Montreal is attacking the energy consumption of large buildings

The city of Montreal announced the implementation of a rating system for greenhouse gas emissions for its institutional and commercial buildings to be able to impose energy performance threshold on their owners. To achieve this goal, the city intends to put in place a municipal regulation inviting building owners to transmit their energy consumption. Based on the data collected, the city will establish a rating system to assign a rating to each building based on its energy efficiency. Through this approach, the city believes they will be able to measure the progress and help set clear targets for energy performance thresholds for its owners to improve their performance rating. The city will then support them in achieving their goals by offering concrete improvement proposals, such as changing the ventilation system, modernizing the lighting system or turning to more optimal insulation, for example. This single action should allow the city of Montreal to achieve 9% of the 55% target in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, with the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

Montreal innovates by being the only Canadian city to put forward such a regulation. Quebec Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonatan Julien, strongly supports this initiative and is also preparing a plan to adopt similar measures to reduce the carbon footprint of the commercial and institutional buildings of the entire province. By confirming that the commercial and institutional building sector represents by itself 6% of GHGs emissions for all of Quebec province, Mr. Julien emphasizes that if we reduce the consumption by 10% in this sector alone, it will represent the equivalent savings of 475,000 tonnes of GHGs per year. This news was also greeted by the Canada-Quebec Green Building Council, which believes that by implementing such a system, the city of Montreal will support its property managers in their environmental choices and inspire them to adopt better practices in their industry by improving their energy efficiency.

Let’s hope that the importance given to a city such as Montreal across Canada will succeed in highlighting this innovative project and inspire many others to implement regulations to help and advise owners of industrial and commercial buildings and their energy efficiency. GHGs emissions from this sector alone are very significant, it is time to focus on making a difference for our entire province and our entire country.

Source : Radio Canada

Photo: informateurimmobilier.com