Province of British Columbia Invests to Help Grow Building Benchmark BC

This past month the Province of British Columbia awarded the Open Green Building Society—OPEN Technologies’ affiliate non-profit—$425,000 to grow Building Benchmark BC across the province and extend the initiative for a third year. Building Benchmark BC is one of 21 projects that received funding from the CleanBC Building Innovation Fund, which supports innovative low-carbon, energy-efficient building practices and technologies. (Read more)

Why Should You Care About Benchmarking, Anyways?

The Building Owners and Managers Association of British Columbia published a guest blog by OPEN Technologies CEO Donovan Woollard, on “Why you should care about climate and energy benchmarking.” The post urges the commercial real estate sector to jump in on building performance reporting now, to help ensure that the transition to energy efficient, lower carbon buildings will be as smooth as possible for all involved. (Read more)

OPEN Helps Defend the City of Vancouver’s Climate Emergency Action Plan

In early June, OPEN Technologies CEO Donovan Woollard joined dozens of others in addressing the City of Vancouver’s mayor and council and urging them to continue implementing the city’s zero-emissions building requirements as scheduled. After hearing from dozens of speakers and receiving hundreds of letters, the policy makers opted to stay the course on climate action, and not press pause for a year as proposed. Several councillors expressed gratitude for the outpouring of community support for strong and immediate climate action. (Read our comments here.)

Join Our Growing Team!

We’re hiring a Product Manager for our Building Energy Benchmark software platform (GRID) and other early development products. This role will be focused on early product identification and development, with an emphasis on user research and product design.

City of Kamloops, Simon Fraser University, Others Join Building Benchmark BC

We are delighted to welcome the City of Abbotsford, the City of Kamloops, and the District of North Vancouver to the Building Benchmark BC family—bringing the total number of participating jurisdictions to 15.

Meanwhile, the property owners and managers column, Vancouver City Savings Credit Union (Vancity), Simon Fraser University, and Hollyburn Properties have joined the initiative and will be benchmarking and reporting their buildings’ performance this year.

New and Notable Events, Articles, and Reports

A few news stories, reports, opportunities, and other resources that recently caught our eye:

• BC Housing launched Vienna House, “a proposed East Vancouver housing community that aims to advance innovative solutions to affordability, climate change, and social equity.” (The video is worth a look.)
• In late May, Metro Vancouver released its draft Climate 2050 Buildings Road Map. It establishes a goal that, by 2030, all buildings must reduce their climate pollution 35 per cent  below 2010 levels. 
• The City of Vancouver is hosting a webinar in early July (the city is offering three dates) to explain the recent energy and climate changes to the Vancouver Building By-law. The session is targeting those who work with Part 3 large new buildings.
• On June 9, the State of Colorado passed a building performance standard, becoming the second U.S. state to do so after Washington. The two join the cities of New York City, St. Louis, and Washington DC in requiring that buildings meet minimum energy and emissions performance levels.
• Building Operating Management, a U.S. trade media outlet, published a piece aimed at building managers: “How Building Performance Standards are Addressing Climate Change.”
• In other stateside news, the Biden Administration is funding a swath of high-performance building initiatives—with the goal of upgrading the nation's buildings to be affordable, resilient, accessible, energy efficient, and all-electric.