Each April, leaders from the Ontario building industry congregate to hear from building science experts at Building Knowledge Canada’s Spring Training conference. Attendees range from contractors to architects, utilities to consultants, academics to public servants. This year, SWR Frameworks team member Jack joined the conference to learn more about innovations in building science, and to connect with sector members.
Those invited to present at the conference are at the forefront of building science innovation, and they shared their insights and research to an avid audience. A sample of some the session topics includes:
- Resilience, Carbon, and Retrofits – Sonja Winkelman from the CHBA, Dan Sandink from ICLR, Lynne J. Strickland and Aidan Brookson from Volta shared the stage, presenting on these three distinct climate topics.
- Phase Change – Michael Ridler from Eden Energy Equipment spoke to the need for distributed thermal infrastructure in Canadian homes, highlighting that the technology exists, but just needs to be implemented.
- Embodied Carbon – Alexis Minetti from BKC and Chris Magwood from RMI tackled embodied carbon, identifying the large disconnect between climate targets and the projected growth of the building industry.
- Transforming Low Rise Residential to Net Zero – Abraham Wairisal from the City of Toronto outlined this key portion of the city’s strategy to facilitate Net-Zero transformation by the year 2040.
Here are some of Jack’s insights from the sessions:
- Advances in building science are predominantly advances in sustainable building practices. At least 75% of topics were related to efficient, smart, healthy buildings.
- Building industry leaders are ready and willing to adopt these technologies, but they need support from industry experts and policy makers.
- There is already considerable momentum towards sustainable and efficient buildings. Case studies demonstrate that many sustainable building practices are no longer cutting edge and are more accessible than ever.
- The need for building innovation exchanges is clear. To generate the sector-scale support and capacity needed for meaningful change, collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the building industry is essential. Thus the role of the Frameworks program becomes even more important.
A huge thank you to our friends from BKC for an amazing event! Presentations are available for download on the BKC website. The Frameworks team would love to hear your insights from the training sessions, or any other feedback related to sustainable building strategies – please contact us!