The key to decarbonization? Invest in existing buildings. Canada is tackling housing and affordability while keeping emissions stable, but bringing existing buildings up to snuff is the hard part,Pembina Institute Betsy Agar October 1, 2024  While Canada tackles the country-wide housing and affordability crisis, making investments in existing homes and buildings is the only viable path to sector decarbonization. Perhaps more urgently, these places where we live and work — the majority of which will still exist in 2050 — are not built to protect Canadians facing increasingly frequent and extreme weather, and wartime-like mobilization and investment is needed now more than ever. Canada recently released its National Inventory Report, which tells the story of how we are doing on the climate action front.

Spoiler alert: not great. We are not on track to meet our 2030 targets and, in many cases, emissions have only continued to climb since reporting began with 1990 data. The Canadian Climate Institute points out that despite a slight increase in 2022 emissions from 2021, economy-wide they are lower than pre-pandemic and sit 7.1 per cent below 2005, the benchmark year. CCI takes this as meaningful evidence that “Canada continues to decouple emissions from economic growth.”As Figure 1 shows, emissions from the electricity generation sector have nosedived, as Canadian utilities have successfully decarbonized their grids with the reduction of coal use and increases in renewable energy. But Canada’s top four sectors — including buildings — continue to undercut progress by all others.  While continued buildings emission increases are discouraging, the broader picture shows different trends between new and old buildings......read on    https://www.pembina.org/blog/key-decarbonization-invest-existing-buildings   

Here's how to do it.....The Retrofit Playbook for Large Buildings.......Cities and states can benefit from lessons on strategic decarbonization from New York City and the Empire State. RMI   Madeline Weir,  Brett Bridgeland May 22, 2024 New York City’s skyline of skyscrapers is an icon of architectural triumph. It’s also the frontier of large building decarbonization. On May 22, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the third cohort of projects awarded through the $50 million Empire Building Challenge to advance emissions reductions from buildings across New York State. The announcement also included the launch of the new Retrofit Playbook for Large Buildings, a free online resource to help building owners achieve strategic decarbonization and modernize their buildings. With the help of leading commercial and multi-family property owners, the Empire Building Challenge has, since 2020, set an ambitious agenda for the Empire State: to phase out fossil fuels and exemplify strategic decarbonization planning. This effort is about more than environmental responsibility, it’s an economic imperative driven by new tax incentives and the city’s Local Law 97, which demands a 40 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 for buildings over 25,000 square feet.

What the retrofit playbook offers......The challenge of retrofitting office towers and large multifamily buildings is daunting and extends beyond New York City. Globally, owners and developers view large building decarbonization as formidable and costly. The new Retrofit Playbook for Large Buildings includes real-world case studies for a range of building types, including commercial, multifamily, affordable housing, and high-rise. The Playbook offers project-specific technical details and best practices that help building owners achieve significant energy and carbon reductions. It also supports an equitable transition to clean energy, enhancing the comfort and health of low- to moderate-income residents. Unique features of the playbook include:

• A step-by-step guide: The process for strategic decarbonization planning developed and demonstrated on landmark NYC buildings.
• Real-world financial data: Detailed case studies of 10+ buildings with financial analyses, presenting transparent cost implications and economic benefits of various retrofit strategies, highlighting expected savings and net present values.
• Community of practice: Content sharing opportunities for leaders in the industry to submit case studies or resources that enhance visibility of their projects and the offerings of the Playbook.

How to implement the strategic decarbonization approach.......Strategic decarbonization goes beyond mere technology swaps. It involves understanding the lifecycle and operational strategy of buildings, identifying long-term, adaptable solutions that integrate seamlessly with financial and investment cycles. The Playbook emphasizes a three-step process to generate an action plan for a resource efficient and resilient building:.....there's lots more! https://www.pembina.org/blog/key-decarbonization-invest-existing-buildings

The key to decarbonization? Invest in existing buildings. Canada is tackling housing and affordability while keeping emissions stable, but bringing existing buildings up to snuff is the hard part. PEMBINA INSTITUTE Betsy Agar October 1, 2024While Canada tackles the country-wide housing and affordability crisis, making investments in existing homes and buildings is the only viable path to sector decarbonization. Perhaps more urgently, these places where we live and work — the majority of which will still exist in 2050 — are not built to protect Canadians facing increasingly frequent and extreme weather, and wartime-like mobilization and investment is needed now more than ever. Canada recently released its National Inventory Report, which tells the story of how we are doing on the climate action front. Spoiler alert: not great. We are not on track to meet our 2030 targets and, in many cases, emissions have only continued to climb since reporting began with 1990 data. 

