Evidence of meeting #95 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was buildings.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair (Mrs. Deborah Schulte (King—Vaughan, Lib.)) Liberal Deb Schulte
Good morning, everyone. We are still studying clean growth and climate change in Canada with the built environment. We have a full suite of witnesses with us today, and also one by teleconference.
We have five speakers, so that's going to end up taking all of our time. We're going to give them 10 minutes each. That means that our questioning will need to be succinct.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I think so.
We have Thomas Mueller from the Canada Green Building Council; Michael Giroux from the Canadian Wood Council; Michael McSweeney and Adam Auer from the Cement Association of Canada; Martin Luymes from the Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada; and by teleconference, Bijan Mannani and Haitao Yu from Landmark Homes Canada.
Welcome to all.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Madam Chair, will the teleconference be running for the whole meeting? Do we have the witness on teleconference right now?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
They are on the phone. It's not a video; it's a teleconference.
Because of difficulties sometimes with lines, and we know they're live on the line at the moment, I would like to have them go first. I'm going to have them make sure that as they go to speak, they introduce themselves. Every time they speak for a little bit, until we get to know their voices, they should just say who's speaking. That would be helpful.
Monsieur Godin.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Madam Chair, why aren't we using video conferencing?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
They didn't have it available. It wasn't available at their end, and they couldn't do it in the short time that they had. We haven't had a lot of time to prepare the witnesses, so they actually weren't able to get it organized, unfortunately.
Ms. Duncan.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
We always try, but unfortunately, it couldn't work out, given the timing and their obligations, to have them in a different location. We absolutely try, and we're doing our best to make sure they have a chance to speak to us today.
I'm going to start with Landmark Homes Canada. I will let you know after nine minutes of your testimony, when you have one minute left, so that you can wrap it up at 10 minutes.
Mr. Mannani.
Bijan Mannani President, Landmark Homes Canada
This is Bijan Mannani speaking on behalf of Landmark Homes Canada. I have here Dr. Haitao Yu, who is our lead researcher for Landmark Homes Canada.
Landmark Homes' primary business is building new residential homes in Alberta. We have a small operation in Phoenix, Arizona, as well. We started in the home-building business in Alberta in 1977. We have built more than 15,000 homes in Alberta.
The company started venturing into building energy efficient homes back in 2006, and in 2008 we adopted the four principles of sustainability, as defined by The Natural Step Canada, and we made a business. The strategic driver behind our business was to have environmental sustainability combined together with industrialization of construction processes for the residential construction industry.
In 2011 we started a manufacturing facility, panelizing homes in different sections, different segments like Lego pieces. We focused on reduction of waste throughout the processes, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions during the course of construction by eliminating the need for various contractors and trade partners to travel in individual vehicles to deliver materials to sites and the inefficiencies that we get when building on-site through stick building operations. We also started having very tight building envelopes to one millimetre accuracy, gaining air exchanges significantly below one air exchange per hour—the best we have done is 0.41 air exchanges per hour—and then focusing on making net-zero homes, energy efficient homes, to become the norm for all of our product lines and exceeding the national building code by a minimum of 15% for all of our product lines that we are delivering in the market.
In 2017 we placed our fifth net-zero show home under $400,000. That includes the land, the building, all of the options, upgrades, and GST for a single family home in Edmonton. We are currently on the way to building two other net-zero homes as a normal offering in the Edmonton market. Both are single-family developments.
We have been recognized by CHBA as one of the 22 net-zero qualified builders in Canada and one of the three qualified builders of net-zero homes and energy efficient homes in Edmonton.
Our mandate, what think we need to be accelerating, is to make mandatory labelling and energy modelling of homes both for new homes and for the resale market. The reason for that is to create and raise awareness in the consumer's eye so that it would create a demand for that and change the mindset and the paradigm that the status quo is acceptable. That's a big change that is needed.
The second part is, from the federal government standpoint, investment in research and development in the areas of HVAC and windows, but the biggest part, in our opinion, is the building envelope and the building science side of things.
With respect to funding for special projects or pilot projects, I think that's where the federal government can step in and have a plan for progressively, on an accelerated basis but in a stepwise manner, introducing higher energy efficiency requirements, adding that to the building code, and making that a requirement across Canada. Right now, different provinces are doing different things. It needs a well-coordinated effort from the federal government to be pushing the agenda for energy efficiency in housing.
