Seven years after construction started, a 34-acre plot of once-contaminated industrial land in the middle of the Ottawa River is being celebrated as the most sustainable community in Canada.
The master-planned development between downtown Ottawa and Gatineau, Que. uses post-industrial waste to heat homes and businesses in winter and the river itself to generate cooling in the summer.
The net effect is a zero-carbon energy system that will power the development for decades to come, said Project Engineer and Developer Scott Demark. "It's a pretty massive victory," said Demark, President of Zibi Community Utility, which operates as the development's in-house energy provider.
He described the creation of Zibi's net-zero energy system as a massive undertaking — one that more developers could replicate with the right government incentives and requirements in place.
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson acknowledges the federal government has a bigger role to play. "There are significant additional resources that we are going to need to mobilize," he said. "The Federal Government has made significant commitments but it's not nearly enough. More money will be needed from other levels of government and the private sector as well, Wilkinson said. Greenhouse gas emissions from buildings accounted for 18 per cent of Canada's total emissions in 2020 — about 87.8 megatonnes — making it the third-highest source of emissions after oil and gas production and transportation. Canada has vowed to slash emissions from the building sector by 37 per cent by 2030 and then achieve net-zero in the sector by 2050.
Efficiency Canada, an organization housed at Carleton University which researches energy efficiency strategies, estimates that doing all this would require an annual investment of $20-$32 billion a year.
Ottawa is also urging individual homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient through retrofits and renovations. A new $4.4 billion loan program announced in the 2021 federal budget — the Canada Greener Homes Loan — promises to provide loans to up to 175,000 homeowners who take on "extensive energy retrofits." The list of qualifying projects includes the replacement of windows, doors and insulation and the installation of solar panels. The program offers interest-free loans ranging from $5,000 to $40,000.
"The government is driving the work that needs to be done on climate change," Powell said. "The next level that we need to consider is that there's equity and diversity among the people who are working on these building projects."