Winnipeg must accelerate clean energy and home efficiency

16 hours ago

3 min read

People’s Climate Mandate Calls for Action to Increase Energy Efficiency of our Buildings

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sept 17, 2026

Winnipeg is a city with some of the widest temperature swings in the world, with winter temperatures dipping to the minus 40 mark in the winter, and rising to the high plus 30s in the summer. Climate change is resulting in more extreme weather consistently through our seasons.

It is time for the City of Winnipeg to accelerate on clean energy to ensure we are a healthy, resilient city able to match the coming (and present) storms.

Increasing the energy efficiency of our buildings and switching them to renewable energy can cut household energy costs, improve indoor air quality, keep homes cool in the summer and warm in the winter, create employment opportunities, and help manage demand on the electrical grid. Altogether, the city’s own CEIR calculates acting on buildings can generate $35.6 billion in net community benefits by 2050.

"It's time to ensure buildings aren't wasting energy or money. The city doesn't need anyone's permission to fix the buildings they own and operate, and it has some tools to help the rest of us fix ours," said Laura Tyler, Executive Director of Sustainable Building Manitoba. "After all, housing should not be considered affordable if it isn't energy efficient, and energy efficiency is the lowest hanging fruit of climate action while also being the first step to fuel switching away from natural gas."

PEOPLE’S CLIMATE MANDATE

The PCM is a 10-point advocacy platform that represents how the next city council can take action to make our city more climate-friendly, green, liveable, and democratic. The platform was developed through:

A public townhall with ~100 community members to brainstorm and evaluate solutions
Conversations with organizations across the city to learn more about city context and discuss their priorities
A review of the city's plans and policies, as well as supporting background research. All PCM recommendations are grounded in the city's stated commitments, targets, and plans.

Read the full PCM here.

CALL TO ACTION

The People’s Climate Mandate calls on mayor and council candidates to support two calls to action:

Study options for natural gas phase-out from buildings: the city could conduct a feasibility study to better understand jurisdiction and policy tools available to it for natural gas phase-out, for both city and community-owned buildings. This would be an important foundation for further action.
Require all major sewer and road projects to be assessed for geothermal compatibility: geothermal systems involve the installation of pipes underground which transfer heating or cooling energy from the earth into buildings and homes. The city could use the opportunity when roadwork is already happening and streets are being opened up to assess for geothermal compatibility, laying the groundwork for future geothermal installation.

More Details

“It was very exciting to learn last week that the new Southwood Circle development will be powered entirely by clean geothermal energy, thanks to a $4 million investment from the province,” said Hannah Muhajarine, Campaigns Manager with Climate Reality. “Meanwhile the City’s commitment in its last Strategic Priorities and Action Plan to “deliver the generation of at least one megawatt of solar power” remains incomplete. It’s time for the city to match the commitment we’re seeing from the province for clean energy, as well as deliver on its own commitments.”

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