Thank you for the invitation, Mr. Chair.
The building sector represents a significant opportunity to reduce carbon emissions and other environmental impacts. In Canada, over 30% of emissions come from the building sector. The green building industry, over the last 10 years, has acquired the capacity and the knowledge to deliver results on carbon emission reductions with a positive return on investment.
In 2014 the industry supported 298,000 jobs and generated $23 billion in GDP. However, taking action would require investment, as the construction sector in Canada ranks at the bottom of all industries in terms of expenditures in research and development.
The Canada Green Building Council is proposing a national cross-sector building strategy, led by industry and supported by the Government of Canada, to accelerate the transition toward a low-carbon built environment. Our focus would be on making efficiency gains. Building efficiency is the most cost-effective option by far to achieve tangible results.
We have a number of recommendations.
First, invest in government-owned buildings. The Government of Canada is the largest building owner in Canada and has an opportunity to show leadership in reducing carbon emissions and environmental impacts for a significantly large number of its own buildings. The government could consider upping its current green building policy for real property, pursuing higher-performance targets for all new construction projects to a level of LEED Gold or better, and the government could also consider starting to certify its portfolio of large existing buildings under LEED. Such an initiative would require a cross-departmental initiative, including the real property branch of Public Service and Procurement Canada as well as custodial departments.
Our second recommendation is to support energy benchmarking initiatives across Canada. About 50% of existing buildings will still be in use by 2050; therefore, we consider it to be vital to focus on the existing building stock with a potential for 20% to 40% reduction of energy consumption and carbon emissions. Energy benchmarking, reporting, and disclosure are critical strategies in engaging building owners in reducing energy use.
Several jurisdictions in the U.S. have already adopted mandatory policies, including such cities as New York, Chicago, and Seattle. In Canada, policies are under development at both the provincial and local levels, including the Province of Ontario, the City of Vancouver, and the Province of B.C. In this regard, we recommend that the Government of Canada invest in the development and delivery of a national, industry-led program to support benchmarking efforts across Canada. The government could establish a national centre of excellence on building performance.
A second strategy would be to provide direct funding for provinces and cities to support their policies through incentives or, better, to provide financing to owners to help them drive down energy use.
The third strategy would be to invest in the expansion of the Energy Star Portfolio Manager, which has actually been operated by Natural Resources Canada for the last three years. The expansion would include more building types and reporting capabilities to support the national benchmarking efforts.
Our final recommendation is with regard to moving toward net zero emission buildings. It is essential at this time that we advance the design of net zero emission buildings as a key component of a low-carbon building strategy. This requires investment in applied research and development to support the industry in developing capacity, knowledge, and technologies to deliver net zero emission buildings in larger numbers.
This approach would drive innovation in Canada to invest in the next generation of buildings that would have a significantly lower carbon footprint and would align well with the federal government's leadership and commitments to climate change targets.
Thank you very much.