Photo courtesy Canada Green Building Council
The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) has published a roadmap for improving the performance of existing buildings and creating new economic opportunities for Canadians. The report, “A Roadmap for Retrofits: Building Strong Market Infrastructure for the Retrofit Economy,” sets out a series of comprehensive actions for industry, non-profit organizations, and governments to build a world-leading retrofit economy by 2030.
The report states the environmental and economic potential of Canada’s retrofit economy cannot be developed by governments alone—it requires industry leadership and innovative market-based mechanisms to generate and sustain results.
It calls on private financiers, pension funds, insurers, and other financial intermediaries to develop retrofit lending products and standardized commercial contracts fostering owner and financier confidence in deep retrofit projects. Additionally, the report encourages owners to proactively disclose building energy and carbon performance, and to share data on the performance of their projects to help the retrofit economy evolve.
The report also calls on governments at all levels to leverage their own building portfolios to demonstrate the value of retrofit projects, co-invest in education and training with industry to build skills, and undertake smart regulatory and program interventions to attract private-sector capital to projects.
CaGBC will work with government, industry, and financial leaders to support the introduction of key infrastructure to accelerate the retrofit activity proposed in the roadmap.
“The CaGBC’s report recommendations are unique in endorsing a move away from a solution based on government grants and rebates, and instead focuses on leveraging market-based mechanisms developed through private, public, and non-profit collaboration,” says Thomas Mueller, CEO of CaGBC.
Meanwhile, a roundtable was held recently in Ottawa where a diverse range of stakeholders discussed how to build a robust retrofit economy. Pierre Langlois (Econoler), Mueller, Parminder Sandhu (Green Ontario Fund), Susan McArthur (Green Soil Investments), Joyce Murray, parliamentary secretary of treasury board, and federal ministers Jim Carr, Catherine Mckenna, and Amarjeet Sohi attended the roundtable.
