Government Operations committee  For my part, you can probably hear from my accent that I actually grew up in Germany, and I've spent quite a bit of time in both Europe and the United States. There is the U.S. Green Building Council organization. We do quite a bit of work with them around LEED development and p

Government Operations committee  It's mainly individuals and schools that do these studies to measure. Productivity is hard to measure, but absenteeism—

Government Operations committee  Yes, for example, it's sick days. In health care, for example, it is how long people actually stay in the hospital, how long they take to recover. There are certainly indications that in facilities that have daylight, natural ventilation, and proper views of nature outside, the s

Government Operations committee  We don't have, in fact, because there are so many variables in buildings. It depends where the building is, how big it is, how committed the owner is, what level of certification has been targeted, what technologies have been applied. There are so many variables. Generally, we s

Government Operations committee  There are regions where, for example, for some of the early LEED buildings, it cost 6% to 8% more. They were relatively small. The payback then was 10 years, but with just the slide in energy prices they were paid back in five or six years. There are a lot of variables that play

Government Operations committee  Absolutely.

Government Operations committee  Yes. It's a smart investment.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  I think it would, but particularly when it comes to energy, we have a lot of experience in Canada already. This has been going on for a long time. Just in terms of the retrofit of buildings, the energy performance contract has been around a long time. And it includes not just p

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  I don't think they do compare favourably. You have a larger organization to change, and it's more far-reaching. If you take the province of Alberta, the geographical area is more focused. From coast to coast you have a larger area to deal with, and I think it just takes longer.

Government Operations committee  I would agree with that. The LEED program for commercial interiors, for example, would allow you to do a lot of things in any kind of building that bring up the performance.

Government Operations committee  Yes. And we also have a new system as well. It's called LEED for commercial interiors, and it allows you to do tenant improvement. So it gives the power not to the owner but to the tenant, to improve the tenant space along the LEED environmental guidelines. So anybody who rents o

Government Operations committee  It actually does. There's an organization in Alberta that has started up. It's called Built Green Alberta. It's a certification program. It's a green program for home builders that does provide some certification of homes, single-family detached homes. Our organization as well

Government Operations committee  No. All buildings are certified after occupancy. It is basically that we are very prescriptive about what credits to pursue, what strategies to pursue, and what they have to submit to us for certification. Depending on the size you pursue, they would submit that to us. And it de