Batteries raise sustainability standards for buildings

Batteries raise sustainability standards for buildings

A California developer believes grid-connected batteries represent the next step in advancing electric efficiency standards on its development portfolio.  The Irvine Co. and Advanced Microgrid Solutions recently installed 16 Tesla PowerPack battery systems at an office tower. It was the first installation in what will be a fleet of Irvine Co. Hybrid-Electric Buildings.

BDC Network – Globe St.

Researchers develop underground batteries to store energy

The intermittency of when the wind blows and when the sun shines is one of the biggest challenges impeding the widespread integration of renewable energy into electric grids, while the cost of capturing CO2 and storing it permanently underground is a big challenge for decarbonizing fossil energy. However, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Ohio State University, University of Minnesota and TerraCOH, Inc. think they’ve found an answer.

ENN

Green real estate a winner for investment returns.

“This is the final proof of the concept that you can have a solution for turning existing offices into low-carbon workplaces and make money at the same time,” claimed Columbia’s head of property, Don Jordinson.  It is a concept that’s grabbing the attention of many investors and developers.

Environmental Finance

EU unveils new green building policy objectives

The European Commission has started building the foundations of a common language around green building with the release of a major new working paper.    For years the mainstream “green” building debate in Europe has centered heavily on energy, leaving voluntary green building certification to fly the flag for the wider sustainability agenda.

World GBC

Concrete industry issues Environmental Product Declarations

The North American Precast Concrete industry has announced the release of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) in three key precast concrete product categories.  The EPDs will allow architects, engineers, building owners, and other specifiers to better understand the environmental impacts of precast and prestressed concrete products.

Globe-net.com

‘Project Sunroof’ reveals if solar panels cost-effective

The company that lets you compare air fares and translate foreign languages online wants to make it easier to weigh the costs and benefits of installing solar panels on household rooftops. Google is rolling out a new online service that quickly tallies up considerations of going solar and whether homeowners should consider buying or leasing photovoltaic panels.

Globe and Mail – Global News

Pushing the envelope to make buildings greener

At FortWhyte Alive, squirrels are frequent stowaways on its “mother ship.” “I often jokingly explain we have as many squirrels working in the building as we do staff,” says Bill Elliott, president of the environmental education facility in Winnipeg. For the most part, the puffy-tailed rodents go unnoticed in FortWhyte’s interpretive centre.

Globe and Mail

Why tiny-house proponents have decided to upsize

As we were packing up our cottage last summer, my 14-year-old casually observed: “It’s good we’re leaving, while we still like each other.”  For 10 weeks of the year, my husband and I, along with our two sons, live blissfully in Nova Scotia in a two-room A-frame that measures roughly 320 square feet, accounting for the sloped roof. We sleep in the loft upstairs, which adds about 80 square feet.

Globe and Mail

New products lay foundation for smarter homes

It’s one of the fastest-growing categories in technology, but it still feels like the biggest problem with “smart home” products is you’re being asked to pay a premium to beta test a company’s gadgets. It was clear that was the case at last week’s CES, the consumer technology industry’s annual showcase of new and notable products.

Toronto Star – Newinhomes.com

Nearly half of U.S. homes will be smart in 2016

A year from now, nearly half of all U.S. households will boast at least one piece of smart technology, a Coldwell Banker survey suggests. Some 45 per cent of respondents to the realty franchisor’s Smart Home Marketplace Survey say they have smart home tech in their abodes, or at least intend on investing in it before 2016’s end.

Buzzbuzzhome.com

CaGBC is looking for Canada’s Green Building Product of the Year

The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) is pleased to announce that registration for the 2016 CaGBC Green Building Product of the Year Award is now open. CaGBC initiated the Product of the Year award in 2016 to encourage Canadian companies to develop sustainable building products and materials in order to better support the green building industry.

CaGBC

	Energy benchmarking framework now available
	In September 2015, the CaGBC convened a working group in an effort to gather support for the establishment of a national energy benchmarking, reporting and disclosure framework in Canada. A 10-page summary report that identifies the key principles for the framework based on the contributions of the working group, is now available on the CaGBC website.

