New CAGBC report highlights critical needs and barriers for scaling up deep building retrofits
Despite significant progress in recent years, industry still has a long way to go to accelerate investments that improve the performance of existing buildings. The Canada Green Building Council (CAGBC) estimates that hundreds of millions of square meters of existing Canadian building space requires retrofitting to meet climate and energy efficiency targets. However, challenges and uncertainties about the best path forward are causing delays in adopting the types of asset transition plans needed to accelerate deep retrofits.
According to CAGBC’s new market report, Rapidly Scaling Canada’s Deep Retrofit Market: Stakeholder Insights into Barriers and Opportunities, among industry participants surveyed, only a slight majority (54%) were planning to undertake new transition projects this year.
“We know the pressure to decarbonize and improve energy efficiencies is being felt across the industry at all levels. At the same time there are still many barriers for delivering deep retrofits efficiently at scale,” said Laurna Strikwerda, Director, Project Development and Research at CAGBC. “As a critical first step to accelerating the planning, financing and implementation of deep retrofits, we wanted to first better understand what’s currently getting in the way, and how we can better support the industry scale up their efforts.”
The report features perspectives from a broad range of Canadian building professionals gathered during a series of in-person and online workshops in 2024 targeting stakeholders with commercial, multi-unit residential, warehouse and retail buildings. Insights were gathered from over 350 participants.
The report is now available on Retrofits Now (retrofitsnow.ca), a new industry-focused resource being developed by CAGBC to provide the latest information and tools to support real estate transition planning. Retrofits Now is supported by Purpose Building as part of their Purpose Accelerator: Canada’s Private Sector Retrofit Accelerator, funded by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan).
To download the full report visit retrofitsnow.ca.
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