Vancouver declared a climate emergency and promised to cut the city's carbon footprint. One way to check whether that's real is to look at what the city actually buys: contracts for climate, carbon and sustainability work.
The city has been buying more climate and sustainability services each year — averaging $1.3M per year recently versus $0.3M before 2023.
Reduce the city's carbon footprint and act urgently on the climate emergency.— ABC Vancouver's 2022 campaign platform
In plain terms: we added up every contract the city awarded whose description mentions climate, carbon, emissions or sustainability work. Before Mayor Sim took office, that averaged about $0.3 million a year; since then it's averaged about $1.3 million a year. These are mostly consulting, planning and monitoring services — the city's day-to-day climate programs run through its regular budget, which this doesn't capture.