 

Wind energy continued rapid growth in 2015

The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) reported Canada closed 2015 seventh in the world for total installed wind energy capacity with 11,205 MW, and sixth in the world for the amount of capacity added in 2015. Over the year, Canada added 1,506 MW of new wind capacity through the commissioning of 36 projects.

Canada Newswire

How Ohio State is tackling clean energy and zero waste

Ohio State is one of the gold standard programs in college football. With a national championship last year, the team is the closest thing to a unifying force in sports in the state. And with more than 106,000 fans filling the Horseshoe every home game, with more than 500,000 living alumni and with millions following the Buckeyes on TV, radio and online, the impact of Ohio State football is massive.

Green Biz

Dan Probst of JLL commercial real estate firm at COP21

Dan Probst leads the energy and sustainability services group at JLL, a global commerical real estate financing and services company. During COP 21 in Paris in December, he spoke with GreenBiz Senior Editor Lauren Hepler at the Sustinable Innovation Forum about forces driving building developers and owners to be more careful about the environmetal footprint of their buildings.

Green Biz

Can the world convert to total renewable energy by 2050?

In 2009, Stanford University engineering professor Mark Jacobson outlined a plan for the world to get all its energy – including transport and heating fuel and electricity – from wind, water and solar resources by 2050. Considered radical at the time, the model has been fleshed out to provide details for 139 countries and is now seen as far less extreme.

Globe and Mail

	The top 10 in green architecture for 2015
	It’s fun to see such a mix in this category, and there are some that probably shouldn’t even be here; #10 should probably be in prefab and #1 in tiny houses. But It doesn’t matter, they cover such a range of types and what a geographic range, coming from Canada, the USA, Indonesia, Australia and Switzerland. Treehugger, December 24, 2015

 

Market Trends and Research

Rising sea levels – The new reality

Water may be flowing from the Greenland icecap and into the sea more quickly than anybody expected.  It doesn’t mean that global warming has got conspicuously worse: rather, researchers have had to revise their understanding of the intricate physiology of the northern hemisphere’s biggest icecap.

Globe-net.com

Western farmers hardest hit by climate change

The impact of extreme weather on grain production is felt more acutely in Western nations than in the developing world, and the large single-crop farms typical in Western Canada and the American Midwest are particularly vulnerable, according to a new study led by researchers from UBC and McGill.

Vancouver Sun – Globe and Mail

What drives the rise and fall of urban economies?

For the first time in human history, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Eighty-five million people per year are moving to cities worldwide, most of them in the developing world.  The most populated 600 urban areas, or metropolitan regions, concentrate about a fifth of the world’s population and about half of world economic output.

Green Biz

Pollution price of China, India’s industrialization

China and India are paying a heavy price for the industrial revolutions which in recent decades have propelled them to economic superstardom. In China, an estimated 1.6 million people die prematurely each year from air pollution. That’s about 4,400 people per day, and 17 per cent of total deaths in the country.

Toronto Star

Commercial Green Buildings

Method’s Saskia van Gendt on honing operations

Method is setting the standard for clean manufacturing. On Oct. 2, Bard MBA in Sustainability spoke with Saskia van Gendt, greenskeeping manager for Method Home. Method designs cleaning and personal care products that work for people and the planet. The company recently opened the industry’s first LEED-platinum certified plant in the Pullman neighborhood in Chicago.

Green Biz

Residential Green Buildings

Subdivision in Florida questionable for LEED Platinum

Years ago I used to be quite critical of the LEED certification system, particularly about the laughably inappropriate things that got certification, from parking garages to space ports to drive through restaurants. But LEED kept getting better, and then the lumber and the plastics industries started going after them, and I realized that for all their problems, they have done so much to take green building into the mainstream, to change the whole industry.

TreeHugger

Green Building Rating Systems

CaGBC integrated nationwide organization effective January 1, 2016

As was first announced in April 2015, CaGBC and its Chapters have been working together to create a nationwide organization that will provide increased programs and services to the industry. We are very pleased to announce that after chapter and national member votes, the official integration is effective January 1, 2016.

