The Buildings of the Future are Already Built
Sandrine Tremblay, Co-President & CTO at Kolostat inc., discusses how major Canadian cities are accelerating building decarbonization through financial incentives, and retrofitting existing structures to reduce emissions is key. Future regulations will enforce energy reductions, making early action beneficial for building owners.
A rare phenomenon occurred recently when the municipal administrations of several major Canadian cities, including Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and others, announced almost simultaneously that they were accelerating the decarbonization of buildings on their territory, launching a series of new financial tools – loans, tax credits, subsidies to speed-up the reduction of CO2 emissions.
Given that in communities such as Toronto, homes and buildings are the largest sources of emissions, accounting for 57% of total community-wide emissions, action in that sector is at least as important as ongoing efforts and investments to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles.
In announcing these measures, our leaders are recognizing that the fight against climate change and the achievement of GHG reduction targets cannot be separated from a significant and rapid improvement in the carbon footprint of residential, commercial and industrial buildings – in the same way as the electrification of transportation and the optimization of residual materials management.
“The fight against climate change and the achievement of GHG reduction targets cannot be separated from a significant and rapid improvement in the carbon footprint of residential, commercial and industrial buildings”
-Sandrine Tremblay
The Canada Green Building Council believes that achieving GHG reduction targets will rely heavily on the building sector and that it will be imperative to “retrofit, renovate and decarbonize hundreds of millions of square meters of space”. Indeed, these buildings that surround us, built at different times and according to the standards formerly in force, are often operated, heated and cooled by natural gas, oil and other fossil fuels.
This means that there is a lot to do, but how?
The lure of the new?
There is inevitably something very appealing about imagining new buildings, choosing materials, designing spaces and striving for LEED certifications.
But the rarely discussed reality is that the greenest buildings and the buildings of the future are those that are already built. Just as “reduce and reuse” are at the top of the 3R waste hierarchy (reduce, reuse, and recycle), renovation and modernization of existing buildings remain the most advantageous and promising option.
Already in Canada, hundreds of large-scale buildings erected in the 19th and 20th centuries have undergone an energy efficiency project. Often, with modest investments, we manage to decarbonize up to 50 to 70%, thus winning hands down the comparison of the carbon footprint over the total life cycle versus a brand-new building.
In fact, it is because the environmental footprint analysis of new buildings generally excludes construction-related GHG emissions from the calculation that energy retrofit projects – which in the jargon allow for the transition from “brown” to “green” buildings – must be a priority.
“The greenest buildings and the buildings of the future are those that are already built”
-Sandrine Tremblay
Incentive before obligation: better to act now
To facilitate this transition, governments have created a favourable environment with financial incentives in the form of subsidy programs that promote decarbonization of buildings, low-interest loans or tax credits. However, it is likely that these incentives will not last forever.
Eventually, these programs will be replaced by obligations forcing owners to reduce the environmental impact of buildings. For example, within two years in Montreal, all owners of 2,000 square meters or 25 units or more will be responsible, each year, for disclosing the sources and amounts of energy used by their buildings.
This is the first step in a trend that will accelerate. The most visionary building managers will have understood that there is a triple advantage to acting quickly: avoid future regulatory constraints, take advantage of financial incentives that allow decarbonization projects to be financed in just a few years, and stand out in the eyes of tenants and space users.