There have been questions asked about the retrofitting of existing buildings. We currently do not have any particular program in Alberta. We are not in that line of business, but I think that would significantly impact the market by focusing on energy efficiency. If everybody is talking the same language, and the requirements are clearly outlined in a stepwise manner, then we all will be able to benefit from that and make the change that is needed.
With respect to how we can further reduce our carbon footprint and have energy efficiency, we think that in Alberta, where we have set up the manufacturing facility, the off-site manufacturing and panelization facility, it will not only diversify the economy. We are also able to introduce job creation opportunities, and it's a safer working environment. As I indicated earlier, the average home building operation has about 15.4 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions during the course of construction. This is not during the operation.
Through the manufacturing process, we have been able to reduce those greenhouse emissions to 6.42 tonnes. It's a significant reduction. If Canada is producing an average of 250,000 homes, just the impact of that, similar to the automobile industry manufacturing facilities that are off-site, means that we will be significantly reducing the industry's greenhouse gas emissions and the carbon footprints we are leaving behind, and lessening that impact.
I think we need to have a gradual process of introducing higher energy efficiency requirements. That target needs to be gradual, with a specific schedule and timeline identified in order for the whole industry to gear up with business partners—from builders to HVAC to windows to building envelope installation—where everything goes hand in hand.
Beyond this, if you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you very much. You have two minutes left, if you still have anything else you want to share with us.
President, Landmark Homes Canada
No, I said what I needed to say. If there are any questions, I can answer them at the end.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you very much. We appreciate that. We'll be back to you at the end of all the presentations.
We'll hear from everyone and then we'll start into the rounds of questioning.
Yes, Monsieur Godin.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Madam Chair, would it be possible to go straight into questions for the people on teleconference? I just thought I would ask, and I know the other committee members will want to hear the answer as well.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
I don't think that would work very well. We're already very crunched in terms of the questioning. Having to schedule questioning for one person versus another I don't think will work, so we'll do it the regular way.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Yes. He's being very generous with his time and he's going to stay on.
Next up is Mr. Mueller from the Canada Green Building Council.
You have 10 minutes. I'll hold up a card to let you know when it's time.
Thomas Mueller President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Green Building Council
Please do. I would appreciate that.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Let the record show that we finally have Mr. Mueller on interrogation. I know that Trump's.... There's something going on down in the United States with a Mr. Mueller.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Green Building Council
I can tell you that if it's a Mueller doing it, it will be done right.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Green Building Council
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you for inviting me to come to the committee.
I would like to provide an overview from our council's perspective on how green buildings can help Canada achieve its GHG commitments and climate change commitments. There's a common understanding now in Canada and around the world that 30% of greenhouse gas emissions are associated with buildings—building construction and operation—and that also applies to Canada.
I have a slide deck here that we will share with you. Here you can see that up to now a lot of progress has been made in the building industry, through the application of voluntary rating systems and voluntary standards such as LEED, leadership in energy and environmental design. We currently have over one billion square feet of LEED buildings in Canada, and it has grown to be the most widely accepted standard for green building in Canada.
Green building not only benefits the environment, but it also creates jobs and promotes economic growth. We did a report that's available on our website. At the end of 2014, the green building industry contributed about $23 billion in GDP, and there were 300,000 direct jobs involved in green construction. You can see that these jobs actually exceeded the jobs in forestry, mining, and oil and gas extraction. It's a significant boon to become a significant economic sector in Canada beyond just the environmental benefits.
Today—and these are the figures at the end of 2016—we estimate that LEED buildings across the country and those built by the federal government save about 1.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year, save about 18 billion litres of water, and so far have avoided about 2.1 million tonnes of landfill waste from construction and demolition.
These are just some of the figures that are available now to highlight the environmental and economic benefits. What we recommend and want to share with the government is that it's really important that you continue to support voluntary industry standards. LEED, and not just LEED but also other industry standards have really built industry capacity. They have built knowledge, and they have worked over time to put the industry on a path of continuous improvement in water efficiency and recycling, and those types of things, but most importantly, energy efficiency.
You can see that LEED standards have played a very important role in delivering buildings that are above the building code, and in that way they have really informed the codes to be more ambitious in terms of the thresholds that are being established for national and provincial building codes.
Finally, the government has established a LEED gold policy since 2005. We do recommend to the government that you have a very important role to play in terms of procurement of real estate, either for construction or for renovation, or for leased space. We recommend that the government continue to support the application of voluntary standards through its own procurement policies, and that would include through upgraded green building policies to LEED platinum, which is the highest level of performance both for new and existing buildings, but also start to look at the new standard in the marketplace, which I'll talk about in a minute, about getting to zero-carbon performance in buildings.
