By The government of Canada
Federal government releases Canada Green Building Strategy
Canadian Contractor Smart House
(Getty Images)
The federal government has released its Canada Green Buildings Strategy (CGBS). The Strategy recognizes that green buildings are affordable, healthy, and climate-resilient. It also states that we need to increase the rate of building retrofits to three per cent a year and that investing billions in green buildings is required and an economic opportunity. The CGBS sets out the government’s vision and next steps for greener, more energy-efficient and affordable homes and buildings.
The CGBS outlines specific practices and changes the country can make to create an energy-efficient and net-zero future. The contents include making central air conditioners a more efficient heat pump, modernizing the Energy Efficiency Act to match regulations with new energy-saving opportunities and requiring all new buildings supported by federal funds to meet the net-zero energy-ready standard in Canada’s National Model Building Codes. Additionally, increasing the Greener Homes Affordability Program budget for low–income energy-saving retrofits, expanding deep retrofits organized by market development teams as part of a national mission for a “massive retrofit” of existing buildings and phasing out expensive and polluting fuel oil for space and water heating.
Figure 5. How climate change is impacting Canada, Photo courtesy of the CGBS.
Buildings are the third largest emitting sector, after oil and gas and transportation. To succeed, close collaboration is needed between the federal government, provinces, municipalities, indigenous groups, businesses, financial institutions and industry. There are 16 million homes and half a million other buildings standing in Canada today and most of these are expected to still be standing in 2050.
Each home and building owner has a role to play in this sector to upgrade and retrofit these spaces to significantly reduce emissions in that time. The scale of this renewal requires annual investments, a rapid increase in the pace of retrofits and changing the way we build. This includes the hundreds of thousands of new residential and commercial buildings that need to be built annually to respond to the housing challenge and stay current with our rapidly growing clean economy. These new homes and buildings must be built with net-zero emissions in sight if we are to avoid having to retrofit them before 2050.
The CGBS complements Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy which lays out an agreed-upon framework to reduce the risk of climate-related disasters, improve health outcomes, protect nature and biodiversity.