The Canada Green Building Council (CAGBC) is holding workshops in four major Canadian cities to guide real estate industry professionals through the steps of decarbonizing and improving the climate resiliency of buildings, called transition planning.

To be held in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal from late February to late March, the aim of the Transition Planning Now workshops is to train and educate building owners, architects, engineers and sustainability consultants in the tools and strategies that help make informed decisions about the energy transition and climate-related risks.

Those include scenario-based training in anticipation of potential obstacles and understanding the effects of various factors on project strategy and long-term asset value.

“Canada’s commercial real estate industry is increasingly facing transition and physical risks associated with climate change,” Thomas Mueller, president and CEO of the Ottawa-based CAGBC, said in a release announcing the workshops.

“Professionals who can effectively support transition planning will be best positioned to support owners in managing these emerging risks.”

Building pros facing pressure to learn about transition planning

Buildings are the source of approximately 13 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, the federal government said, meaning the sector has a major role to play in meeting the country’s climate goals.

The buildings sector is deeply impacted by related regulations such as carbon and energy targets, and the physical and transition risks of climate change. Such pressures demand building owners to future-proof their assets, CAGBC said.

A transition plan guides building owners through the investments that lower carbon emissions, reduce climate-related risks, and keep the assets within regulations and standards, while improving asset value and operational performance.

But there are hurdles around understanding the return on investment, financing, regulations and new technologies, CAGBC said. In response, the council is partnering with Burnaby, B.C.-based RDH Building Science Inc. on the workshops to educate professionals about transition plans to overcome such gaps.

“We designed these resources and the accompanying workshops to focus on aligning capital planning with sustainability and climate-related pressures, ensuring opportunities to enhance asset value are not missed,” Mark Hutchinson, CAGBC’s senior vice-president of green building programs and innovation, said in the announcement.

The workshops will include:

• Scenario-based training to prepare participants for possible challenges and responding to such problems with stakeholders and project teams.
• Exploring strategies for integrating climate adaptation and resilience measures into transition plans that are in line with capital renewal cycles, funding opportunities and certification pathways.
• Examining the impacts of market drivers, risk factors and regulations on project strategy and long-term asset value.

Workshop participants will be guided through the use of tools such as the Carbon Transition Planning Guide: Accelerating High-Performance Buildings and Climate-Related Risk Playbooks.

Dates, locations of the workshops

The first workshop is planned for Feb. 25 at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. The second is scheduled for March 3 at the BMO Centre in Calgary. Three weeks later, the third workshop will be hosted at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto on March 24. The final workshop is to be held March 26 at the Hotel Courtyard Marriott Montreal Centre-Ville.

CAGBC plans to host a webinar on Feb. 18 for those interested in learning more about the workshops and transition planning.