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“Asset Management BC has a program initiative underway to operationalize asset management. We have selected a cohort of seven local governments and First Nations communities in different regions. These are demonstration applications and cover a range of situations along the Asset Management Continuum. The understanding gained from this process will inform evolution and application of the BC Framework. We have asked each participating government to identify a barrier to sustainable service delivery. We are working our way through a process with each one to overcome that specific barrier,” stated Wally Wells.

“qathet Regional District, in collaboration with the City of Powell River, has undertaken a capital project which uses forested Natural Assets to support stormwater management services. Rather than fixating on the details of the original proposed engineered design, the project team was able to step back and recognize the opportunity to use a Natural Asset solution which saves forest and taxpayer money. The project advances the natural asset management maturity of qathet Regional District,” stated Gracelyn Shannon.

“Financial health and providing for a long-term sustainable future are top priorities for local governments. This paper profiles two key financial indicators that are integral to how the District of North Vancouver measures service, financial and asset sustainability. As municipalities and their assets are the foundation on which our community standards of living are built, planning and reporting on key financial sustainability indicators is critical to our municipality’s long-term financial health,” stated Andy Wardell.

“We must create environments where the brain can make rational, logical, evidence-based decisions. Here is what I believe to be true. Investing in psychological safety will do more for asset management than any data, software, policy, plan or roadmap. This is no longer an ideological argument; this is an economic one. Psychological safety as a shared belief that the environment is conducive to interpersonal risks,” stated Christina Benty.

An over-arching goal of Living Water Smart, British Columbia’s Water Plan is to encourage land and water managers and users to do business differently. “Living Water Smart is a provincial strategy; we must look at it as a shared responsibility. It is not one strategy; the Province has a number of strategies. The Province is looking at raising the bar as far as what we are trying to accomplish with standards and provincial legislation,” stated Glen Brown.

“In the Watershed Moments video, Tim Pringle and Emanuel Machado illustrate how to take into account the social, ecological and financial values of ecological assets,” stated Kim Stephens. “They took an abstract concept – nature’s assets support local government services – and they made it tangible so that it is implementable. Their pioneer efforts in leading parallel initiatives have established provincially relevant case study precedents. Replicable precedents are already influencing how local governments view the social, ecological and financial values of streams and riparian corridors.”

“The core document for asset management for BC local governments is ‘Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery: A BC Framework’. It provides the basis for the entire asset management process for our local governments to follow. Basically, well-maintained infrastructure/assets are worthless IF they do not provide a service. For any asset management approach to be successful, it must not focus on the infrastructure/asset by itself. That way-of-thinking applies to nature and the environment as well,” stated Glen Brown.

“We all work with rules. We don’t want to argue about the rules. What we really want to do is change some of the rules to create the greener, more sustainable communities that people would like. The provincial government is using infrastructure funding to encourage a ‘new business as usual’ – one results in the right type of projects – rather than taking a stick approach. The Province is leveraging its grants programs to influence changes on the ground. British Columbia is in transition,” stated Catriona Weidman when she foreshadowed how expectations would become standards for greener communities.

While BC’s local governments have made great strides in managing their assets for sustainable service delivery, there’s still a lot to be done. Moving beyond inventories and condition assessments takes time, resources, and planning. “We’ve heard from local governments and First Nations at our conferences and workshops there are still a number of barriers to fully implementing asset management as a way of doing business,” said AM BC Executive Director Wally Wells. “That’s why we’ve developed this program to provide a few different ways to help people advance their asset management practices.”

“After becoming CAO of Courtenay, BC in 2013, we began exploring how to implement an AM Program at the City. Collaborating with external agencies opened our minds to thinking of AM practices in far broader terms, so that they might be applied in any community, regardless of size. We didn’t realize it, at the time, but it led to us eventually conclude that operationalizing AM would involve four separate, interconnected initiatives that would be the pathway for our journey toward Sustainable Service Delivery: The 4C’s,” wrote David Allen.