Canadian organizations participate in UN high performance building initiative

VANCOUVER — Passive House Canada and the Vancouver-based Zero Emissions Building Exchange (ZEBx) both recently participated at the UN headquarters in New York in an effort to establish international centres of excellence for high performance buildings.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) High Performance Building Initiative is one of five UN regional commissions working to implement official UN sustainable development goals.

Other parties involved in the initiative included UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed, the City of Vancouver and representatives from Ireland, Penn State University and the North American Passive House Network.

UNECE is launching a global network of international centres of excellence on high performance buildings to provide assistance to building owners and developers, contractors, engineers, planning officials and architects.

The three centres of excellence established to date are the ZEBx in Vancouver, one in New York and another in Ireland.

“The initiative will bring forth new capacity for partnerships and policy implementation advancing high-performance buildings — significantly reducing the carbon footprint of buildings while providing improved comfort, health and affordability to residents and building patrons,” a Passive House Canada release stated.

Passive House Canada had a central role in the development of the UN’s framework guidelines and was a partner in ZEBx in Vancouver, which is Canada’s first centre of excellence. Other ZEBx partners include the City of Vancouver, Passive House Canada, the Vancouver Regional Construction Association and the Open Green Building Society.

“Passive House Canada is honoured to have had the privilege to play a role in developing the Framework Guidelines for energy Efficiency in Buildings, and in creating Canada’s first centre of excellence in Vancouver,” Passive House Canada CEO Rob Bernhardt said in a statement.

“Canada’s national strategy to transform buildings aligns well with the global agenda and we look forward to working throughout Canada and with the international community to achieve the shared objectives.”