Prefab interest is intense
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Prefab Symposium, On the Rise, held September 21-23. The Symposium gave our community a welcome forum to dialogue on hot topic in our industry, and a better understanding of how Passive House prefab can help us scale up high performance buildings across Canada. I believe prefabrication of Passive House buildings will make Passive House buildings far more accessible to everyone. Illustrating just how important the prefab topic is to our community, this was PHC largest-ever Symposium, with 46 sessions, 71 speakers, and 300 participants.
I want to extend my thanks once again to our speakers, PHC staff, symposium committee – Logan Ashley, Blair Davies, Edgar Dearden, Chris Hill, Jerome Smalley, Craig Toohey, and Guido Wimmers – for sharing your time, expertise and energy with us, and for helping us engage the community on a topic of great importance. Thank you also to our sponsors for supporting this community event. I hope to see you all again at our Annual Conference scheduled for May 8-10, 2023 in Hamilton, Ontario. Mark your calendar.
Passive House Canada joins an exclusive list
I am delighted to announce that Passive House Canada has earned an official designation as an International Centre of Excellence by the United Nation Economic Commission of Europe (UNECE) for promoting high-performance building initiatives.
This distinction recognizes Passive House Canada’s excellence in implementation-oriented education, as well as our work to assist building developers, contractors, architects, engineers and government officials across Canada and Internationally in the implementation of high performance buildings. On behalf of Passive House Canada, I extend my gratitude to the UNECE for this designation – and on a personal note, I want to thank the Passive House Canada team and Board for their continued hard work to deliver on our promises. You can read more about this exciting distinction here.
Passive House Canada in Montreal
PHC will be participating in Fenestration Canada’s Windoor industry event in Montreal on November 9-10, 2022. If you are attending Windoor, or happen to be in the Montreal area, stop by our booth (#714), or check out our presentation session on Passive House windows!
Federal Government Submissions
We continue to knock on the federal government’s doors to advocate for legislation and regulatory change that furthers the development of the passive house marketplace in Canada. While this is good for our members, we do it because it is good for the environment and key to addressing the ravages of climate change.
Canada Green Building Strategy
In late August, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) released their proposed Green Building Strategy outlining the steps Canada’s building sector must take to reach its climate goals, and requested public and industry feedback. I was pleased to see that the government’s draft Strategy takes an ambitious approach that aligns, at a high level, with what PHC has called on the government to implement.
Some areas of the Strategy to note include requiring new buildings be constructed to the highest level of energy efficiency possible, targeting at least 70% energy savings for retrofits, recognizing that the codes need to be updated, and looking at opportunities to increase investments in green buildings.
PHC has submitted feedback on the proposed strategy that aims to strength and operationalize the government’s proposed strategy. I invite you to read our recommendations, “Operationalizing Ambitious Plans for the Building Sector,” in full on our website, but some of our central requests are as follows:
- Fund high performance building training now, to ready the building sector for an imminent market shift
- Modernize the national codes process to accelerate net zero, climate resilient building construction
- Support the Canadian producers of high-performance building components and prefabrication
PHC will be closely monitoring the development of this document, and we eagerly await the official release of the Strategy in spring of 2023. In the meantime, we encourage all our members to take a look at our submission and provide us with any feedback. We also encourage our members to give their own feedback regarding this strategy here.
Federal Government Budget Submission
PHC submitted our pre-budget submission to the federal Standing Committee on Finance. Our submission makes recommendations for the 2023 budget. Review our submission here.
Federal Government Tech Submission
PHC submitted a briefing to the Federal Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to inform them of the need for Canadian produced high-performance building components and prefabrication. Read our briefing here.
Thank you for your continued support of Passive House Canada.
Thank you,
