Sustainability
Cogeneration systems to lose tax enticement
The 2021 federal budget adds some clean energy equipment to immediately qualify for accelerated capital cost allowance, and names various combined heat and power applications to be delisted after 2023.
Community buildings targeted for retrofit funds
Two distinct, but complementary new federal programs promise funds for community buildings. Both are focused on meeting GHG reduction targets and are aligned with a pledge to invest $15 billion to address climate change and boost the green economy.
Pandemic propels healthy building momentum
COVID-19 has intensified pressure to support physical, social and emotional well-being within the built environment, but many investors, owners and managers were already embracing healthy building principles ahead of pandemic-triggered challenges.
Climate risk infuses investment agendas
Canadian commercial real estate assets are comparatively less exposed to the dire physical threats that extreme weather poses or has already served up in other global regions.
Ontario to stretch energy efficiency spending
A new slate of conservation and demand management (CDM) programs allocates $456 million for commercial, institutional and industrial consumers over the four-year period from 2021-24.
ASHRAE partners with CIBSE to encourage safe and sustainable environments
The agreement outlines how ASHRAE and CIBSE will work cooperatively to promote a more sustainable built environment through HVAC&R technology.
COVID-19 related investment unveiled
The commercial real estate, facilities management and construction/retrofit sectors appear poised to capture a share of the spending announced in the Canadian government’s fall economic statement.
Multifamily energy performance typically vexing
Multifamily and industrial properties are routinely lumped together as favoured investment assets, but asset managers face divergent degrees of difficulty when they seek to mine value from energy performance.
GRESB adjusts 2020 path to the stars
More than 50 per cent of participating Canadian portfolios were grouped in the top two brackets of results, with 11 earning 5-star status and six attaining a 4-star rating.
Scorecard stokes energy efficiency rivalry
Efficiency Canada’s second annual provincial scorecard takes a detailed look at commitment, outcomes and potential related to 42 energy efficiency indicators, and charts progress, or backsliding, against last year’s results.
Real estate makes space for climate capitalism
The 2020 race2reduce field boasts more than 1,730 buildings encompassing 248 million square feet of space in common areas and tenant premises — an increase from 650 buildings covering 95 million square feet in 2019.
Time to pick up the pace on building retrofits
PACE financing is an innovative green loan instrument that can help owners with building retrofits to reduce carbon pollution.
Feds to invest $2 billion in energy retrofits
A promised $2 billion investment in large-scale building retrofits will be central to the Canadian government’s job creation ambitions. Energy efficiency champions have plenty of ideas of how and where the funds could be best leveraged.
WTO okay with provinces buying biomass power
The World Trade Organization agreed with Canada that the U.S. conflated wholesale and retail electricity rates to arrive at its supposition that B.C. and Quebec hydro utilities overpaid for biomass power.
Ontario consults on next conservation framework
Residential consumption is identified as a primary concern and opportunity for the 2021-24 period, along with a continued emphasis on reducing system-wide peak demand
Ontario stalls energy management paybacks
A temporary adjustment to Ontario’s electricity pricing scheme eliminates cost-saving opportunities that many operators of large commercial buildings were anticipating this summer.
Public disclosure could foil energy reporting
The City of Winnipeg has invited commercial building owners and institutional facility managers to affix their Energy Star Portfolio Manager results on a publicly accessible map.