Annex: Homes and buildings

Canada has over 15 million residential buildings and over 480,000 commercial and institutional buildings, including offices, retail and warehouses. Canada’s homes and buildings account for 13% of national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, due to the combustion of fossil fuels for space and water heating; electricity use for cooling, lighting and appliances brings the total to 18%. The buildings sector includes varied businesses, many of which are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), including home and building construction, high-efficiency equipment and appliance manufacturing, sale and installation, and management of energy use. The buildings material industry has annual revenues of $46 billion, directly employing over 135,000 Canadians across the country. Over 39,000 companies employ more than 285,000 Canadians to conduct energy efficiency-related work in the construction industry (e.g. installation, contracting), and nearly 5,500 companies offer building services such as energy management, energy auditing, recommissioning, engineering and architecture. Investing in energy efficiency and fuel switching in Canada’s building stock now will result in immediate benefits and will help set the stage for a resilient buildings sector composed of net-zero carbon buildings powered by clean electricity, and more green jobs. Continued support for innovation will provide an important complement to building codes, to ensure that energy efficient technologies continue to reduce costs and emissions. This includes ongoing work related to embodied carbon to help bring the buildings sector toward net-zero emissions.

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A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy contains new measures for the buildings sector

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