Research and reports
Our publications bring together evidence-based analysis, on-the-ground insights, and international best practices to build a shared vision for Canada’s building sector. We focus on practical solutions, transparent assumptions, and informed discourse—and we welcome your feedback on our analysis.
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National Building Decarbonization Forum develops new vision for the future of Canada’s built environment
OTTAWA (November 27, 2025)—More than 250 people assembled at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre this week for the second National Building Decarbonization Forum, the only event in Canada bringing together voices from across the building sector to prepare for the electrified future economy.
“The expertise needed to shape Canada’s building transition is not somewh…
Reports:
The benefits of decarbonization go beyond energy savings. Rental premiums and lower vacancy rates can act as “green premiums” for buildings that invest in eliminating their emissions. But without a consistent way of calculating the value of those green premiums, the real estate sector will struggle to include this effect in their business cases.
In Unlocking Value in Commercial Real Estate: The Economic Benefits of a Decarbonized Building, the Building Decarboniz…
How a heat pump is sized and programmed strongly affects its performance over its lifetime. Sizing it correctly can increase energy and emissions savings, reduce operating costs, and improve customer satisfaction. Current industry practices, often relying on outdated rules of thumb or overly conservative models, can result in oversized systems that compromise performance, increase costs, and erode public trust. Additionally, hybrid heat pumps may be programmed in ways that fa…
January 2025 marked the midway point of the first four years of the Deep Retrofit Accelerator Initiative (DRAI), a federal initiative that funds organizations and other projects supporting the development of deep retrofits in commercial, institutional, and mid- or high-rise multi-unit residential buildings. These Accelerators’ aim to boost the depth and pace of retrofits in their targeted market segments, helping address the sector’s shortfall in meeting emission reductio…
In the fall of 2023, The Building Decarbonization Alliance published Grid Implications of Electrifying Residential New Construction, a discussion paper written to address concerns about the near-term viability of all-electric new residential construction. Our objective was to capture the utility sector’s perspective on the interplay of electrifying new homes and the electricity grid, and as part of the release, we encouraged the BDA partner network to engage with our resear…
Updated: Sept. 19, 2024
What’s currently being done to encourage building electrification? This report from the Building Decarbonization Alliance provides an in-depth look at how governments across Canada and the globe are using policy to transition building heating away from fossil fuels.
This short report offers valuable insights into the range of strategies being employed at municipal, provincial, and federal levels, and includes comparative perspectives from the U…
The release of the Canada Green Buildings Strategy (CGBS) is a much-needed step along the pathway to net zero for Canada’s building sector. Buildings directly account for around 13% of our annual greenhouse gas emissions, and as our Pace of Progress report showed earlier this year, change is happening far too slowly to meet our 2030 and 2050 emissions targets. The status quo is clearly not working, and strategies like the CGBS are essential to getti…
Reports:
With 18% of Canada’s GHG emissions flowing from the building sector, and more than 77% of building emissions coming from combusting fossil fuels for space and water heating, a switch to non-emitting heating sources is needed to achieve the ambitious target of zero national greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. As noted in The Transition Accelerator’s Pathways to Net Zero report, the replacement of fossil-fuel fired furnaces and boilers with electric heating equipment (electri…
There is currently an important gap in publicly available analytical capacity to evaluate the impacts of building decarbonization measures in Canada. Publicly available models tend to be “top-down”, broad in scope, and lacking the granularity to address the range of technological measures, differences in building stock, and provincial or regional differences. Many “bottom-up” models, meanwhile, are proprietary, closed-source, and built for specific regions rather than…
Discussion Papers:
A recent article in Le Droit implied that grid constraints can limit or delay new residential projects—in this specific case, in Gatineau, Quebec. The article raised concerns in the energy information space and among policy makers about the viability of all-electric residential new construction in the near term.
In response, the Building Decarbonization Alliance reached out to our partner network to better understand the issue, conducting interviews with several ut…
Reports:
The need for cooling is becoming a matter of life and death in Canada. The 2021 heat dome in BC is the single deadliest weather event in Canadian history, and after the hottest July ever recorded globally and temperatures reaching over 40 degrees in BC in August, it’s no surprise that nearly 7,000 Canadians are adding a central air conditioning system to their home every week.
The difference between an air conditioner and a heat pump is minimal, but the benefits of switc…
The clock is ticking. To meet our climate goals, we must act now to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Canada’s buildings and the systems that support them. With this impetus, it’s more important than ever for stakeholders to have clear and reliable information on the most effective pathways to decarbonizing our buildings—and in this position paper, we make the case for electrification as the best way for the sector to achieve net zero.
Specifically, the pape…