Filed under: - NDP, Architecture, Canadian Politics, Urban Design, Urban Planning
NDP Greener Homes Strategy Misses the Point
By Gregory D. Morrow
The NDP released Part 1 (“Greener Homes Strategy”) of its 5-part Green Agenda for Canada today. I applaud the NDP for making energy efficiency an issue at the Federal level. At this point, they are the only party seriously making noise on environmental issues in Ottawa, although that could change depending on the outcome of the Liberal leadership race. So far, the Conservatives have taken a page out of the Bush administration’s book — i.e. do nothing, and the Bloc Quebecois sold themselves out for a promise that Quebec would be taken care of “later”.
Unfortunately, the NDP plan isn’t very well thought out — and I say that as a progressive architect, urban designer, and urban planner who is very interested in promoting such a “Green Agenda for Canada”. Here is what the NDP proposes:
- Development of an advanced energy efficiency program to help make Canadian homes the most efficient in the world;
- Amendment of the National Building Code to legislate lower energy use in new homes;
- Making mandatory, in order to qualify for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Mortgage Insurance Program, proof of compliance with the new National Building Code’s energy efficiency provisions for new homes AND Establishing or enhancing other programs to assist Canadians in retrofitting older homes so as to meet the new energy standards;
- Requiring that all appliances and lighting sold in Canada meet the Energy Star standards; and
- Re-instatement of the EnerGuide program abolished by the Conservatives.
First the good: requiring new appliances and lights to meet the Energy Star standards is a good thing, and relatively easy to implement, since many companies already comply. So for companies that were wise enough to get on board early, they will be rewarded. Those that thought short-term, and have sold energy hogs the past decade, will be punished. Call it market justice. Likewise, re-instating the EnerGuide program is a must — this deals not with new construction but with the vital retrofit of older buildings. Since the lifecycle of buildings is very long, it is arguably as critical to ensure existing buildings are retrofited, as make new building more efficient.
The remaining three policies are off the mark. First, why target homeowners and not commercial, retail and industrial buildings, which are much less energy efficient than homes? New homes in Canada are actually built to pretty high energy standards in the two most important areas of energy efficiency: 1) insulation of walls and roofs, and 2) penetrations of the envelope (i.e. windows and doors). There is a limit beyond which efficiency is counter-productive in houses. If you make a house too air-tight, you don’t get the necessary hourly air exchanges, which leads to sick building syndrome — you end up inhaling your own CO2 emissions. By contrast, glass curtain-wall office buildings and glass-fronted retail space typically require a high cooling load to combat the greenhouse effect of the glass — this is a better place to look for energy savings. Also, industrial buildings are typically cheap, cheap, cheap – built with a limited lifespan using low-cost and flimsy materials and minimal insulation. Why put the onus on hard-working families by targeting homes, and not corporations by targeting high-rises and industrial buildings? It defies logic and runs counter the core policies of the NDP. The very vagueness of this “advanced energy efficiency program” is also surprising and demonstrates that the policy is undercooked.
Second, the NDP’s faith in regulation is misplaced. The NDP fails to understand who stands the most to lose in applying such rules universally; as one of this generation’s greatest advocates of social justice, Iris Marion Young, says: we need to “critically assess the tendency of both public and private institutions in contemporary liberal democratic societies to reproduce sexual, racial and class inequality by applying standards and rules in the same way to all who plausibly come under its purview.” Amending the National Building Code of Canada (NBC) to legislate lower energy use will have little impact on energy efficiency. As noted, new Canadian homes are already built to high standards, and secondly, the NBC is not gospel. It is a guiding document interpreted by building inspectors. Some follow it closely, some don’t. Moreover, simply saying “make things more efficient” is a cop out. Put your money where your mouth is! Simply mandating means it gets passed on to the consumer, exacerbating affordability problems. Providing incentives, on the other hand — by allowing a few extra units per building — allows builders to make it a zero-sum game. Consumers win — more housing = lower supply = lower costs. And the environment wins too – you get the desired result — a more energy efficient building than otherwise would have been built. Unfortunately, the NDP is ideologically opposed to anything that proposes is disinclined to provide incentives to the private sector to get results (note: edited to be more fair, in response to comment). Their solution is simply regulate and wash its hands. Too easy. And too hard — it puts the onus on government to go around and catch the bad guys, fine them, bring them to court, etc. It is an intellectually lazy proposition that doesn’t do what it should do: reward good behaviour. Promoting good is better than punishing bad any day of the week. It’s this same reluctance to work with developers that has lead to a housing affordability crisis in Canadian cities (as they hold out for the old-fashioned top-down publicly built/publicly managed public housing).
Third, the NDP believes the unit of analysis for energy efficiency should be at the building level. While we certainly need to build energy efficient buildings, we will only make headway by reforming the way we build cities. Continuing to build vast seas of asphalt at 4 dwelling units per acre and exclusively relying on cars to move people around town contributes far more to our energy consumption than any energy-efficiency building program could possibly hope to do. Many LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings are built in the suburbs and applauded for their energy efficiency. If LEED ratings took into account the big picture, however, they would often not get certified. Consider the energy use of all the employees driving around the suburbs to get to work. A masonry urban building retrofitted with new windows and insulation and passive heating and cooling techniques, and where employees can walk, bike and take transit, has a much smaller ecological footprint than the most high-tech LEED buildings today.
Fourth, there are much bigger fish in the sea. If the NDP wants to get serious about our greenhouse gas emissions, it should look to: first, the electricity and petroleum industries, second, transportation, third, industry, and only then look at buildings (and even then look at commercial buildings first). Here is a breakdown, according to Environment Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory (Note: 598kb PDF), by sector:
Electricity and Petroleum: 38%
Transportation: 25%
Industry: 15%
Residential, Commercial, Institutional: 10%
Agriculture: 8%
Waste: 3%
Forestry: 1%
So, just 10% of greenhouse gases are caused by Residential, Commercial and Institutional Buildings. Of that, we might estimate that residential is half. So, the NDP’s “Greener Homes Strategy” is targeting what amounts to 5% of the greenhouse gases. So a 20% energy improvement in all homes in Canada would improve our emissions by 1%. I think energy efficiency is something that we should promote, in everything we do — building houses, building anything, our choices of transportation, how many lights to have on, whether to recycle, buying low-impact packaging, etc. But, if the NDP is serious about its environmental program, it needs to target Electricity and Petroleum, Transportation and Industry, which collectively accounts for nearly 80% of Canada’s greenhouses gases.
So, while I’m glad to see the NDP try, and I certainly think that homes should be energy efficient, the Strategy’s focus on homes (as opposed to other buildings) is misplaced, its reliance exclusively on regulation is misplaced, its lack of focus on urban development is regrettable, and its focus on buildings as opposed to other sectors is unfortunate. The NDP needs to start thinking about the big picture. Greener Homes are nice, but the impact on greenhouse gases will be small. Let’s hope that the remaining 4 parts of their Green Agenda for Canada are more credible.
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