
Unlocking the Potential of Mandatory Building Performance Standards through Benchmarking
Explore solutions to enhance benchmarking adoption, drawing on lessons from other jurisdictions.
Explore solutions to enhance benchmarking adoption, drawing on lessons from other jurisdictions.
Ambitious action on the part of Canada’s sub-national governments will ensure that all stakeholders in the buildings sector — including governments, industry and the workforce — have a clear and stable regulatory path forward, one that allows them to plan for future code requirements while investing in Canada’s net-zero future.
Ambitious action on the part of Canada’s sub-national governments will ensure that all stakeholders in the buildings sector — including governments, industry and the workforce — have a clear and stable regulatory path forward, one that allows them to plan for future code requirements while investing in Canada’s net-zero future.
Supported by the sector, a national model code objective has been put forward that recognizes the impact of operational and embodied carbon emissions throughout the buildings’ lifecycle. This change could open the door for building code provisions that limit or reduce emissions from building operations as well as construction materials.
In part one, we examined five high level themes that could help guide Canada’s new federal Green Building Strategy. Part two will examine specific policies and policy frameworks that the Strategy must consider to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
By establishing “net-zero emissions” as the goal of the Green Building Strategy the federal government will need to lead a process of structural change towards that end state. That means defining the building standards and policies that are needed to reach net-zero and forging coalitions of provinces, municipalities, utilities, businesses etc. taking actions consistent with that goal. A net-zero framework therefore contrasts with previous strategies that focused on incremental emission reductions and efficiency improvements, and relied upon achieving consensus amongst provinces and territories.
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