INFRASTRUCTURE 'All of a sudden we’re cool' — Green builders draft a cleaner, more profitable blueprint for construction.A new generation of developers and architects are changing the city landscape with net-zero and green retrofit designs for an emerging clean economy. Canada’s private sector has a “critical role” to play in promoting., adopting and investing in green buildings, Ottawa said in its new federal strategy to decarbonize millions of homes and businesses. We talked to three builders devising new solutions as they navigate challenges in sustainable development finance, mandates and investments.

For reference National Observer Darius Snieckus  Part 3 of  Big Green Build August 7th 2024  Canada’s Green Buildings Strategy, Ottawa’s long-awaited plan to decarbonize millions of commercial, residential and institutional buildings to align with federal climate targets, has drawn a mixed reaction since its July 16 release. There were high marks for a pledge to modernize energy efficiency standards, phase-out oil heating in new buildings by 2028, support heat pumps over central heating and cooling systems and a “buy clean” plan for federal infrastructure projects to promote low-carbon materials. But the strategy did not tackle oil used in existing buildings, or impose limits on fossil gas used in 60 per cent of existing commercial and institutional structures, green building advocates said. More importantly, there was no road map for an industry expected to build millions of new homes and buildings and retrofit millions more, while also cut emissions that account for nearly 30 per cent of Canada’s released greenhouse gases, they said.........  

Complexe du Canal Lachine (Montreal).....Natalie Voland doesn’t pull punches when discussing the challenge of moving Canada’s construction sector into a new, greener era. “The real estate .... has not innovated itself in over 100 years,” said the former youth social worker, who began a green transformation of her family property business nearly three decades ago. Voland is president of GI Quo Vadis, a Montreal-based firm focused on carbon-neutral, affordable retrofits and new builds with a portfolio of projects linked to the city’s industrial past. “I am a real estate developer and a property operator,” Voland told Canada’s National Observer. “Developing and selling is very different from developing and holding. It works to a different mindset about time-frame." In her view, the industry is too wedded to an old business model of “one-off designs,” while sustainability is either abandoned or made an afterthought. Short-term thinking doesn’t work, she said.

Green building projects — whether new builds or retrofits — need a long-view strategy to scale up and have the “greatest impact on changing the sector.”Quo Vadis’ latest project is a zero-carbon retrofit of a former factory complex on the city’s Lachine Canal, financed through a net-zero transition loan structured by National Bank of Canada. The loan is an example of the type of funding highlighted in the federal Green Buildings Strategy which Ottawa would like to see more of from financial institutions......read on          https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/08/07/analysis/all-sudden-were-cool-green-builders-draft-cleaner-more-profitable-blueprint   

 How Asia's 5,000-year-old rice terraces are inspiring modern flood control.   Parks, roofs and riverbanks mimicking the long-used agricultural form are helping Asian cities absorb, hold and purify rainwater.  BBC  Xiaoying You  August 2024  One of Kotchakorn Voraakhom's most memorable moments growing up in Bangkok in the 1980s was playing in floodwaters in a small boat built by her father in front of her home. "I was so happy that I didn't need to go to school because we didn't know how to get to it," recalls Voraakhom, a landscape architect based in the Thai capital. But nearly 30 years later, flooding turned from a fun childhood recollection to a devastating experience. In 2011, Voraakhom and her family – along with millions of others in Bangkok – found themselves "displaced and homeless" when floods ploughed through swathes of Thailand and poured into the metropolis. They were the country's worst floods in decades, a nationwide disaster which lasted more than three months and killed more than 800 people. Scientists later linked the flooding to increased rainfall triggered by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. The disaster deeply shook Voraakhom, who believed it was time to use her expertise to do something for her hometown. She founded her own landscape architecture firm, Landprocess, which over the past decade has designed parks, rooftop gardens and public spaces in and around the low-lying city to help its people increase their resilience to flooding.