Environment Canada has confirmed it will cease funding for a water efficiency labeling program popular with both industry and environmental — but it took a while getting there.
The department is cutting funding for WaterSense due to constraints stemming from the federal budget, iPolitics revealed yesterday. Both industry and water conservationists say the program saved money for plumbing manufacturers and consumers.
When initially asked about the cuts, an Environment Canada official denied the government has anything to do with the label program.
“Environment Canada is not the administrator of the WaterSense program,” Mark Johnson, a spokesman for the department, said in an e-mail. “WaterSense is a voluntary program sponsored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.”
A second, more detailed question asking if Environment Canada was ending the plans to promote WaterSense in Canada it had announced in January 2011 got little more.
“Our response to the question is as was indicated,” Johnson replied via e-mail Wednesday morning.
When eventually reached by phone Wednesday afternoon, though Johnson confirmed that funding to popularize WaterSense would be cut.
In January 2011, Environment Canada signed an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to promote WaterSense in Canada.
The agreement was aimed at making WaterSense the North American standard for water-efficient products; much in the same way the Energy Star label has become the standard for energy efficiency across the continent. Energy Star was also developed in the U.S. before being promoted by the Canadian government here.
“By signing a promotional partnership agreement with the EPA on their WaterSense program in January 2011, Environment Canada has committed to sharing information about the program and promoting WaterSense in Canada,” says the department’s website.
WaterSense labels are applied on shower heads, toilets and faucets and a product must be 20 per cent more efficient than standard makes to receive the label. A product must receive third-party testing to be labeled WaterSense.
There are more than 1,200 products with the label on the North American market. But there are plenty of other, less-reliable green labels out there as well, mostly created by companies in lieu of a more widely accepted standard.
Industry supported WaterSense because it made it easier and more cost-effective for them to develop efficient products.
“We’re not happy about (the cuts),” said Paul McDonald, chairman of the Plumbing Industry Advisory Council and a director at water heater company Bradford White Canada Inc. “They’re doing this without the proper consultation.”
McDonald, along with several other executives in the plumbing industry, are attending a trade show in Moncton this week and wasn’t immediately available to speak at length about the program.
Despite water conservation falling under provincial jurisdiction, promoting the label nationally is impossible without Ottawa’s help, said Glen Pleasance, who worked on getting the promotional agreement signed through his work with the Canadian Municipal Water Efficiency Network, a non-profit focused on water policy.
“We’ve got a ready-made label from the United States, so all it needed was a federal presence to say that we support, that we could put some money behind,” said Pleasance.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics
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The department is cutting funding for WaterSense due to constraints stemming from the federal budget, iPolitics revealed yesterday. Both industry and water conservationists say the program saved money for plumbing manufacturers and consumers.
When initially asked about the cuts, an Environment Canada official denied the government has anything to do with the label program.
“Environment Canada is not the administrator of the WaterSense program,” Mark Johnson, a spokesman for the department, said in an e-mail. “WaterSense is a voluntary program sponsored by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.”
A second, more detailed question asking if Environment Canada was ending the plans to promote WaterSense in Canada it had announced in January 2011 got little more.
“Our response to the question is as was indicated,” Johnson replied via e-mail Wednesday morning.
When eventually reached by phone Wednesday afternoon, though Johnson confirmed that funding to popularize WaterSense would be cut.
In January 2011, Environment Canada signed an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to promote WaterSense in Canada.
The agreement was aimed at making WaterSense the North American standard for water-efficient products; much in the same way the Energy Star label has become the standard for energy efficiency across the continent. Energy Star was also developed in the U.S. before being promoted by the Canadian government here.
“By signing a promotional partnership agreement with the EPA on their WaterSense program in January 2011, Environment Canada has committed to sharing information about the program and promoting WaterSense in Canada,” says the department’s website.
WaterSense labels are applied on shower heads, toilets and faucets and a product must be 20 per cent more efficient than standard makes to receive the label. A product must receive third-party testing to be labeled WaterSense.
There are more than 1,200 products with the label on the North American market. But there are plenty of other, less-reliable green labels out there as well, mostly created by companies in lieu of a more widely accepted standard.
Industry supported WaterSense because it made it easier and more cost-effective for them to develop efficient products.
“We’re not happy about (the cuts),” said Paul McDonald, chairman of the Plumbing Industry Advisory Council and a director at water heater company Bradford White Canada Inc. “They’re doing this without the proper consultation.”
McDonald, along with several other executives in the plumbing industry, are attending a trade show in Moncton this week and wasn’t immediately available to speak at length about the program.
Despite water conservation falling under provincial jurisdiction, promoting the label nationally is impossible without Ottawa’s help, said Glen Pleasance, who worked on getting the promotional agreement signed through his work with the Canadian Municipal Water Efficiency Network, a non-profit focused on water policy.
“We’ve got a ready-made label from the United States, so all it needed was a federal presence to say that we support, that we could put some money behind,” said Pleasance.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics
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