BVGEC’s Sustainable Development Goals
As a social enterprise, BVGEC doesn't just measure success in kilowatt hours. We measure it against something bigger: the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a framework adopted by every UN member state in 2015 as a shared roadmap for ending poverty, protecting the planet, and building a more prosperous, peaceful world by 2030. Of the seventeen SDGs, we focus our efforts on four that line up most directly with what we actually do, day to day, roof by roof.
Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy. The global case for this goal is stark: 789 million people worldwide still lack access to electricity entirely, and roughly 2.8 billion lack access to clean, safe cooking fuel, a gap that falls hardest on women and children, who lose hours each day to tasks like fetching water or gathering fuel that electricity would make trivial. A stable, modern energy system underpins nearly everything else: healthcare, education, communication, economic opportunity. Locally, this goal shows up in something much more concrete: every rooftop system BVGEC installs is one more building drawing power from a clean, reliable source instead of the fossil fuel dependent grid, a small but real contribution to a future where clean power isn't a privilege reserved for those who can afford it.
Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. The global data on this goal took a hit during the pandemic, when the International Labour Organization estimated global working hours dropped by as much as 14% in a single quarter, and youth employment was hit especially hard. The recovery case for clean energy is strong: it's one of the fastest growing job sectors in Canada, and Pembina Institute research has found that community owned energy projects specifically, the kind BVGEC builds, can boost local job creation by an additional 30 to 50% compared to conventional utility scale projects. Every installation in our portfolio puts real money into the hands of local installers, electricians, and contractors, rather than sending it to a distant utility's head office.
Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production. Global material consumption grew by 17.4% between 2010 and 2017 alone, a pace that's putting real strain on the ecosystems our economies ultimately depend on. This goal is about more than energy, it's about rethinking how we produce and consume everything, and it shapes how we build, not just what we build. By keeping our projects rooftop based rather than developing new land, and by structuring ownership so that profits stay in the community rather than flowing to distant shareholders, we're aiming for a model that holds up to scrutiny across its entire lifecycle, not just at the point of generation.
Goal 13: Climate Action. The decade from 2010 to 2019 was the warmest ever recorded, and the Paris Agreement's target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees requires global emissions to start falling by 7.6% every year, starting immediately. That's a genuinely daunting number at a planetary scale. Community solar obviously can't solve climate change on its own. But it's a real, measurable way for a small region to cut emissions today, not in some hypothetical future scenario, while building the kind of local buy-in and understanding that larger scale climate policy ultimately depends on.
Every project we build, every rooftop we activate, is a small, local answer to a set of enormous global goals. To read the UN's full case for each goal in detail, visit un.org/sustainabledevelopment.
