REMI

Sustainability

Fossil fuel fired cogeneration systems to lose eligibility for accelerated capital cost allowance

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.
Mass retrofit model set for low-rise trial

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.
WELL Certification

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 real estate investment agendas

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 endorses competitive mechanisms to trim the price-point of energy efficiency spending

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

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 announced in fall economic statement

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

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 for benchmarking ESG 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.
2020 scorecard provides impetus for interprovincial energy efficiency rivalry

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.
BOMA Toronto's race2reduce aligns with climate capitalism

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.
change

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.
energy retrofits

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.
biomass power

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.
Input sought on quantifying life cycle GHGs

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
energy management paybacks

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 of energy use and GHG intensity holds little appeal for building owners concerned about uninformed scrutiny

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.