Accelerating Energy Retrofits for Large Buildings

The AEEA and other partners are supporting Alberta Ecotrust’s Retrofit Accelerator program, designed to help building owners and managers make sustainable upgrades known as ‘deep retrofits.’ These retrofits go beyond standard upgrades and take a whole-building approach to optimize emissions reductions, energy savings and operating costs.

This page provides several resources supporting the initiative including:

  • Financing available for retrofit projects

  • Public sustainability commitments by building owners, managers and real estate advisors

Future additions to this site will include an industry directory of contractors and consultants with experience on building energy retrofits. Want to join the directory? Please fill out the following form.

Why Retrofits?

Buildings are major consumers of energy in Alberta. In many communities, buildings' share of total energy consumed ranges between 40-60%.

For large buildings (including offices, retail, wholesale, warehouses and multi-unit residential buildings), 80% of the buildings were built before 1990 when building codes were not as focused on energy efficiency. These buildings will be in service for decades to come and will require retrofits to better manage their energy consumption.

 

Building retrofits may pursue multiple goals:

  • Repurposing the building use

  • Enhancing occupant or tenant experience

  • Improving building resilience to withstand the effects of extreme weather effects

  • Increasingly, decarbonization in response to societal expectations, treaty obligations and government mandates.

 

ENBIX, Alberta Ecotrust’s Emissions-Neutral Business Information Exchange, is assembling case studies of building energy retrofits, including an office to residential conversion in Calgary.  

Numerous owners and managers of commercial buildings in Alberta have committed to decarbonization goals and are reporting these for benchmarking and investor scrutiny via GRESB.

The PDF has clickable links for more information

There are also a number of national real estate advisory firms that assist their clients with sustainability and decarbonization goals. 

The PDF has clickable links for more information

Commercial real estate industry remains committed to ESG and decarbonization (PWC report and REALPAC National Real estate report).

Many Alberta buildings have achieved a recognized sustainable building standard, including Energy Star, CaGBC and BOMA and/or are participating in the City of Calgary or City of Edmonton public energy consumption benchmarking database.   

With respect to financing commercial buildings, Canada's major chartered banks belong to the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). All NZBA member banks have signed the Commitment Statement and pledged to follow the target setting and reporting processes outlined there and in the accompanying Guidelines for Climate Target Setting for Banks. By joining the NZBA, members commit to reducing emissions attributable to their operations and—much more significantly—to their lending and investment portfolios to net zero by 2050. 

Here are current funding sources to assist energy-efficient building projects at each project stage.

The PDF has clickable links for more information

  • Need help determining your building’s current energy performance and developing a decarbonization or deep retrofit plan? The Alberta Ecotrust Retrofit Accelerator, funded by Natural Resources Canada, can assist.

 
 

The Alberta Ecotrust Retrofit Accelerator program defines a deep retrofit as a whole-building approach that considers all building systems and components, involving upgrades to optimize energy performance and reduce carbon emissions.

This can be achieved through a bundled approach or phased improvements aligned with the building’s asset renewal plan.