Environment committee  Understanding that, I know that is in discussion in the code committees. It's something they're evaluating, and it's a live point. It's a good point.

Environment committee  I could perhaps offer just a few comments. I would agree with Duncan that with the building stock we have and the standard of efficiency we are accustomed to building, the operating energy dwarfs the embodied energy within the building, but as we approach the level of efficienc

Environment committee  You're not alone in being unaware of that, of course. On our website, we provide that type of information, with listings and a project database. It is limited by our resources, but that type of information would be incredibly useful. These resources are available in almost every

Environment committee  We do, but we started in the west, as BOMA did, so we're very new. We just became a proper national organization a little over a year ago. We're acquiring the bilingual staff and we have members in Quebec, but it's small, so it needs to build.

Environment committee  You need to buy a membership in our association, but the whole ethos behind Passive House is that it's not a proprietary branded standard. It's building science. It's open source. The energy model is an Excel spreadsheet. Anybody can buy it and anybody could do it, but it is very

Environment committee  There's a myriad of barriers and tripwires through the regulatory environment at all levels. With time and experience, we anticipate working through all of them. Although permitting is done at the local government level, in our view the federal government has a key role. In our

Environment committee  Buildings do cost money. Different forms of buildings will cost different amounts. I don't know how to make them cheap according to the standards you may be referring to, with the land and the servicing and all these costs, but they're real. Our expertise is not in the built en

Environment committee  Absolutely, and that's always been a fundamental component. In a few weeks I'm moderating a policy panel with the European Union in Munich on that very subject. With retrofits, you only get periodic times in the life cycle of a building to really work on the fundamental efficienc

Environment committee  The code typically deals with building rather than operating, but with regard to commissioning and emissions and so on, that may be....

Environment committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair and committee members. It's a pleasure to be here. I must say I arrived on somewhat short notice and haven't had time to translate materials and put it together in that way. If it's all right with you, we'll perhaps just have a bit of a conversat

Environment committee  Okay. Thank you. We, Passive House Canada, are a national, not-for-profit, membership-based organization with a mission to transform buildings across the country. We view our role, at this point, as largely supporting the implementation of the federal-provincial agreement that's