Making the Case for Zero Carbon Building
The report makes a strong business case for making every new building zero-carbon. With just a modest capital cost premium, zero-carbon buildings can produce a financial return over 25-years. The report’s findings account for carbon pricing but as the cost of carbon rises, the economic case improves.
Zero-carbon buildings can also help owners avoid future costs. Climate resiliency considerations and new regulations and policies will speed up the need for deep carbon retrofits. Building to zero-carbon today will help building owners avoid unnecessary costs tomorrow and increase portfolio resiliency.
Making the Case examined different building types, including low-rise office, mid-rise office, low-rise multi-unit residential, mid-rise multi-unit residential, primary schools, big-box retail, and warehouses, focusing on buildings in Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax.
What People Are Saying
As the common service provider for infrastructure services for the Government of Canada, Real Property Services has taken a leadership position in reducing GHG emissions to 54% from 2005 levels. This CaGBC report provided us with an independent validation that the investment decision-making framework in our Public Services and Procurement Canada Carbon Neutral Portfolio Strategy will ensure that we meet or exceed GHG reduction targets of 80% by 2050 and help us help other custodians green their building inventory.
Kevin Radford
Assistant Deputy Minister
Real Property Services, Public Services and Procurement Canada
This report will not only help the industry move ahead with zero-carbon construction, it will help the public sectors across Canada plan for, and build greener buildings. In the end, strategic initiatives like this work help us achieve our common environmental goals.
Nick Xenos
Executive Director, Centre for Greening Government, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
The cost of not adopting zero-carbon buildings grows with each passing day. This study shows us definitively that zero carbon buildings can be achieved with existing market-ready technologies and approaches for most building types, and that operating cost savings will cover the needed investments. The Canadian building industry and governments now have proof to make the changes needed to create Canada’s low-carbon building stock and avoid creating buildings that will become a liability in a carbon constrained economy.
Thomas Mueller
President and Chief Executive Officer, CAGBC
This is the first study of its kind in Canada, and it shows that zero carbon buildings provide tangible benefits to owner-operators, design teams and policy decisionmakers. There is an opportunity for building owner-operators, design teams and governments to demonstrate leadership in normalizing the processes and technologies that will make zero-carbon buildings the go to industry standard for building excellence.
Antoni Paleshi
Senior Energy Performance Specialist (Sustainability & Energy), WSP in Canada
Making the Case for Building To Zero Carbon was developed with financial contributions from Natural Resources Canada, The National Research Council, Public Services and Procurement Canada, The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, REALPAC, the Government of Nova Scotia, and the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia.
