Reply To: CCEM 105 Question 1

[Carly Johansson]

I can’t speak for the provinces, but uptake of the 2011 building code in Yukon required significant buy-in from the municipality of Whitehorse and local developers building in and around the City, and considerable support from YG. Buy-in from Whitehorse was, for the most part, driven by their commitment to sustainable development.

I would imagine that the uneven uptake across the country likely reflects a similar dynamic (i.e. buy-in from politicians). It would be interesting to know why it hasn’t been adopted in those areas where the building code wasn’t. I’m speculating but rationales could involve different strategies of managing energy consumption, other strategies for improving the quality of building stock, the state of existing building stock (good or bad), energy management as priority, and the capacity of the public sector to implement changes.

Regardless, not adopting the building code likely makes the process of managing building quality less rigorous with implications for managing energy consumption.