Providence University College hosted the third annual Sustainable Energy conference on Wednesday. The theme of the conference this year was sustainable energy in Manitoba schools.

Director of the Buller Centre for Business and Event Organizer Bruce Duggan says there was a very diverse group of attendees at the conference.

"It’s a great cross section there are government people, school district leaders, school superintendents, and members on school boards, teachers, students, people from Manitoba Hydro, From University of Manitoba, Red River, and Business people. All of the people that are involved are trying to figure out how to make our schools more energy efficient, better places to live in and work in, better places to learn in, and how we can be a leader in that in the country."

Students from Vita and St. Pierre attended the conference through their science class.

Duggan says Providence College University has taken steps to be more efficient but is not where it wants to be.

"We have done a few things I would say we are at about step 10 out of 100. Our new Reimer centre has geothermal in it. A few years ago we put in biomass which is agricultural waste and wood waste that you burn to make heat. We connect that up to most of the heating system on the rest of the campus and we replace most of our natural gas with that."

Event Organizer Bruce Friesen-Pankratz says the three groups co-hosting the conference are WC Miller Collegiate from Altona, Providence College University, and the organization 50 by ’30.