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 The
Better Building Partnership
Making Buildings Better, Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Creating
New Jobs
http://www.climatechangesolutions.com/municipal/buildings/stories/toronto-bbp2.shtml
Buildings generate a lot of carbon dioxide. Their heating systems
use natural gas or electricity that is partly generated with fossil
fuels. Electric power for lighting, air conditioning and running
other appliances also contributes to the carbon dioxide load if
it comes from coal-burning power plants. So how could buildings
cut down on their carbon dioxide emissions? This is a question
that the Toronto Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) set out to
answer.
Studying how much energy buildings use made it clear that by
doing renovations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, it would
also be possible for building owners to reduce their building operating
costs through conservation. An investment in environmentally responsible
renovations saves money!
Big Savings
 The
Better Buildings Partnership has ambitious goals. They want to "retrofit" (renovate
and add new equipment to) 40% of Toronto's existing institutional,
commercial and industrial space. If they achieve this goal, they
would reduce carbon dioxide emission from these buildings by 3
million tonnes (3 mega-tonnes). Renovations that the BBP carried
out between 1996 and 2000 have already resulted in a reduction
of 110 kilotons (110 thousand tonnes) of annual carbon dioxide
emissions.
Renovating buildings to reduce carbon dioxide emissions makes
buildings "better" in many ways. It makes the buildings
more valuable not only in terms of energy-efficiency and energy
costs for the future, but in present-day physical quality and desirability.
It has proved to be an especially good investment when it's done
to improve the building's comfort, lighting, air quality and attractiveness.
And a long-term benefit is to enjoy the savings as energy costs
in Ontario rise!
Good Reasons for Energy Conservation
 Renovations
that cut down a building's energy needs reduce what is called "power
demand." When customers reduce their energy requirements,
their conservation allows energy providers to reduce their energy
production. This means that there is less fossil fuel burned which
not only lessens the quantity of greenhouse gases that contribute
to climate change, but also reduces the by-products of burning
fossil fuels that are damaging to human health and the environment.
Burning fossil fuels add a list of unwanted waste products to
the air. They give off nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, particulate
matter (very tiny particles of ash that are harmful to lungs and
health), volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and heavy
metals in addition to greenhouse gases. In warm weather, fossil
fuel emissions in the presence of sunlight also create ground-level
ozone, a harmful ingredient of smog. Ozone at ground level can
cause acute breathing problems, inflammation of the lungs and damage
to the immune system. Reducing energy demand therefore reduces
the consumption of fossil fuels which contributes to these human
health problems.
Greening Buildings Creates Jobs
One of the additional important benefits of such energy-conversation-through-renovation
programs is that they create new jobs. The city estimates that
for every million dollars invested in energy efficiency, 20-person-years
of employment are created. And for all the people working directly
on improving buildings, there are new "indirect" jobs
created, to supply the building-improvers with designs, materials,
tools, transportation, insurance and all the things they need.
The Better Building Partnership's work is jointly funded by the
government's Canada-Ontario Infrastructure Works Program,
plus private-sector loans arranged by participating energy companies.
ACTIVITY 1
- In what ways does a building contribute to climate change?
(Minimum of 5).
- What are the benefits of 'retrofitting' Toronto's existing
institutional, commercial and industrial buildings? Name one
example of each type of building.
- List the types of sources for electrical
energy in Ontario. Explain why it is important to conserve
energy. What is the
simplest way to conserve energy?
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