B.C. introduces ‘Better Buildings’ net zero incentive program

B.C. introduces ‘Better Buildings’ net zero incentive program

The Province of BC and Integral Group have launched a new incentive program and juried competition called Better Buildings BC: The Net Zero Energy Ready Challenge. Better Buildings BC is a new provincial incentive program and juried competition designed to support and celebrate the design and construction of multi-family residential, commercial, and institutional buildings that target either the top step of the BC Energy Step Code or the Passive House standard.

Canadian Architect

Zero-energy homes approach cost parity for U.S. developers

Rocky Mountain Institute published a report showing that the cost increase to build a zero-energy or zero-energy ready home is much less than many realize. In the U.S., developers can construct these homes at cost parity in certain locations. The report, called Economics of Zero-Energy Homes: Single Family Insights, shows that costs for new ZE and ZER building are expected to continue declining.

Energy Manager Today

CDPQ, Generation launch sustainable equity partnership

La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Generation Investment Management LLP announced a unique partnership for sustainable investing over the long term. The partnership, which will combine the strengths of the two organizations, plans to invest an initial US$3 billion in investments with an 8-15 year duration. The CDPQ-Generation Partnership will target businesses with outstanding management teams and solid long-term growth prospects.

Canada Newswire – Globe and Mail (subscription required)

UN report calls for urgent action to avert catastrophic climate change

The world is failing in its effort to avert catastrophic climate change, a United Nations panel has warned. The result will be more deaths, climate refugees due to extreme weather, rising seas, a greater rate of species extinction and reduced economic growth. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said there is still has a chance of limiting the average increase in temperatures to 1.5-celsius degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Globe and Mail – Global Newswire – Vancouver Province – Ottawa Citizen

To avoid catastrophic climate change, we need carbon pricing

On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report found that humanity has about a decade to hold global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees C. Hours later, William Nordhaus became a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for economics. His work was some of the first to describe how our climate and economy interact and demonstrated that a universal price on carbon is the most efficient way to reduce the damages caused by climate change.

Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail – Globe and Mail

Canadian clean-tech industry gets boost

A trio of Canadian clean-tech venture funds are attempting to raise $700-million amid calls for more capital to boost the underfunded sector focused on the environment and climate change. Toronto-based ArcTern Ventures, Vancouver’s Chrysalix Venture Capital and Montreal’s Cycle Capital are pushing to do something that has proved relatively difficult in Canada: persuade investors to buy into what are called clean technology companies.

Globe and Mail (Subscription required)

Canada’s low-carbon innovators get boost from TD

TD Bank Group (TD) announced, as part of The Ready Commitment, the bank’s new corporate citizenship platform, a $1 million contribution towards the development of the TD Sustainable Future Lab in Waterloo, the region’s first cleantech accelerator designed to offer support and mentorship to startups that are working to develop sustainable solutions for a low-carbon economy.

Canada Newswire

	The warming Arctic speeds up climate change
	Scientists have made it as clear as possible that climate change is real and greenhouse gas emissions are to blame. What is perhaps less well known is the natural role the Arctic plays in accelerating climate change and its often disastrous consequences.
	CBC, October 11, 2018

 

Aurora Sky’s cannabis facility to harness power of the sun

From the “mother room” where baby buds begin, to the glass ceiling that melts snow and reuses the water, the Aurora Sky cannabis facility in Leduc is harnessing efficiency and innovation to build a very green future. Construction crews are still working out final details on the 800,000-square-foot facility near the Edmonton International Airport, but it has been producing medical cannabis since receiving its licence in January.

CBC

Real estate in the time of climate change

The effects of climate change may literally put real estate underwater, but where many see catastrophe, some investors see opportunity. Investors are making plays on land investment, flood protection development and other sectors as the long-range outlooks for communities nationwide begin to shift, according to Bloomberg. Key Point Capital invested in hotel real estate investment trusts around Houston in the runup to Hurricane Harvey in August 2017.

The Real Deal – Forbes

GFL, Waste Industries merger creates leading environmental company

GFL Environmental Inc. and Waste Industries have entered into a definitive merger agreement in a transaction that values Waste Industries at a total enterprise value of $3.65 billion Cdn. The transaction, which is expected to close in Q4 2018, is subject to customary regulatory approvals. The combined company will operate 98 collection operations, 59 transfer stations, 29 material recovery facilities, 10 organics facilities and 47 landfills, and will have more than 8,850 employees.

Canada Newswire – Globe and Mail – SooToday

Nestlé, Tim Hortons Canada’s top plastic polluters

Much of the plastic trash cleaned up from Canadian shorelines by volunteers in September could be traced back to five companies: Nestlé, Tim Hortons, PepsiCo, the Coca-Cola Company and McDonald’s, an audit led by Greenpeace Canada has found. Greenpeace and other advocacy groups working on the international Break Free from Plastic campaign looked for branding on 10,000 litres of trash collected in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax.

