Canadian real estate’s key leaders unveil the 2024 industry innovation agenda to tackle urgent real estate and housing challenges

TORONTO (March 26, 2024) – Canada’s real estate sector is experiencing unprecedented affordability, sustainability and climate challenges. Addressing these issues requires monumental efforts from all players across the ecosystem. A broad range of Canada’s key real estate leaders have formed the Industry Innovation + Transformation Council (I+T Council) convened by R-LABS, the real estate industry venture builder, and today the council unveils its 2024 Industry Innovation Agenda (IIA). The report outlines pressing challenges facing the real estate sector and the steps required to address these issues with innovative approaches.

“The real estate and housing sector is at a critical juncture and the business-as-usual approach is no longer sufficient,” says George Carras, Founder & CEO, R-LABS. “The sector must work together in new ways, and with government partners, embrace new thinking and take action through open innovation and new entrepreneurial business models to tackle complex and interconnected problems. Our council is calling upon all stakeholders to shift away from conventional thinking and commit to innovation.”

Top Challenges Facing the Real Estate Sector

The agenda identifies the most pressing challenges facing Canada’s real estate sector and the underlying bottlenecks stifling innovative solutions. Among the top priorities in the IIA are housing affordability, housing supply and climate resiliency.

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp (CMHC) states Canada needs to build 5.11 million homes between 2022 and 2030 to restore affordability to the housing market. To put that figure into perspective, Canada has never built more than two million homes in any eight-year period.

“The high cost of housing is an ongoing challenge for individuals and families,” says John DiMichele, CEO, Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB). “We need to adopt new methods of building homes like modular home construction to increase residential housing, including multi-unit, single-family homes, plexes, and more. However, there is too much red tape, building code complexities, and municipal policies that prevent the construction of modular housing.”

“The construction sector’s outdated practices presents an opportunity for housing transformation,” says Michael Brooks, CEO, REALPAC. “Through the adoption of innovative technologies and automation, we can solve issues affecting the sector, including low productivity, expensive delays, and uncertain timelines. With the adoption of innovative technologies, we can reshape the composition of the workforce and accelerate the building process. The sector must focus on having the skills and capacity to adopt new technologies.”

Another priority in the Industry Innovation Agenda is to focus on climate resiliency and carbon reduction to meet Canada’s ambitious emission targets – which aim to reduce emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. The real estate sector must play a central role in helping Canada reach its targets.

“In the face of increasing extreme weather events and the urgent need to meet our climate goals, we must reduce the carbon footprint of our buildings while ensuring climate resilience,” says Thomas Mueller, President and CEO, Canada Green Building Council. “By adopting deep building retrofits, scaling innovative construction methodologies, and embracing circular economy approaches we can create low-carbon, climate-resilient communities, mitigate disaster costs, and build a more sustainable future.”

The IIA recommends Canada’s real estate sector take immediate action in five key areas:

• Leadership and institutions: Canadian institutions, including government, not-for-profits, or the private sector lack a culture of risk-taking and willingness to take leadership on driving innovation in Canada.
• Affordability and supply: Meeting Canada’s housing supply challenge and addressing high costs and low productivity leading to a lack of affordability.
• Climate resiliency and low carbon: Ensuring Canadian real estate can withstand extreme weather events and reducing the carbon footprint of Canadian real estate to meet Canada’s 2030 climate goals.
• Optimization: Canada’s existing building stock is not used optimally due to factors such as a lack of transition options and flexibility to convert one form of building use to another.
• Capital, labour and supporting infrastructure: Ensuring firms have the essential building blocks for success.

Calls for pledges to innovation across the ecosystem

With the launch of today’s agenda, the I+T Council announces the Innovation Pledges initiative. The initiative encourages stakeholders from the private sector, government, and not-for-profits to pledge to engage in small-scale experimentation that can scale and share the outcomes of their innovations. As part of the initiative, R-LABS plans to invest approximately $1M in early-stage startups focused on solving the key problems facing the real estate industry in 2024.

To read all current pledges, including pledges from Oxford Properties, CMHC, Canada Green Building Council, Infrastructure Ontario, and Co-operators, visit https://realinnovators.ca/.

During the IIA launch event today, a significant announcement by the Ontario Centre of Innovation will be shared by Minister Fedeli.

I+T COUNCIL MEMBERS:

• David Wilkes, President and CEO, Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD)
• Debbie Stewart, Vice President, Innovations and Partnerships, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp (CMHC)
• John DiMichele, CEO, Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB)
• Michael Brooks, CEO, REALPAC
• Salima Rawji, President and CEO, York University Development Corporation
• George Carras, Founder & CEO, R-LABS
• Jerome S. Engel, Adjunct Professor Emeritus at Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley
• Jeff King, CEO, Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV)
• Jennifer Podmore Russell, EVP Real Estate & Development, Nch’ḵay̓ Development Corporation
• Toni Rossi, President, Real Estate, Infrastructure Ontario
• Thomas Mueller, President and CEO, Canada Green Building Council (CAGBC)
• Mary Ormond, Chief Legal Counsel & Corporate Secretary, CreateTO

To download a copy of The Real Estate Industry Innovation Agenda, visit https://realinnovators.ca/.

-30-

About R-LABS
R-LABS is the real estate industry venture builder, established in 2018 as a partnership of innovative corporations, institutions, industry organizations and game-changing entrepreneurs to build and grow great companies that solve major problems in real estate and housing. www.rlabs.ca

For more information:
Linda North
NorthPR
416-708-8012 | linda@northpr.ca