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The Town of Gibsons’ Eco-Asset Strategy won the Excellence in Asset Management category of the 2020 Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) Community Excellence Awards. The award was presented virtually during the UBCM annual convention session on Sept 23.
Gibsons was North America’s first community to experiment with strategies to integrate natural assets, including its aquifer, trees and green spaces into its asset management and financial planning. The Strategy lays out the Town’s four objectives for managing natural as well as engineered assets. These include ensuring that it has a clear understanding of what services they receive from natural assets. Included in this is knowing the costs to replace those assets, should they be degraded or destroyed. A second goal is to save costs by employing natural assets to provide services at lower cost now and in the future. Other objectives are to maintain healthy ecosystems and to manage and use natural assets without degrading them.
The award was announced by Municipal Finance Authority Trustee Al Richmond, who commented that he was “very impressed” with the work done by the Town. Other finalists in the same award category included the Village of Ashcroft and the Cowichan Valley Regional District.
The District of Sechelt entered its work to establish the Sunshine Coast Community Task Force in response to the COVID-19 pandemic for an award in the Excellence in Governance category. They were not selected as a finalist. That award was presented to the City of Kamloops for its “Let’s Talk” Commitment Guides Kamloops’ Engagement initiative, also implemented during the pandemic.
The Community Excellence Awards celebrate UBCM members that have implemented projects and programs that demonstrate excellence in meeting the purposes of local government in BC. UBCM was formed in 1905 to provide a common voice for local government in the province.
