Natural Resources committee  We have a client for whom we've done LEED, which included energy efficiency and those sorts of things, and they use that as a tool to recruit new employees. You'll find that a lot of large companies are insisting that they be in buildings that have the LEED certification. We've s

Natural Resources committee  It happens all the time. Our number one way of getting new customers is through recommendations from existing customers. The energy efficiency industry is a bit different from other industries, in the sense that when people have a success, they like to talk about it. They like to

Natural Resources committee  We do both.

Natural Resources committee  The small-scale projects are much harder, just because the budgets are much smaller. We did a 2,000 square foot facility. You can't have $100,000 in consulting fees on a 2,000 square foot facility. There's only so much analysis that you can do in that type of a facility, whereas

Natural Resources committee  I think the number one thing is building commissioning for existing buildings. Commissioning is really going in and optimizing all the systems, relooking at how they work together. You build a building and it comes with a manual showing how it all works, but 35 years later, the

Natural Resources committee  Yes, certainly, the step codes in B.C. and now the Toronto green standard and the way it's future-looking, I think, give builders an idea of what's to come, so that they can continuously change their process. Their horizon is that, if you buy a piece of land, you're not necessari

Natural Resources committee  Doing an energy model of the building is one of the key parts to any of these new construction building measures and figuring out what you need in the building—looking at the amount of energy the different systems will use and the potential systems they might put in and sizing th

Natural Resources committee  I think it's being able to provide examples of buildings that have done that in a cost-effective way, and being able to basically provide a business case. Sometimes senior management are the ones who are very keen on that, as part of their corporate mandates—that happens quite of

Natural Resources committee  We're not deep into the educational standpoint, but we do see graduates from a variety of programs who are well qualified to move into the industry. It's great that those courses are being developed. I know Humber College is working on a new program that we're helping them with

Natural Resources committee  It's always hard, because every building's very different. If you were to go back 10 or 15 years, the price difference would have been very large. Now, with building codes and modern construction techniques, the price differential is not that large from a construction standpoint.

Natural Resources committee  It's not like 2.8% or something like that, but what we're finding is that regular builders can build high-efficiency buildings in their budgets, so that means it is attainable.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly, I think that's part of the future. As you said, getting clients on board takes a bit of time, and we'll need probably a few more examples like the one you mentioned for people to say, “Yes, I'm only going to build that out of mass timber.” But we are seeing people who

Natural Resources committee  We've seen existing buildings dramatically increase their energy efficiency as well. It can happen. It can work.

Natural Resources committee  I have no comment on that. I think as people are looking at what they want to do career-wise, we will need good construction workers and more technological construction workers than before.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly, we need qualified tradespeople and we need to encourage courses at community colleges and other institutions that will help us bring forward our next round of tradespeople so we can keep building.