The council believes that in order for us to reach our carbon goals, we need to start thinking less about energy but more about carbon, which is really a slightly different metric. We're really supporting a shift from not just energy, but energy and carbon. If you have two buildings that are identically energy efficient in Quebec, and you heat one with gas and you heat the other with electricity, the one with gas produces 36 times as much greenhouse gas emission as the one heated with electricity.
That speaks to the point that the energy source you're using is hugely important, and where the building is located across Canada is hugely important. We need to take advantage of Canada's clean energy sources. I live in Vancouver, B.C., and hydro is 95% carbon free. In Quebec and Manitoba, we need to take advantage of these clean energy sources to move the building sector towards a low-carbon performance.
There's an area that Canada and the council has embarked on to produce zero-carbon buildings from an operational perspective. This is really to create the building stock of the future. In 10, 20, 30, or 40 years from now, we will need buildings that emit as little carbon as possible. This, of course, needs to be balanced with energy costs and energy efficiency. The goal is to produce buildings that are very low on the energy side.
We introduced a zero-carbon standard last year. There are 10 other countries that have approved zero-carbon standards for buildings—Australia being one of them—or that are in the process of developing one, like Germany and Brazil. Across the world this is an area of innovation.
Zero-carbon standards really balance high levels of energy efficiency, because we still need to pay energy costs, of course, as we all do in gas and electricity. It also needs to be combined with sources of renewable energy. This renewable energy comes either as generated on-site in part or can be procured off-site through renewable energy certificates and, like I said, through our hydro sources of clean, almost carbon-free electricity.
We currently have 16 projects of that standard across the country. The industry is confident that they can meet that standard. In fact, the federal government has one project in the pilot as well, as does the Ontario provincial government and other local governments in Canada. There are also private sector projects. We have projects that range from a small water project in Walkerton, Ontario, to a 60-storey office tower on Bay Street in Toronto. You can really see that the industry is ready to make this kind of investment, and that also needs to be supported by government policy and R and D to move this part of the work forward.
Having said that, we took a broader look at the building sector, and having done several research reports, which again are available on our website, we came to the conclusion that we cannot reach our carbon goals from the building sector without building retrofit. When I talk about building retrofit, I'm not talking about single-family homes right now. I'm talking about larger buildings, those over about 25,000 square feet. Depending on who you talk to, because we don't have perfect data, we have up to over 400,000 large buildings in Canada that have an opportunity to be retrofitted. If you retrofit buildings, you can realize, by 2030, three times as much greenhouse gas emissions savings than if you build every building between now and 2030 as zero carbon. That's the potential of the retrofit sector. In this area, Canada can really take the lead globally in retrofitting existing buildings.
Building retrofit involves very specific strategies from the recommissioning of systems to deeper retrofits that produce 20% to 40% reductions in energy use, and then, a combination of solar or other renewable energy sources along with fuel switching. Fuel switching is when you go from a fossil fuel to a carbon fuel, either electricity or on-site renewables, geothermal, and those types of strategies.
These are the four strategies, and we did a road map. This goes to one of the questions that you asked us to answer for this committee. We developed a road map for retrofits in Canada, and you can see from the map that the strategies differ depending on where your buildings are located. For example, in a low-carbon credit area like Quebec, you really should focus on recommissioning and deep retrofits and on fuel switching, while renewable energy generation is probably less important because you already have a good source of clean energy. On a high-carbon grid, you need to invest more into the generation of renewable energy versus fuel switching, which doesn't make a lot of sense because you would switch fuel with something that's what we call a dirtier grid.
There's an opportunity to really lay that out and really target policy depending on region, building age, and building type across the country to have a really targeted approach, and that actually narrows from 100,000 buildings to about 50,000 to 60,000 buildings.
In finishing off, the Government of Canada has an opportunity to invest in a retrofit economy. We recommend that all custodian departments and agencies of the government develop multi-year retrofit strategies for their portfolios. We are also recommending that the government allocate $1 billion from the Canada Infrastructure Bank for retrofits of commercial and multi-residential buildings in both the public and the private sector. Also, there needs to be insurance to make sure that these retrofits also deliver on their performance improvements both in terms of energy and in terms of carbon.
I'll stop here because the recommendations at the end are very self-explanatory.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Thank you very much. Sorry to have to cut you off. It's just that we have a full slate. I appreciate that we have your presentation in front of us. That's very helpful.
Next up will be Michael Giroux, from the Canadian Wood Council.