CaGBC

Water Management

12 strategies for moving from water scarcity to abundance

In about 10 years, beginning shortly after the new century, Israel went from scarcity of water and fear of drought to abundance and independence from climate conditions. This dramatic change was made possible by the 70 years that preceded it in which a cadre of often brilliant engineers, scientists and policy-makers developed Israel’s water-related expertise, technology and infrastructure. A pragmatic water philosophy also evolved from these leaders and visionaries to guide the way for those who would follow.

Green Biz

Renewable Energy

2016 could be the year of green energy

The sun could be starting to set on the fossil-fuel era as it rises on the age of clean energy.  The past 12 months saw the fossil-fuel divestment movement reach critical mass, witnessed a U.S. president put his political capital behind climate action, and marked the first time a sitting pope released an encyclical devoted to the issue of climate change.

Toronto Star

Wind power startup nabs project funding

United Wind Inc, which has carved out a niche leasing wind turbines to farms and rural homes, has clinched $200 million in funding from Toronto-based Forum Equity Partners – the largest single investment in small wind projects. The funding is a vote of confidence not only in the Brooklyn-based startup, but in the market for wind energy produced and used on site.

Reuters

The solar job boom in the U.S. by the numbers

The U.S. solar industry now employs some 209,000 people, following a third consecutive year of 20 percent-plus job gains.  Washington-based nonprofit the Solar Foundation reports (PDF) that jobs in solar grew at 12 times the pace of the overall economy from November 2014 to November 2015, and that the industry is poised to add upwards of 30,000 more jobs in the next 12 months.

Green Biz

Products, Technology and Design

Construction can impact climate change

In the wake of the Paris climate accord, and faced with the need to reduce carbon emissions, Canada has a lot of work to do. And the construction sector is in a position to play an important role. The industry knows how to build net-zero energy buildings, for example. It knows how to build with wood

Daily Commercial News

The many roads to HVAC renewal

HVAC systems must be kept in optimal working order. In addition to controlling the livability of the premise, HVAC systems are key line item expenses. Keeping them running smoothly is a financial, health and even legal necessity.  Though the goal is the same – fix aging and underperforming HVAC systems – there are a number of approaches and a good deal of overlap and confusion in terminology. 

Energy Manager Today

Green Companies and CSR Reports

Why is good governance important?

Last week I had the privilege of participating in “The Future of the Corporation: Business for Society Conference” held in Santiago. I’ve been to a lot of conferences in my time, but I can honestly say this was one of the best I’ve ever attended. One of the reasons for this was the commitment of Professor Alfredo Enrione to position the conference as a starting point for ensuring that the Chilean business community contributes to a Chilean society that is sustainable over the long term.

Forbes

Government Programs and Incentives

Environmentalists urge Ontario to abandon nuclear rebuild

Environmentalists want the Ontario government to abandon plans for a $13-billion refurbishment of four nuclear reactors at the Darlington generating station and instead import more electricity from Quebec. The Ontario Clean Air Alliance says nuclear projects always run over budget, and it doesn’t want to see taxpayers on the hook to pay for rebuilding the Darlington reactors.

Ottawa Citizen

Infrastructure boom requires discipline to succeed

Canadian governments need to spend wisely in order to maximize their infrastructure dollars, according to a new C.D. Howe Institute report. In “Getting More Buildings for our Bucks: Canadian Infrastructure Policy in 2016,” author Benjamin Dachis provides Canada’s federal, provincial and municipal governments with a blueprint for sound infrastructure investment.

Globe-net.com

State of the Union: no let-up for Barack Obama’s climate agenda

Barack Obama will look back on 2015 as a banner year for climate change in his final State of the Union address on January 13. But 2016 will see the president back in the trenches, fending off law suits and Republican attacks that could undo his climate plan, and scrambling to get to key items on his to-do list before exiting the White House.

The Guardian

Municipal Policy and Urban Issues

Battling sea change: A tale of two northern European cities

Water rings Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second-largest largest city, at the confluence of the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt rivers, about 19 miles from the North Sea. Merchants founded the city, now Europe’s largest port. But the water that long has favored Rotterdam also threatens it. Ninety percent of the city sits below sea level. A band of dikes snakes along the city’s shoreline, a reminder of storm surges that could flood Rotterdam at any time. 

Green Biz