Aging Buildings and the Climate Emergency: Opportunity Knocks!
A Canadian study shows that upgrading North America’s aging buildings offer a historic opportunity for climate action and renewal.
Combining Electrification and Deep Retrofits to Decarbonize Canada’s Buildings
As organizations and utilities plan for the future of electrification, efficiency is a critical way to minimize peak demand and make the transition to zero-carbon buildings viable.
How Industrializing Retrofits Can Decarbonize Canada’s Buildings
Old, leaky buildings are a climate problem. For organizations with large building portfolios, this challenge is paramount to reducing emissions. And it’s a critical one for solving the climate crisis.
Why Doesn’t Canada Have a National Retrofit Program Already?
In 1906, American philosopher William James coined the phrase “the moral equivalent of war” in referring to the problem of sustaining political unity and resolve in the absence of war. U.S. President Jimmy Carter used the phrase in his famous energy crisis speech of 1977 to describe what it was going to take to respond […]
We Need to Accelerate Canada’s Green Recovery
What would happen if Canada’s major cities prioritized a green recovery in response to COVID-19? Their investments could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds by 2030, create over 2.9 million jobs, and reduce air pollution by 32%, preventing 3,950 premature deaths over the next decade.
Vancouver’s Big Moves for Climate Action
Like many other large cities in Canada, Vancouver declared a climate emergency in 2019. Its Climate Emergency Response soon followed, with six targets—or “Big Moves”—to tackle emissions related to transportation and transit, heating and hot water systems, buildings and new construction, and carbon sequestration for local ecosystem restoration. The overall goal? To cut carbon pollution […]
Ottawa’s Ambitious Energy Evolution
In 2019, Ottawa City Council joined cities around the world in declaring a climate emergency and committed to reducing emissions to net zero by 2050. Today, City Council unanimously passed Energy Evolution—its plan for achieving that goal.
Enabling Low-Carbon Cities: The Role of Energy + Emissions Modelling
As an affiliate event to the Global Climate Action Summit held in September 2018 in San Francisco, Sustainability Solutions Group hosted a one-day symposium on modelling energy use and greenhouse gas emissions mitigation in cities.
Join SSG at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco
This year’s Global Climate Action Summit is taking stock and charting the next steps for global climate action by bringing together governments, students, citizens, entrepreneurs and change makers together in San Francisco. The summit will be held from September 12-14, 2018. The event – which includes a main plenary and hundreds of affiliated side performances, […]
Day 2: Insights from the IPCC Cities and Climate Change Science Conference
The City of Oslo has embedded emissions reductions deeply into the mechanics of municipal operations. The Vice-Mayor of Oslo discussed her City’s carbon budget, which parallels the City’s financial budget. Departments are assigned responsibilities and are required to implement those responsibilities in order to achieve their targets of cutting emissions in half over 1990 levels […]
