The growing need for energy-efficient buildings

When we think about carbon pollution, we tend to picture the most sinister culprits: belching factories, coal-fired plants, fuel-guzzling SUVs. We rarely think of our own homes. Homes symbolize safety and domesticity. They don’t have gas tanks, smokestacks or flaming pits of coal.

Yet, buildings — those we shop and work in but also those we live in — produce 40 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In Canada, the buildings — how we construct them and how we operate them — are the third-largest carbon polluter, and emissions are rising. The hewing of wood, the mixing of concrete, the milling of steel — these are energy-intensive operations. So, too, is the business of trucking materials to a construction site and then assembling them, often with the aid of heavy machinery. Even when a building is finished, it still requires immense energy to heat and run.

But addressing the problem is less daunting than it may seem. With the right mix of boldness and ingenuity, we could make our buildings not only greener but more affordable and resilient. In many ways, the future transformation of our homes and workplaces could mirror the transformation we’re seeing in the automotive sector.

On the roads today, traditional gas cars travel alongside hybrid, plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles — options that meet individual car owners where they're at when it comes to balancing cost, environmental impact and concerns like "range anxiety.” There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Embracing a mix of emerging technologies can enable a similarly flexible approach. In Canada, there’s no shortage of these homegrown innovations, the kind that can drive down the construction and operational emissions — and cost — of buildings. Some companies, like CarbiCrete, which produces carbon-negative concrete, or ZS2 Technologies, which offers sustainable alternatives to drywall, are specializing in green building materials.

Others, like BrainBox AI, which uses artificial intelligence to make heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) systems as efficient as possible, and Miru Smart Technologies, a developer of intelligent windows, are reducing the amount of energy that individual buildings consume. Others are addressing the construction process: Promise Robotics uses AI-driven robots to build modular prefabricated homes, which can be assembled in warehouses with minimal energy costs and waste.

None of these innovations on their own is a silver bullet. That includes heat pumps, which are growing in popularity as a way to efficiently use electricity instead of fossil fuels to heat buildings. In a world where vehicles and industrial processes are also going electric — and are competing with heat pumps for the same clean sources of power — there’s a real risk that demand for electricity will grow faster than supply. We need to manage the transition carefully to maintain grid stability.

But innovation allows us to get smarter and more creative. For example, digital technologies exist today, from companies like Toronto-based BKR Energy, to enable hybrid heat pump systems for Canadians who aren’t yet convinced they should retire their gas furnace or oil-fired boiler.

Remember the vehicle analogy? Like plug-in hybrid cars, hybrid heating systems can run on electricity most of the time but rapidly switch to furnace mode on extremely cold nights, or when electricity prices are much higher than using a fuel like natural gas. It’s an option for homeowners not ready to go all-electric, yet it still allows them to significantly reduce emissions without sacrificing comfort, reliability and affordability. An added bonus is that it also takes pressure off the grid.

A similarly flexible approach is needed when thinking about decarbonizing Canada’s building stock and the role of new innovation, and this is where industry and government have essential roles to play.

The buildings and construction industry — architects, designers, developers, builders and manufacturers — can accelerate the transition to net-zero buildings by being more collaborative. No individual organization can solve this problem on its own, which is why groups like MaRS Discovery District are working to build a “coalition of the willing.”

Rapidly scaling the adoption of low-carbon building technologies will only come from a shared understanding of what’s out there, what has been tried and what works. Better co-operation also spreads the risk of trying out new approaches.

Governments, meanwhile, must send a clear signal to those who own, build and operate buildings by creating policies and incentives that establish firm targets and desired outcomes, but which avoid being overly prescriptive on how to get there. There’s no time to waste.

We know, for example, that Canada needs 5.8 million new homes by 2030. According to the Task Force for Housing and Climate, strong government leadership and clear policies related to the construction and operation of those homes, including the embodied carbon of building materials, could slash their emissions by more than 80 per cent. Just as important, it would reduce energy costs for homeowners.

Our built environment may be one of the largest sources of global emissions, but it doesn’t have to be. With foresight, industry-wide co-operation and the right mix of government support and guidelines, we can leverage homegrown innovations and radically reduce the impact our buildings have on our climate.

David McFadden is chair of Toronto Hydro. Tyler Hamilton is the senior director of climate at MaRS.