The Government of Canada announced the launch of the Canada Green Buildings Strategy to improve energy efficiency in Canada’s homes and buildings, with a key focus on addressing the challenges of affordability, the housing crisis, and climate change.
The Strategy introduced the $800 million Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program (CGHAP) to help low- to median-income Canadians, including renters, upgrade their homes to save money on their energy bills. This new program will replace the $5,000 grant maximum of the Canada Greener Homes Grant with more comprehensive support for the installation of retrofits, at no charge to participating households. Using a ‘direct install’ model, where the retrofits are managed and delivered by third parties, this program could provide households with up to four times more support than the former grant program.
Recommended retrofits such as heat pumps for heating and cooling, better insulation, windows, doors, or ventilation, will be determined by experienced energy efficiency professionals, ensuring everyone receives what their home needs and to be more affordable and comfortable.
The Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program builds on the progress made to date through the Canada Greener Homes Grant, which has already helped 240,000 homeowners install heat pumps, windows and doors, and insulation through an average grant of $4,400 per household. Each year, those homeowners save an average of nearly $400 on their energy bills and reduce their emissions by 1.18 tonnes. Over the next couple of years, the Canada Greener Homes Grant will continue to help hundreds of thousands more existing program participants complete retrofit projects that will help them save money on their energy bills.
“Canada’s Green Buildings Strategy is a plan to cut energy bills, make our homes more resilient, create strong Canadian supply chains, and support good jobs in every community – including right here in Toronto. The centrepiece of this effort is the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, which will help renters and homeowners to upgrade their homes and save money,” said Julie Dabrusin, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources and to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, MP for Toronto-Danforth.
In addition to Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability Program and the Canada Greener Homes Loan will continue to help Canadians reduce their home energy costs and make the switch to electric heat pumps. To date, nearly 160,000 heat pumps installations have been supported by federal funding. When switching to an electric heat pump, households that were fully heating with oil, save from $1,500 to $4,500 per year on their home energy bills.
Ensuring new homes and buildings are energy efficient from the beginning will make buildings affordable to operate and maintain. The Government of Canada has committed to introducing a regulatory framework to phase out the installation of expensive and polluting oil heating systems in new construction, as early as 2028. This phase-out would include necessary exclusions for regions with insufficient access to the electricity grid and where standby back up heating fuel is required.
The Government of Canada is also greening federal infrastructure, with the goal of fully meeting the energy needs of federal buildings with clean energy sources, by eliminating the use of fossil fuels for space and water heating where possible and building net-zero from the start. The federal government is leading by example and is on track to achieve its goal of reducing emissions by 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 – saving taxpayers money every year.
The low-carbon economy presents an enormous opportunity for Canadian workers and businesses. To keep Canada’s position as a supplier of choice for clean materials like low-carbon concrete and wood, the Government of Canada’s new Buy Clean approach will shift to low-carbon materials and design through federal construction procurements and public infrastructure asset investments, such as public buildings and public transit projects, which cuts pollution and fosters manufacturing competitiveness and jobs for generations to come. This approach will build on Canada’s clean manufacturing advantage.
The Government of Canada also announced over $25 million in related investments in Ontario-based proponents, including;
- Over $13 million for The Atmospheric Fund to decarbonize and improve the comfort and performance of apartments, condominiums and social housing buildings in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area;
- Nearly $12 million for Purpose Building Inc. for an innovative green building project through the Deep Retrofit Acceleration Initiative;
- Nearly $370,000 for the Canadian Standards Association to advance energy efficiency standards to improve energy use in products sold across Canada;
- $640,000 to Volta Research Inc. to establish a platform to support builders, energy advisors, and others adopting upper-tier building codes and construction practices that are more sustainable, affordable, and resilient;
- Over $585,000 for Sustainable Buildings Canada to encourage the adoption of the highest tiers of the 2020 National Building Code and the 2020 National Energy Code for Buildings, accelerating the modernization of Canadian buildings.
To succeed, close collaboration will be needed between the federal government, provinces, territories, municipalities, Indigenous communities and organizations, businesses, financial institutions, and industry. As Canada builds stronger communities and with more housing at prices people can afford, the Canada Green Buildings Strategy will ensure we are doing so in a way that cuts energy bills, enhances creates good-paying jobs for Canadian communities, and makes our homes and buildings more comfortable, efficient, and resilient.
“As a leading urban college in Canada, George Brown applauds a national Green Buildings Strategy, which aligns with our mission to educate and innovate while protecting our environment. Our landmark mass-timber academic building, Limberlost Place, which is set to open in 2025 at our Toronto Waterfront campus, exemplifies global best practices in sustainable design, technology, and construction. Limberlost Place will not only be climate-resilient and net-zero carbon emissions but sets a new standard in sustainable infrastructure for large institutional buildings,” said Michelle McCollum, vice president, Facilities and Sustainability, George Brown College.
In at statement, the Canadian Wood Council (CWC) said it is encouraged by the release of the Strategy, recognizing it as a positive step towards decarbonizing and building a sustainable and resilient future for Canada’s built environment.
“Canada’s forest products sector stands as a beacon of innovation, driving a low-carbon future,” said Rick Jeffery, president and CEO of the CWC. “With cutting-edge manufacturing technologies and sustainable forest management, our sector excels in reducing its own carbon footprint and has tremendous potential to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment while fostering economic growth. Continued advancement of the forest products sector and the accelerated adoption of wood-based construction technologies present a clear path towards a circular economy, ensuring efficient and responsible use of resources and positioning the wood industry as a major economic engine of a greener future.”
The strategy identifies several critical areas of action that will contribute to transforming the construction sector towards a net-zero and resilient future by 2050. These areas include:
Recognition of Wood Products: Wood is acknowledged as a renewable, low-embodied carbon material. Its benefits include reduced construction emissions and reduced construction schedule which is advantageous considering today’s labour shortages.
Prefabricated Building Elements: The strategy recognizes the role that prefabrication has in greening Canada’s buildings, highlighting the use of mass timber. We also note that panelization of wood products for light-wood frame construction already exists across Canada.
Advancement of Building Codes: There is recognition of the advancement in building codes to allow for mass timber construction up to 12 storeys, with encouragement for further analysis to expand to much taller buildings (e.g., 18 and 24 storeys).
Featured image: (Government of Canada)