CBC

	Passive House Canada conference 2018
	Passive House Canada is collaborating with UN Economic Commission for Europe Committee on Forests, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and Canadian Wood Council, to hold concurrent conferences in Vancouver, November 7 to 8, 2018.
	Passive House Canada Conference

 

N.S. gives Lafarge cement plant approval to burn tires as fuel

A Nova Scotia cement plant has received approval from the province to burn tires as fuel in its kiln. The Environment Department issued the industrial approval today to the Lafarge plant in Brookfield, N.S., allowing it to conduct a one-year pilot project to incinerate tires. The company will have to do air quality groundwater and surface water monitoring in the area.

Ottawa Citizen

Can we implement science-based targets for oceans and cities?

Over the past few years, the idea of science-based targets — simply put, goals that commit companies to address their fair share of climate pollution and align with the goals of the Paris Agreement — gradually has taken off. This year, in particular, has seen “a surge” of corporate commitments, according to the Science-Based Targets Initiative, a coalition of NGOs that independently assesses and approves companies’ targets.

GreenBiz

Renewable energy pledges should cover internet infrastructure

The Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) wrapped up in San Francisco just a few short weeks ago, and many of us have been inspired by the calls for action and corporate commitments that featured so prominently there. More companies are committing to climate action through campaigns such as We Are Still In, RE100, the Science Based Targets Initiative and the Step Up Declaration.

GreenBiz

This former Parisian wasteland is now an ‘eco-neighbourhood’

Arrayed between elegant stone buildings and run-down railway tracks in the northwest of Paris lie bustling playgrounds, plant-filled ponds and stretches of lush grass. The Clichy-Batignolles area, a former industrial wasteland, has morphed into the French capital’s first “eco-neighbourhood”, billed as a model of sustainable development for the rest of the city.

We Forum

Market Trends and Research

B.C. targets mean major changes for citizens

Hundreds of thousands of British Columbians will need to switch to electric heat, install energy-saving devices like heat pumps and purchase electric vehicles if the NDP government has any hope of meeting its climate targets after LNG Canada approved its $40-billion terminal and pipeline in Kitimat for liquified natural gas.

Vancouver Province

Thermal insulation market expected to reach US$70B by 2024

A new Zion Market Research report indicates global thermal insulation market was valued at around US$50 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach approximately US$70 billion in 2024, growing at a CAGR of slightly above five per cent between 2018 and 2024. The thermal insulation is used to maintain a hygienic indoor climate at low ambient temperature.

Globe Newswire

Renewable Energy

Solar Alliance begins work on 2.4-MW solar project in U.S.

Solar Alliance Energy Inc., based in California, has commenced construction on the 2.4-MW ground mount commercial solar project. The project, being constructed for a Fortune Global 500 company, is the largest sold to date by Solar Alliance and is equivalent to building 400 residential solar systems.

Globe Newswire

Clean energy could see explosive growth by 2023: Report

The release of a damning report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicting unprecedented climate disaster within the next decade was no doubt a sobering reminder of the fragile state of our planet. But new forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA) for the future of global renewable energy capacity offers a far more hopeful picture.

Gizmodo – OilPrice.com

Green building ratings

LEED Green Associate training adds to student credentials

Saskatchewan Polytechnic Bachelor of Construction Management students will now graduate with the knowledge needed to make buildings greener. Partnering with the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC), the Bachelor of Construction Management degree program will now include Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Associate training.

Canada Green Building Council

Government Programs and Incentives

Politicians are wrong to oppose climate change plans

Earth is rapidly headed for a place of no return, where climate change will leave the planet a more hostile place for people, plants and animals. The impacts and costs are greater and coming faster than expected, according to a comprehensive new assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that says we have about a dozen years to come to grips with the issue.

Toronto Star

Quebec needs ‘major change’ to meet emissions targets

Quebec environmentalists are urging the new provincial government to come up with a clear plan to curb greenhouse gases in the wake of a gloomy international report on climate change. François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec has committed to meeting the emissions targets outlined in the Paris agreement but has not said how that would be accomplished.

CBC – Montreal Gazette

Nova Scotia creating extreme heat action plan

Nova Scotia public health officials are starting to create an extreme heat action plan. Environment Canada has issued heat alerts in various provinces over the past few years, and started the practice in Nova Scotia this past summer. Now, the province has received $150,000 from the federal government to hire a co-ordinator to get municipalities and emergency management planners working together.

CBC

Municipal Policy and Urban Issues

Winning designs announced for Waterfront parks design competition

Waterfront Toronto, in partnership with the City of Toronto’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division, announced the winning design submissions for the York Street Park and Rees Street Park design competition. Love Park by Claude Cormier et Associés has been selected for York Street Park, and Rees Ridge by wHY Architecture and Brook Mcllroy has been selected for Rees Street Park.

Canada Newswire – Property Biz Canada