Canada's building sector accounts for 30-40% of the nation's energy use. Bryan Fannigan from the Building Decarbonization Alliance joins thinkenergy to share how the sector can align with Canada's emission reduction goals. From policies and grid impact studies to strategies helping steer towards a net-zero status by 2050. Listen in to learn about the practical challenges with decarbonizing existing infrastructures and innovative approaches to support the transition to more sustainable building practices.

Related links

• Bryan Flannigan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanflannigan/
• Building Decarbonization Alliance: https://buildingdecarbonization.ca/
• The Transition Accelerator: https://transitionaccelerator.ca/
• Concordia Plan/Net Zero: https://www.concordia.ca/sustainability/net-zero.html
• The Canada Green Building Strategy: https://natural-resources.canada.ca/transparency/reporting-and-accountability/plans-and-performance-reports/departmental-strategies/the-canada-green-buildings-strategy-transforming-canadas-buildings-sector-for-net-zer/26065
• ITER fusion energy project: https://www.iter.org/
• Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-cem-leed-ap-8b612114/

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Transcript

Trevor Freeman  00:07

Hi. Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us at thinkenergy@hydrooottawa.com.

Hi everyone. Welcome back. You really can't overstate the importance of buildings in our lives. We eat, sleep, work, learn and socialize in buildings, among many, many other things, a huge percentage of our lives takes place inside buildings. In fact, most of us probably have to make a conscious effort to actually spend time outside of buildings. I know that I try to make a point of spending time outside every day, and I have to be conscious about it, because it might not otherwise happen, and as a result of that, centrality in our lives, buildings are major users of energy. Some estimates say that around 30 to 40% of energy use in Canada is associated with buildings, and they're also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. So around maybe 18% or so in Canada, that means that the buildings themselves and the way we build them, the way we heat them, the way we use them, are an important part of our efforts to decarbonize and to further the ongoing energy transition. Supporting this effort is the main goal of the building decarbonization Alliance. Spun out of the transition accelerator, the building decarbonization Alliance is a nonpartisan coalition that works to inspire and inform industry and government leadership, accelerate market transformation and really get the building sector on track to meet Canada's emission reduction goals. They focus on convening conversations, conducting analysis and identifying some of the barriers to building decarbonization, and then working with partners to overcome them. And I think that's a really important part. Joining me today as my guest is Brian Flannagan, who's the executive director of the building decarbonization Alliance. Brian brings more than three decades of leadership and consulting experience all focused around reducing emissions and improving the energy efficiency of the built environment. Prior to joining the organization, he's played leadership roles across a number of different leading energy and environmental consulting firms. He spent time working with the Federation of Canadian municipalities and helped launch the Green Municipal Fund. Brian Flannagan, welcome to the show.

Brian Flannagan  02:47

Thanks for having me. Trevor, this is great.

Trevor Freeman  02:50

So why don't we start kind of right with the basics? Can you give us an overview of the building decarbonization Alliance and the work that you are doing alongside your members?

Brian Flannagan  03:00

Yeah, thanks. Well, you know, as you said at the top of the hour, without kind of repeating the background or there, we're a nonpartisan, not for profit organization whose goal it is to really advance sort of market transformation, thinking about it from the perspective of, you know, creating a prosperous economy for Canada, having buildings that are a place where people want to invest, and the long-term goal is that we got to get them. Get to net zero. Global factors dictate that if we don't act on that, we're going to get left behind. And so, for those purposes, we want to bring the market along and align it toward this goal. And so, this alliance that we have is just that we have partner organizations who support this vision to have the building sector decarbonize between now and 2050 to meet those objectives that are set nationally and internationally, for that matter, and we work with those partners to sort of align the narratives around this and to put in place in the long term, the tools and policies that we need to support that. So, our main approach is really to convene those stakeholders around the issues that we see, to tackle some of the sticky narratives that are there. You know, any market transformation involves incumbents that have lots of good reason to maintain the status quo. So that's a feature of a system that we have to acknowledge, and it's something that we recognize we have to adjust those narratives to really advance, advance the common objective, right? And so, we work with that kind of vision, with our stakeholders, to really try to overcome, identify and overcome the barriers to getting to that goal. We kind of focus on a couple of key areas given, you know, the ability decarbonization space, the ecosystem is vast. Lots of market actors already out there, lots of other not for profits, lots of other organizations that are working really, really hard to advance this as well. And so, we tend to focus on kind of four main areas, making sure that there's policy support at various levels of government, and understanding which policies might be effective and which ones might be less so, and trying to advance the ones that. High leverage looking at the grid impacts of electrifying buildings, because it's undeniable that if you switch from fossil combustion of fossil fuels to electricity, you require a clean electricity system that has to have the capacity and be robust enough to support that. So, we want to be clear about that. We want to really address that in a cogent s