The Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN) Board of Directors has adopted an innovative green building policy that is among the first of its kind in the Province. The distinguishing feature of the ‘Green Building Policy for Regional District Facilities' is the requirement that all new construction undertaken by the RDN follow an integrated design process (IDP). This represents a departure from the conventional approach of local governments, typically requiring new construction to achieve a pre-determined green building standard.
The advantage of adopting a process-based green building policy lies in its inherent flexibility and adaptability to diverse circumstances. This enables the RDN, which builds and maintains an extremely wide range of facilities, to include all new construction in its green building policy. This flexibility also allows the RDN to prioritize energy efficiency and life-cycle costing, two key elements of the policy:
1. Based on the urgent need to mitigate climate change, all new construction will optimize energy efficiency and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Starting in 2010, efficiency measures will achieve a 50% reduction in tonnes of CO2 equivalent relative to the Model National Energy Code. This will increase incrementally until 2030, at which point the RDN is committed to building carbon neutral facilities.
2. The RDN will use the life-cycle costing approach to reveal the long-term savings associated with up-front investments in efficiency.
With this policy the RDN will increase the number of green buildings in the region, and lead the transition toward the development of more high-performance buildings.
