Passive House Canada has joined the Building to Electrification (B2E) Coalition, the newest program area of the Zero Emissions Building Exchange (ZEBx), Metro Vancouver’s capacity-building hub focused on decarbonizing the building sector.
B2E is a BC-member-based coalition launched in September 2021, whose purpose is to create opportunities for multiple stakeholders to work collaboratively to identify and address barriers to electrification and take actions that contribute to a meaningful market shift to decarbonizing BC’s building sector.
Passive House Canada, B2E, and ZEBx allow British Columbians to benefit from low-carbon buildings. Building electrification is a critical component to reduce carbon pollution because of the province’s abundant supply of clean, renewable electricity and the mature state of high-efficiency, electric technologies for most building space and water heating applications.
“To be successful in this emerging market, we need to work together with industry. We at Passive House Canada are thrilled to partner with the B2E coalition and ZEBx as we continue to see electrification spearhead the energy conversation,” says Passive House Canada CEO, Chris Ballard.
“We are thrilled to have Passive House Canada on board with the B2E mission. In BC, we are experiencing the effects of a changing climate firsthand, with extreme heatwaves and significant flooding occurring in the last six months. The importance of reducing the climate impacts of buildings has never been more obvious in our region. B2E recognizes that successfully transitioning to fully electric buildings involves collaborating with multiple stakeholders, including governments, utilities, and industry. ZEBx and B2E are striving to build capacity within the province to accelerate the uptake of zero-emissions buildings.” says Mariko Michasiw, B2E Program Manager, ZEBx.
Founded in 2018, ZEBx is an organization that uses a collaborative model dedicated to supporting both industry and governments through this transition.
In 2016, the City of Vancouver released its Zero Emissions Building Plan, which requires most new buildings to be near-zero emissions by 2025 and all new buildings to be zero emissions by 2030. In 2017, British Columbia released the BC Energy Step Code, which allows local governments to mandate a standard set of minimum energy-efficiency requirements for new developments and sets the path for almost all new buildings to be net-zero energy ready by 2032.
“If we don’t electrify and reduce GHG emissions, our economy will suffer,” said Ballard. “We are an export economy. Countries around the world are going to apply carbon taxes to imports from countries not pulling their weight.”