Canada Unveils Country’s First Green Buildings Strategy

On Tuesday, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson released Canada’s first Green Buildings Strategy—a strategy focused on saving Canadians money on their energy bills, creating good jobs, and seizing the economic opportunities enabled by the low-carbon economy, all while reducing harmful greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The Canada Green Buildings Strategy (CGBS) will drive energy efficiency improvements in Canadians’ homes and buildings, with a key focus on addressing affordability and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse gas emissions associated with heating and cooling are the cause of buildings beings Canada’s third-largest emitting sector (after oil and gas and transportation). Buildings are a challenging sector to decarbonize because to succeed, collaboration is needed between the federal government, provinces, territories, municipalities, and Indigenous communities.

Action is needed to retrofit and upgrade the 16 million homes and half a million other buildings standing in Canada today, most of which will still be standing in 2050. And new builds need to be built more energy-efficient from the onset, especially as Canada rapidly aims to build more homes to address the housing crisis and drive down the cost of housing across the country.

The CGBS aims to:

• Accelerate retrofits of existing buildings
• Ensure buildings are energy-efficient, climate-resilient, and affordable from the start
• Seize the economic opportunities associated with more efficient and lower carbon building materials and technologies

To do this, the Strategy helps Canadians adopt heat pumps and save money on their energy bills through programs targeted at low- and median-income households like the new Canada Greener Homes Affordability program and the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability Program. It includes a commitment to phase out oil heating in new construction in the coming years, a plan to promote low-carbon building materials and spur job creation, and it ensures energy efficiency is factored into decisions on federal housing funding.

The CGBS represents a significant step forward in addressing both affordability and climate change. The Strategy provides a comprehensive framework that will help Canada reach its climate goals, make life more affordable, and ensure that the cost of building homes does not rise in the midst of a housing crisis.