Reducing Emissions from Buildings by Supporting Building and Real Estate Professionals

Supporting Building and Real Estate Professionals

In partnership with our project partners, the Biosphere Institute is worked collaboratively with the development community to identify local barriers to adopting higher tiers of the National Building Code of Canada 2020. As part of this project, we are developing targeted educational opportunities to increase awareness of the benefits of high-performance buildings. This project has been funded by Natural Resources Canada via the Town of Banff as well as the Banff Canmore Foundation.

Concurrently, we also engaged real estate professionals to leverage their influence and expertise to help drive demand for high-performance buildings. Our aim here is to ensure new home buyers are able to access quality information about the economic incentives, pay-back periods, and other benefits to owning a high-performance home. This portion of the project has been funded by the Alberta Real Estate Foundation.

In engaging these industry stakeholders, we are using our learnings to build, partner, and execute a customized education program for Bow Valley and Albertan professionals via the Building for Sustainability platform, which will improve energy efficiency and dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of new and existing homes as sustainable building technologies are increasingly implemented.

We have partnered with the Emissions-Neutral Buildings Information Exchange (ENBIX) to deliver these educational programs. We are excited to have a preliminary list of educational workshops that will be delivered throughout 2025 that address the knowledge gaps identified through our industry engagement. See below for a list of upcoming workshops and be sure to follow us on social media and for updates on these programs!

Upcoming 2025 workshops in partnership with ENBIX. Stay tuned for more information!

1. Solar Ready

   • Passive heating & cooling, PV, building orientation, solar heat gain.

2. Geo-Exchange

   • Integration for deep retrofits and new construction.

   • Zoning, project management steps, sizing strategies, appropriate design, and drilling considerations.

3. Introduction to Building Envelope

   • Air tightness, thermal bridging, insulation, under slab insulation, and blower door testing.

4. Life Cycle Assessment

   • How to develop a net-zero for zero proforma; project integration of costs and benefits of energy efficiency, renewable energy systems, and sustainable materials.

5. Building the Business Case

   • How to develop a net-zero for zero proforma; project integration of costs and benefits of energy efficiency, renewable energy systems, and sustainable materials.

   • How to run the financials for total cost of ownership.

   • How to market a net-zero project.

We shared our findings at the Building for Sustainability Symposium in October 2024 – where we also launched the first of our courses, workshops, and seminars to help raise awareness, build capacity, and develop skills with industry professionals.

thank you to our Project Partners