The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) has opened public registration for Canada’s first Zero Carbon Building (ZCB) Program.
The program provides third-party verification of compliance for zero carbon design and performance. The standard is designed to be broadly applicable across many types of new and existing buildings.
It was created to align with recent and upcoming federal and provincial policies that target net zero performance. CaGBC has been working with 16 Zero Carbon Pilot Projects across the country. This group represents the broad applicability of the standard, with both new and existing projects ranging in size from 20,000 sf to 1.3 million sf located in many parts the country.
Many of the pilot projects are completing the design stage and have found the ZCB Standard key to shaping their design strategies, CaGBC said in a press release. “Although we’ve been proponents and early adopters of high performance and sustainable building features, we recognize that incremental improvement is not moving the dial far enough and that we need a fundamental and transformative shift in how we design, specify, and build-out our projects,” said Kirk Robinson of Delta Land Development, one of the companies working on a pilot project.
Those interested in registering for the CaGBC ZCB Program or in learning more about the standard and its requirements can visit cagbc.org/zerocarbon.
Related Stories
| Jul 5, 2012
Veterans Administration threatens to pull contract on new Orlando medical center
The Veterans Administration asked contractor Brasfield & Gorrie to get more workers on the job and figure out a way to get the job done faster, or the VA would pull the contract on the much-delayed Orlando VA Medical Center.
| Jul 5, 2012
Cost to contractors for new federal hiring quotas much higher than estimated, AGC says
Administration officials significantly underestimated the cost to construction employers of proposed new hiring quotas for federal contractors, according to analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America.
| Jul 5, 2012
Roof membrane could have prevented roof parking deck collapse, specialist says
The collapse of a section of a roof parking deck at the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake in Ontario, Canada could have been prevented if the structure had a membrane, according to a concrete expert and specialist in structure analysis at McMaster University.
| Jul 5, 2012
New Joplin, Mo. hospital being built to withstand tornado that destroyed predecessor
After the May 22, 2011, EF-5 tornado destroyed St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Mo., architects and engineers analyzed how the nine-story structure reacted to the storm.
| Jul 5, 2012
Continued tax breaks necessary for widespread adoption of net zero buildings
Tax breaks passed by the U.S. government to encourage construction of green buildings are set to expire in 2012 and 2013.
| Jun 28, 2012
Six buildings now recognized under Living Building Challenge
The Living Building Challenge (LBC), a green ratings system for design and construction that judges a building based on its actual performance, not just its projected performance at the design stage, has recognized six buildings to date.
| Jun 28, 2012
Label for building products will have ‘global warming number’
The director of the 2030 Challenge for Products says that the organization is aiming to place a label on building products that will list what’s in it, and how much embodied carbon each product represents.
| Jun 28, 2012
Top building material executive urges building resilience in sustainability standards
A meeting of 1,000 business executives at the recent Rio+20 environmental conference featured a passionate plea to include building resilience in efforts to boost sustainability.
| Jun 28, 2012
Following spate of skyscraper balcony glass panel breakages, Ontario adopts code change
Ontario's housing minister announced new building code rules to help prevent glass panels from breaking off high-rise balconies during hot weather.