Opinion: Why Commercial Buildings Need to be Ready for BC’s Energy Future

By Stuart Hood, Robin Hawker and Kevin Welsh

Commercial building owners across Canada face growing pressure to reduce the carbon emissions of their assets. Regulations are stacking up, shareholders are keeping a keen eye on annual reporting and stakeholders want to see changes that move the needle on climate action.

While the message is clear that we must decarbonize our buildings, we should do so in a way that reduces building energy use, as buildings, data centres, electric vehicles and more place increasing demands on our electricity grid.

May 1 marked the first birthday of the British Columbia Zero Carbon Step Code, which amplifies the electrification goals set under the BC Energy Step Code and the federal government’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan.

Elsewhere, the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board released its draft standards for mandatory sustainability reporting for companies in Canada in March this year. These align with the standards published in 2023 by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), where companies affected will have to disclose their Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse-gas emissions. That means decarbonization will not be a nice-to-have option, but a must-have for commercial building owners.

Read the article in full on Business in Vancouver.

Stuart Hood is Vice President, Institutional; Kevin Welsh is an Associate Principal, Sustainability, and Robin Hawker is an Associate Principal, Climate Resilience.

Photo: PPA/Shutterstock