation" come from the same Latin word "conservare" which means to "keep, preserve, keep in-tact, guard". 1. Dunsky Consulting. "The Economic Impact of Improved Energy Efficiency in Canada". Clean Energy Canada, Ottawa, April 2018.
Peter Love Appointed First Chair of Toronto 2030 District Advisory Board
Peter was appointed the first chair of the Toronto 2030 District Advisory Board. The gaols of this group are to cut district-wide emissions in half, including zero-emissions from new buildings by 2030,Support a better understanding of where and why energy use, water use, and GHG emissions occur across the District, work in partnership with building owners, service providers and conservation groups to accelerate the adoption of best practices for building design and management and facilitate broad stakeholder dialogues to uncover and overcome systemic barriers to long term reductions in energy use, water use and GHG emissions. www.2030districts.org/toronto
Peter Love Joins International Solar Solutions Board
Peter joined the board of International Solar Solutions whose first product is a solar-powered attic roof ventilation system designed for existing homes. After initial results proved very favourable, the company's product is currently in the process of being tested in over 1,000 homes across Ontario. www.isolarsolutions.ca
