I'll keep it as short as possible.
Thank you very much for inviting me to address the committee. I have a handout that I'll take you through. Given the time, I'll skip over some slides and emphasize just the important ones.
The Canada Green Building Council, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is a national non-profit organization made up of mainly industry representatives. It was created in 2002. Ours is an elected board, with cross-representation from the industry, across Canada, in our committees and chapters.
We are a largely self-funded organization that delivers programs to the industry to improve the performance of buildings. We use the LEED building rating system in Canada as an avenue to accomplish this. LEED is a building rating system that came originally from the U.S. We adapted it for Canada's use in 2004. Since then the LEED adaptation has been used in Canada to certify new and existing commercial, institutional, and high-rise residential buildings, as well as for tenant improvements. These two rating systems are directly applicable to Public Works and Government Services Canada.
There are four levels of certification: certified, silver, gold, and platinum. The certification is done through third-party assessment teams. Really, it's a true third-party certification of building performance, as designed.
There's often the question of why buildings should be LEED certified. LEED provides a common framework or language that defines what a green building is. It covers five areas: energy, water, materials, indoor environmental quality, and site development. As I mentioned before, it verifies the actual performance of a building through a third party. It supports performance benchmarking with other jurisdictions. It has become, for new buildings, the de facto national green building standard in Canada over the last three years.
More importantly, the application of LEED results in the lowest life cycle cost for buildings. Quality assurance is built in to the LEED system to really ensure that buildings that go through the LEED process target high performance and ensure that things are maintained that might otherwise fall off the table through the design process. As well, the focus and discipline are maintained in the design to achieve certain performance goals for a building.
The LEED uptake in Canada has been significant. On page 6 we have listed a range of organizations that have adopted LEED. Provincial and local governments, the 2010 Winter Olympics, and a variety of private sector developers, such as Victoria's Dockside Green, have adopted LEED with a requirement to certify the buildings under the LEED system.
The levels of certification vary that the organizations have committed to. Usually it's between silver and gold. At least one organization, Dockside Green, has committed itself to a platinum level for all buildings they are developing. That's a private sector development.
The cost of LEED has often been discussed. I can show you some slides that present the current knowledge on the cost of LEED and LEED certification.
On page 7 is the LEED cost for the General Services Administration in the U.S. Basically the graph line on the left-hand side is for the courthouse, which is a new building. The office building, on the right-hand side, is a renovation where the GSA did an in-depth analysis. It basically shows that certified, silver, and some gold buildings can be delivered within the existing construction contingency budget established by this national organization. GSA is the largest building owner in the United States, and they have studied this issue in great depth. They have found that even without incentives, they could quite easily achieve LEED certification on their buildings. However, if additional money were available, they could achieve even higher levels of certification.
One page 8 we mention a study done in California. The findings correlate the average cost premium with the level of LEED certification. The findings here are consistent with what we're finding with Canadian LEED projects. On average, a LEED silver building and a LEED gold building can be delivered with an additional cost of about 2%. As the experience grows in the industry with green building, we will see those costs continue to be reduced. Basically, we're still in a learning curve in Canada, which is reflected in these costs.
The costs and benefits of LEED certification are broken down on page 9. These are California numbers, but they clearly show that the energy value really exceeds the cost premium for green buildings over a 20-year net present value.
Even though our energy costs are lower here, our experience shows that the additional costs can be paid back in a very short period of time and benefit the building owner over the life of the building.
So the question for most building owners to ask is whether they are willing to pay a little more money now and save over the life of the building or operate the building using more energy. Basically it's pay now or pay later. I think that's really the decision to be made.
Clearly the benefits are there, and the often overlooked benefits are in productivity and health benefits for buildings. As an employer, your investment is in your staff rather than the building, because they consume so much more in salaries.
The California study has found that 70% of the benefits are health and productivity benefits. The productivity benefits they identified will accrue to 70% only if they get 1% more productivity out of state employees, which is five minutes per day. So you can see the magnitude of the investment a good working environment and good buildings can provide to employees of a federal government, or any employer in the country.
The LEED costs are on page 10. These are the average costs associated with LEED registration and certification fees, and they always depend on the size of the building. They are charged per square foot.
There are also the LEED documentation costs. These are the packages that have to be prepared for our assessment teams. They cost an average of $25,000 to $30,000. This is pretty consistent and represents 25 buildings that have been certified in Canada under the LEED system. These are quite manageable costs to achieve LEED certification.
On the progress to date with the Government of Canada, Public Works was one of the first organizations that adopted a LEED policy in the country--a green building policy with LEED gold. To date, four buildings have been certified under the LEED Canada system, and 16 are currently registered. There are projects in every part of the country that are owned and operated by the federal government. The registered buildings are currently under design or construction.
The federal government projects make up over 5% of our registered and certified buildings in Canada. We are making some good progress. However, the application of LEED in different regions is still somewhat inconsistent. I think the government has a LEED gold policy. When we look at the four certified projects, two are certified, one is gold, and one is platinum. There's a Parks building in Saanich, British Columbia, that's the leading green building in Canada. It is a LEED platinum building, and the only one so far in Canada.
Two recent reports have shown that green buildings can make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gases in Canada. A study by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy shows that if we reduce energy used in residential and commercial institutional buildings by 50%, it will take us almost halfway toward our Kyoto commitment.
The second study was done by NRCan on energy efficiency trends in Canada. It gives a lower figure, but it confirms that buildings can make a significant contribution to achieving greenhouse gas reductions and taking us closer to Kyoto. A 30% reduction in consumption load could be achieved, and a 20% reduction could be achieved by changing the operating period--how long your fan, chiller, or air conditioning is running. So there's room in readily available technology and design knowledge to achieve those goals.
On the recommendations of the Canada Green Building Council, we encourage the Government of Canada to adopt the 50% greenhouse gas reduction challenge in buildings in Canada. It is possible now. It could start with its own buildings, with the help from LEED as a tool to achieve this goal. Over time it could also develop some programs to encourage the private sector to do that as well.
The government could develop an overall real estate property policy with respect to new and existing buildings.
Sustainability goals for green buildings can apply to all kinds of projects, whether it involves designing or building new buildings, leasing, purchasing, or leasing-purchases. On leases, there are all kinds of properties the government owns and operates that could benefit from a green building policy.
The government also has a number of custodian departments that could be encouraged under the policy to develop a strategy on how to achieve the target.
LEED certification at this point is key. We're still early in green building, and LEED certification could really help establish the baseline from which you continue to measure the performance of buildings once they are designed--how they operate--and create feedback loops to ever increase and better improve the performance of buildings across Canada. This is really important. It is data-driven, performance-driven, and benchmark-driven in how we approach buildings.
The Canada Green Building Council has several programs that could help support the federal government. We help with training and education. We can also help with policy implementation. We have several courses that we offer to building owners on how they can implement policy. We also have courses that educate industry, contractors, and designers to deliver better buildings.
The next step could be for the Government of Canada, the custodian departments, and the Canada Green Building Council to work together toward performance benchmarking and verification, education and training, and green policy and standards development and implementation. We would also encourage the custodian departments to become members of the Canada Green Building Council, as all the revenue generated from the work they are doing goes directly back into accelerating green buildings in Canada.
Thank you very much.