Government Operations committee  I do. Thank you.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for inviting me to address the committee today. I want to start off by talking to you about how green buildings can help achieve the Government of Canada's low-carbon economy and climate change targets, particularly through its own building portfolio. You as the government are obviously one of the largest building owners in the country, and as such, you have tremendous procurement power in how you procure new buildings, how you lease your buildings and also how you manage and retrofit your existing buildings.

Natural Resources committee  I think, transforming the whole building sector to zero carbon is really important. We have to start it now, because as you know, buildings last a very long time. It's very important. I would say that, when it comes to homes, it is a bit more challenging because there is a different economic model.

Natural Resources committee  I think what we call the technical colleges—as you said, Okanagan College in British Columbia, the British Columbia Institute of Technology, the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, and so on— play a very important role in training the workforce.

Natural Resources committee  I think where we see the biggest benefit is for larger buildings, of over 25,000 square feet. We have about 100,000 buildings like that in Canada, and there are huge gains to be made in terms of energy efficiency with those buildings. There are three sectors: the real estate sector, the transportation sector, and the industrial sector.

Natural Resources committee  I think it has to be a combination. On homeowners and homes, I think you need to increase regulation consistently so that homes are being built to higher levels of performance. I think it's really important in the residential sectors. In the private sector, I think you're better off with tax rebates, with financial-type incentives, because they're looking for return on their investment, whereas the homeowner looks for other things.

Natural Resources committee  I would say generally that we observed that they actually do label homes in Europe in some of the economies like the U.K. and Germany. Buildings are labelled at the point of sale. This has a significant impact on the energy improvements made to homes and the standard they are built to.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. I'm going to cover five areas when it comes to energy efficiency and economic benefits: voluntary standards, zero-carbon innovation, building retrofit, capacity building of the workforce, and then a few recommendations at the end. At the Canada Green Building Council, we believe that green buildings can help achieve Canada's greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments, and significantly improve the energy efficiency of the building sector in the Canadian economy.

Environment committee  I'm really glad you asked that question. There is, and that's why we're having the discussion, because pension funds across this country have been investing billions of dollars in green, energy-efficient buildings and so on, LEED, gold LEED, platinum buildings. Any new office building in Canada now is built to LEED gold or platinum because it generates return for the owner.

Environment committee  There you go. That's your answer right there. That's why efficiency is so important and your envelope is important, because you cannot possibly—I mean, it depends on how deep your pockets are—expect the same service immediately from renewable energy that you get from fossil fuels.

Environment committee  I think the principle of energy efficiency is paramount, because you need to reduce the demand for energy that your house has on the grid or on fossil fuels, whatever it is. That's job number one. The thing is that at some point it becomes uneconomical for you to become more energy efficient because the costs are going up, so you need to look at renewable sources of energy, as you pointed out, to replace your fossil fuels.

Environment committee  It's a really good question. I'll keep it really short. It's a bit complex. We modelled it, and actually by targeting about 60,000 buildings over the next 13 years leading up to 2030, we get a 30% reduction. It's not everything. It just needs to be more targeted and you need to go deeper.

Environment committee  Maybe I'll let Landmark answer that first. There have been programs over the years for homeowners to buy green homes. I think a percentage of homeowners will buy those homes, but there's not enough supply on the market. I would say that there's probably about 30% who will buy them because they want to buy them.

Environment committee  —than on energy efficiency. They were willing to spend the money there. They were just not willing to spend the money on energy efficiency. It's a preference for a certain type of home. I don't buy that it's more expensive. I think I would challenge the home-building industry, actually, to step forward, because they could bring down those costs to a level where everybody could buy a home like that.

Environment committee  Sorry that I took up all the time.