Sustainability leaders in Canada’s commercial real estate industry are achieving some success with reducing operational and embodied carbon. The keys to this are improved energy and material efficiency and electrification. Carbon reduction in electricity grids and construction material supply chains are helping too. But the industry needs to move farther and faster to on these issues to achieve its share of the necessary reductions.

In addition, there has been little attention on end-of-life emissions, creating a gap in the industry’s net zero approach. Business-as-usual processes to (re)develop and renovate buildings at end-of-life are generating low-value material streams that the industry calls “construction and demolition waste.” 55% of this ends up in landfill (Delphi Group & Dillon Consulting, 2023).

Those of us that have been active in the green building industry for more than a decade grew up with certification programs like LEED and GRESB.

 As the organizations managing these certification programs have evolved from start-ups to incumbents, and the pace of change in the market has accelerated, it is a question whether certification programs alone can continue to deliver what the industry needs.

Purpose congratulates REALPAC, the PLACE Centre at the Smart Prosperity Institute and the Canada Green Building Council on the release of their report Decarbonizing Canada’s Buildings: The Owner & Investor Perspective.

 If the industry wants to keep pace with climate commitments, the focus shifts from aligning deep retrofit investments with existing equipment renewal cycles to aligning with climate requirements.

This article is our synopsis of the ideas presented in the 2020 book Rewiring America by Saul Griffith. Griffith tackles the challenge of getting off carbon from the viewpoint of what is technically necessary as well as economically viable.

The Ontario Ministry of Energy, Northern Development and Mines released the 2018 energy and water performance data for buildings 250,000 sf or larger

For some time I have believed that climate change and wealth disparity are two existential challenges facing human civilization. Various factors have recently made me think they could both be by-products of another troublesome and perhaps age-old human issue – the concerted effort of a few rich folks to protect their excessive wealth…

Prior to the release of the IPCC report on 1.5oC warming, this 500 page July 2018 federal document tells us to accept that the planet will be 4degC warmer than preindustrial levels by 2100…