Buildings, both commercial and residential, hold great potential for energy efficiency improvements. An R2000 home will save about 30% compared to a conventional house, while new green commercial buildings can be 30 – 50% more efficient than standard construction practices.
Almost all local governments can benefit from taking action on buildings efficiency, by:
The Community Energy Association delivers the Green Buildings BC (http://www.greenbuildingsbc.com/) which has extensive information, including sample RFPs and contracts and a How-To Guide, on performing comprehensive energy retrofits of buildings. For further information on the program, contact David Sims dsims@communityenergy.bc.ca 604-628-7076.
The Community Action on Energy Efficiency program, funded by the provincial Ministry of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources, has taken the lead on buildings energy efficiency for local governments. 29 participating local governments have signed on to the program, and are taking action in a variety of ways, including retrofitting their own buildings, developing policies for new civic buildings, holding workshops for developers, using efficiency checklists for permit applications, and even developing model bylaws requiring efficiency improvements in new buildings.
Establishing LEED standards for municipal buildings is becoming widespread. (http://www.cagbc.org/building_rating_systems/leed_rating_system.php). The GVRD has produced guidelines for municipalities seeking to construct and develop high performance and LEED buildings (http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/Buildsmart/pdfs/gvrdmunicipalleeddesignguide2006.pdf) The City of Kingston, Ontario, is estimated to save $100,000 annually as a result of building to LEED standards.
The Community Energy association can provide additional information on policies and actions that can be taken to promote energy efficient buildings throughout your community.