As we near the close of another year, I wanted to extend my gratitude to our members and stakeholders, staff and volunteers. Your ongoing commitment and involvement in growing Canada’s green building sector ensured that 2024 was a year of outstanding achievement and progress.

Across Canada, more and more projects are turning to CAGBC’s Zero Carbon Building Standards to pursue meaningful carbon reductions, with over 400 projects now registered in the program. In 2024, we also updated the ZCB-Design Standard, hosted the first National Embodied Carbon Summit, and launched a new Zero Carbon Building Micro-Credential.

Our efforts to advance decarbonization were bolstered by significant federal announcements. We saw critical updates to the Greening Government Strategy, shared at the Building Lasting Change conference, which extended its commitments to buildings owned by Crown Corporations and enhanced the procurement provisions. We also welcomed the release of the long-awaited Canada Green Buildings Strategy which provides a national roadmap to decarbonizing the building sector.

We engaged in a meaningful industry partnership with REALPAC for the first-of-its-kind report, Decarbonizing Canada’s Buildings: The Owner & Investor Perspective. Released at the Toronto Real Estate Forum, the report examines barriers and opportunities to decarbonizing Canada’s commercial building sector, providing recommendations for much-needed industry leadership and government collaboration.

CAGBC also provided its perspective on Canada’s housing crisis and the “fast and cheap” approach to building supply. Rather than build to “business as usual” standards, new affordable housing funded by government must achieve high levels of energy efficiency to reduce utility costs for renters and owners. Otherwise, Canadians will be burdened by high energy costs and retrofits in the future. Efficient, resilient, and green buildings are critical to ensuring long-term affordability for Canadians. You can read more on our approach in our Two Million Green Homes whitepaper.

Below you’ll find many other initiatives CAGBC undertook to advance green building in 2024. Please read this impressive list and know that these accomplishments were made possible by you. And it doesn’t stop here. Looking ahead to 2025, I have confidence that we’ll continue to achieve great things together.

On behalf of CAGBC, warmest wishes for a wonderful holiday season and happy New Year.

2024 Highlights

Advancing carbon leadership

• Launched an updated Zero Carbon Building – Design Standard to accelerate the reduction of carbon emissions.
• Milestones: More than 400 ZCB-Design registration to date, demonstrating growing demand for zero-carbon buildings.
• 150 buildings certified: Earlier in 2024, CAGBC celebrated 100 buildings certified under the ZCB Standards. With the pace of certification accelerating, we’ve already surpassed 150.
• 50 ZCB-Performance certifications, with five buildings achieving five years of zero-carbon operations.
• CAGBC’s flagship products, LEED and ZCB offer complementary certification with 25% of all ZCB-Design certified buildings also pursuing LEED. 
• Expansion to new provinces and building types: Buildings spanning seven provinces and 19 different building types have certified under the ZCB Standards.

Supporting market needs

• Micro-Credential: Launched the Zero Carbon Building Micro-Credential, designed to grow and recognize low-carbon skills and establish core concepts and a common language.
• Building Lasting Change: This year’s conference sold out and saw industry and government use the event as a launch pad for news announcements including changes to the Greening Government Strategy with the Honourable Anita Anand, President of the Treasury Board, new investments through the Canada Infrastructure Bank, new reports, and the Responsible Buildings Pact launch from the Climate Smart Building Alliance.
• Real impact: Working with REALPAC and the PLACE Centre at the Smart Prosperity Institute, released a new report highlighting the barriers to decarbonizing Canada’s commercial buildings and actionable recommendations to accelerate progress.
• Supported Code development: Participated in public comment for the National Model Building Code updates that will see operational GHG targets and an absolute EUI compliance path.

Growing opportunity for members

• Supporting LEED v5: CAGBC technical advisory committees played a significant role in LEED v5 balloting, representing the Canadian market’s needs.
• Accelerating in Quebec: Held the first Accelerating to Zero Summit in Montreal, with a focus on driving value for the Quebec market.
• Building support for retrofits: Secured funding to support transition planning through Purpose Building’s deep carbon retrofits, and resources and training designed for building owners in partnership with REALPAC.
• Advocacy at home: CAGBC’s flagship advocacy event “Day on the Hill” brought members, public servants and policymakers together to explore value-added green building strategies that enhance environmental and economic outcomes.
• Addressing embodied carbon: Hosted the first National Embodied Carbon Summit, drawing from our members’ expertise to advance solutions to address embodied carbon.

Learn more about opportunities to get involved with CAGBC at cagbc.org/get-involved.

CAGBC offices will be closed from Dec. 24, opening on Jan. 2, 2025.