Yes.
Good morning, and thank you for inviting us to appear before you. My name is Jim Lord, and with me is Ragui Barsoum. We are from Ecovert and Ecovert CX, and are the founders of those companies.
We started in 2007. We are, I think, an environmental success story. We've grown to 22 employees in three offices—Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo and Ottawa. Our main lines of business are green building certification, with things like the LEED certification; building commissioning; and building energy audits and building energy models.
Just to give you an idea of our clients, we have both public sector and private sector clients. We have done everything from a small bank branch to a prison to hospitals to such things as nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Probably about two-thirds of our work is with new buildings, new construction, where we're able to make a significant difference in the way they operate from an energy standpoint. The other third is in existing buildings. We've so far worked on about 150 million or so square feet, which is quite a good bit of space.
We've seen a real change since 2007 in terms of going in and talking to clients building a building. I remember there was one client who said, “We have to do this green stuff, but we're not really sure if our heart is in it.” A year or so later, when we went to see the same client, they said, “Can we do rainwater harvesting? Can we put solar on our roofs?” I asked the client what had changed in the last year that made them want to do all these things. It was interesting, because in that client's case, they'd been to a couple of functions where all their fellow developers were talking about all the great things they were doing. It would go around the table, and when it got to them they would say nothing. In order to be part of that group, they were motivated to do what the others were doing. Peer pressure can be a big motivator when it comes to getting on board with things like sustainability and green buildings. Certainly, when they see the financial savings later on with operating costs and maintenance of the building, that helps.
That being said, we got a call a few months ago from a guy in Ottawa. He was like, “What is a green building? What is energy efficiency? I have no idea where you even start.” We have the big players, with the big buildings and the big portfolios, who really understand it. They have their energy people as part of their teams. Then we have the smaller and medium guys, who make up the huge percentage of the market, who have no idea what to do and how to get started. I think that's probably one of the biggest opportunities when it comes to energy savings.
There are some things that are helping us right now. We have mandatory energy benchmarking in Ontario. That is certainly getting people to look at their existing buildings and ask what's happening and how they can be better. We have also seen changes in the building code across the country and in municipalities that have helped to spur energy-efficient design of new construction. Programs like high-performance new construction and savings by design have also helped organizations get on board with the green building call to action.
Earlier you had Thomas Mueller, president of the Canada Green Building Council, present to you. He presented on the CaGBC and their report entitled “Building Solutions to Climate Change” and their road map for retrofits. Really, in that study they looked at existing buildings in Canada and how they can help towards meeting our climate change goals. They came up with four main recommendations out of there.
The first one looked at recommissioning 60% of the very large buildings and 40% of the smaller buildings. That's 25,000 to 200,000 square feet. Recommissioning helps to optimize the use of their equipment and systems. That can create significant savings in energy.
The second thing they looked at was deep retrofits in 40% of buildings over 35 years old and buildings with electric resistance heat systems, particularly in areas where the grid is less clean. They also looked at switching to low-carbon fuel sources, particularly in buildings that are over 35 years old, and at on-site renewable energy solutions.
Their challenge, as they looked at that, was building owners having the confidence that when they implemented these items they actually would get those savings. In their report, which you would have received I think a month or so ago, they put a whole bunch of recommendations as to how that could happen. With this they're talking about, in their view, about $30 billion in economic opportunity through this retrofit economy on existing buildings.
I'm going to pass it over to my colleague, Reg. He'll tell you a little bit about himself and some of the work that they're doing on commissioning.
