Takeaways from Greenbuild

The Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, held November 12–15 in Philadelphia, brought together green building professionals from around the world to explore innovative solutions for resilience, sustainability, and market transformation. With this year’s theme, “Built to Scale,” the event highlighted strategies to advance green building globally.

At Greenbuild, CAGBC brought Canadian delegates together to connect, exchange insights, and discuss the current trends shaping the green building industry. Two evening events offered opportunities to network and unwind: a private dinner with Canadian industry leaders and the Greenbuild Canadian Reception. The reception provided a relaxed and fun night of bowling, where delegates reflected on the key takeaways from summits, sessions, and workshops. Industry professionals across sectors came together to discuss how to adapt and apply these ideas and strategies to accelerate green building initiatives in Canada.

Here are several key takeaways from the Canadian perspective at Greenbuild.

Anticipation for LEED v5’s impact on marketplace

LEED v5 was a focal point at the conference, with its anticipated release in spring 2025 and rollout of updates to LEED for Building Design and Construction, Interior Design and Construction, and Operations and Maintenance. Sessions emphasized LEED v5’s role in supporting resiliency, enhanced indoor air quality, and decarbonization, which accounts for 50 points in the new system.

For the Canadian marketplace, LEED v5 represents both opportunities and challenges. The new decarbonization and renewable energy requirements will require ongoing collaboration between CAGBC and USGBC to ensure the guidelines align with Canada’s unique energy and market context.

For example, the requirement for Platinum-level projects to have a fully renewable electrical supply could be a challenge for parts of the Canadian market. Coming out of Greenbuild, CAGBC’s focus will be on aligning our efforts to bring LEED v5 to market and ensuring a smooth transition as LEED v4 phases out.

Sustainable finance: Aligning financial tools with green building certifications

Sustainable finance is a key driver for advancing green buildings. Tools like green bonds and loans, paired with certifications, attract investment and align projects with ESG and emissions reduction goals. However, misalignment between financial instruments and certifications, along with an abundance of reporting frameworks, complicates the process.

To help drive investment in green buildings and advocate for progressive sustainable finance frameworks and taxonomies, developers, owners, and financiers must adopt a shared language to effectively engage investors. Recent federal government support for a green taxonomy will advance financing options in the Canadian market. In addition, simplified reporting, clear metrics, and a focus on emissions reduction and ESG goals can help reduce complexity and better align financial tools with both stakeholder sustainability goals and certification benchmarks. 

Validating building performance: Aligning strategies for regulatory disclosure 

Building performance and climate-related financial disclosure are driving increased transparency and accountability in the real estate sector. Disclosure is essential for informed decision-making of tenants, investors, and policymakers and helps establish realistic industry and portfolio benchmarks. As regulations around emissions reporting and climate transparency become more stringent, companies must reevaluate and align their building and leasing strategies to meet these requirements. For the Canadian market, owners will need to adopt strategies that integrate climate considerations into asset management to ensure regulatory compliance, secure investment, and to meet stakeholder expectations and maintain market competitiveness.

Globally, the message is clear: not all green buildings are created equal. Certification highlights the choices made, their impacts, and what they can achieve. With the focus on transparency and reporting, LEED buildings will now receive a measurable impact score—a significant step forward in providing diverse metrics that support disclosure and sustainable investment.

Portfolio-level measurement and reporting

By capturing key sustainability metrics across a portfolio, developers, owners, and operators can assess progress toward environmental goals, such as emissions reductions, energy efficiency, and sustainability certifications. At Greenbuild, USGBC launched Arc PERFORM, a new program for building portfolios to evaluate and track performance metrics across multiple assets over time. For Canadian building owners and operators, ARC Perform will help simplify sustainability reporting and measuring. USGBC provides verification through this platform, allowing users to select the most relevant metrics to report over a specific period.

For Canadian building owners and operators, ARC Perform will help simplify sustainability reporting and measuring and the process of collecting data for ESG and emissions reduction goals. The new system will support better decision-making, investment strategies, and alignment with industry standards like ESG criteria and GRESB scores.

Portfolio-level Reduced impact of building materials 

Embodied carbon in building materials is important to advancing sustainable construction. Sessions explored the impact of material choices on a building’s life-cycle emissions, highlighted tools and strategies to measure and reduce embodied carbon and discussed the industry’s need to align embodied carbon reduction strategies with global net-zero goals.

Experts discussed advancements in material transparency, product declarations, and emerging technologies that can help lower the carbon footprint of construction materials. Workshops emphasized the role of collaboration across the supply chain, from manufacturers to designers and contractors, in adopting low-carbon materials and creating circular economies. Innovations like Mindful MATERIALS’ Common Materials Framework, set to integrate into LEED v5, were highlighted to streamline the efforts needed to reduce the impact of building products.

CAGBC has been working with Mindful Materials to develop the Common Materials Framework that includes impact categories such as climate, human health, and social equity. This framework will allow projects to focus on carbon reduction as well as consider other important factors to meet specific goals. It provides a baseline and a platform for sourcing materials that align with broader sustainability objectives.