Banff took action to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions by launching an electric vehicle initiative on Tuesday.
The town is replacing its service vehicles with electric models using the Responsible Energy Vehicles (REV) initiative.
Combined with a green power purchasing commitment, the vehicle replacement will benefit the environment and improve costs, according to the town.
Banff Mayor Karen Sorensen said that as a community within a national park, it wants to be as environmentally friendly and sustainable as possible. REV is a step in that direction, she said.
“Banff does hold itself up as a model environmental community and we think it’s crucial that as a municipality within a national park within a UNESCO World Heritage Site that we do everything we possibly can to ensure that our operations are doing the right thing environmentally,” Sorensen said.
The new green fleet includes fully electric and hybrid vehicles, e-bikes and an electric ice resurfacer.
“It took a couple of years of planning, the green fleet policy around how to reduce emissions came into play, and then we had to look at the budget implications, but we got really thorough reports from administration not only talking about what vehicles we should consider but what departments could use them and where they would benefit the environment the most,” Sorensen said.
The town said it will continue to add vehicles as the budget allows, and are looking at environmentally responsible garbage trucks.
Global News reached out to the town of Banff to find out the cost of the REV program but did not hear back by publication time.
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