Canada's big bet on green retrofits
Our buildings can be a key part of reducing emissions & putting people to work
CBC published an article earlier this year in which reporter Emily Chung quotes Vancouver building engineer Brady Faught:
While people may be concerned about a car idling for 10 minutes, Faught says "your house is basically idling all day."
I haven’t been able to shake the analogy since then.
Appliances in our homes are constantly humming with electricity that may or may not come from a clean grid. Our windows, floors, doors and walls leak air that we’ve paid to heat up or cool down. Our bathtubs and sinks send away heated water moments after we use it.
As someone who’s recently purchased a home – an old semi-detached house in need of love and upgrades of every damn kind – I’ve begun to ‘see the light’ on green retrofits. I’ve also begun to grasp the staggering challenge of accomplishing them on a scale that would make an impact in Canada’s emissions reductions efforts.
I understand how government policies and consumer demand can change how we build new homes and offices, but what do we do with everything we’ve already built? All of these houses, condos, schools and hospitals are out there right now, ‘idling’ away.
Screenshot from a November 2018 Senate of Canada media release regarding their report, Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Canada’s Built Environment.
I think buildings have been a blind spot for people like me – those who once thought climate action in the home just meant turning off the lights as you leave a room and dividing your waste into recycling-compost-garbage bins. But now, as Canada edges towards tackling building emissions on a large scale, I’d like to think more of us are starting to appreciate the challenge ahead.
Last week, the federal government announced they’d be spending $10 billion on infrastructure areas like broadband access, zero-emission vehicles, clean power and, yes, building retrofits. $2 billion is earmarked for large-scale energy efficiency retrofits … which sounds like a ton of money, doesn’t it?
But it may not be enough, according to some experts. In an earlier newsletter, I mentioned the Task Force for a Resilient Recovery’s recommendations to spend $55 billion over five years in green recovery efforts. Retrofits account for the lion’s share – $27.25 billion – of their recommended spending.
Tom-Pierre Frappé-Sénéclauze, buildings and urban solutions director at the Pembina Institute, welcomed the announcement but noted on Twitter how much more there is to do here.
Making our buildings more climate-resilient will mean spending more up front in order to enjoy lower costs over the lifespan of each building (e.g., through reduced energy costs). And this will also help us prepare our homes for the very real impacts of extreme weather.
Buildings account for 12% of Canada’s emissions (if you don’t count associated emissions from electricity generation), and the impacts of climate change are already hitting Canada through melting Arctic sea ice, changing precipitation patterns and an increased risk of wildfires. There is a clear and ever-increasing cost for not acting on a massive scale as quickly as possible.
To learn more about how retrofits present a great opportunity for Canada’s green recovery, check out this video from the Canada Green Building Council. (More info from CaGBC’s Market Impact Report here.)
Find me on Twitter @seanminogue or check out my website here. And FYI: I’ll be putting out these newsletters bi-weekly from now on. Thanks for reading!