Advancing zero carbon through transition planning

The Building Lasting Change (BLC) conference saw CAGBC emphasize transition planning as an industry priority. Through new projects and partnerships, CAGBC laid out its intentions to advance transition plans for existing buildings to achieve decarbonization and resilience over time.

Building owners and operators will need to upgrade, retrofit, and ultimately decarbonize hundreds of millions of square metres of building space to meet decarbonization targets. Yet, most combustion-based space heating and hot water equipment installed today will still be in operation in 2050, which is incompatible with the climate goals of governments and many private sector owners and investors. Given buildings account for over a third of greenhouse gas emissions and consume a staggering $370 billion in annual energy costs, all new buildings must be zero carbon from the start, and all existing buildings must be retrofit.

Compelling reasons to retrofit

Decarbonization efforts aim to eliminate carbon emissions resulting from burning fossil fuels for heating and hot water service, mitigating climate change, and building resiliency in the face of changing weather.

Transitioning to low-carbon buildings can materialize economic benefits. Energy-efficient technologies can lower utility bills, while decarbonization can protect asset value from rising carbon costs and changing regulations.

Building owners need a robust transition plan to successfully decarbonize their properties over time. CAGBC’s Decarbonizing Canada’s Large Buildings evaluated the potential technical pathways to decarbonize building operations. It calculated estimated costs of deep carbon retrofits and identified market barriers and solutions to help equip Canadian building owners and policy-makers with tools and information to drive retrofits.

At BLC, CAGBC announced two new projects designed to help support transition planning. The first, ‘Transition Planning: A Tool for Accelerating High Performance Building Codes,’ will provide guidance to building owners across Canada. Supported by REALPAC, the project will focus on creating tools and learning opportunities to build transition planning capacity.

CAGBC will also support Purpose Building Inc. with the ‘The Purpose Accelerator: Canada’s Private Sector Retrofit Accelerator,’ a new initiative to provide practical insights and support. The Accelerator will guide building owners and managers through their deep retrofit journey, providing the services and support for decarbonization. Targeting a range of buildings and communities, these examples will provide learnings and best practice for the sector.