Capital Upgrades & Retrofits
Guidelines inform resilient healthcare facilities
Newly released guidelines offer a standard for approaching the planning and designing of healthcare facilities from a resiliency perspective.
How to provide healthy environments & meet climate goals
Three key lessons for making buildings energy- and carbon-efficient and healthy.
Campus high-rise brings health to new heights
Dingy is a word that conjures thoughts of old institutional spaces. Academic buildings with dimly-lit hallways and windowless classrooms punctured with fluorescent glare. Rarely are
Status quo stymies innovative retrofit options
Prevailing approaches for incentivizing, financing and implementing retrofit projects deemed unlikely to propel the existing building inventory to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Retrofit funds tied to equity capital prereq
Retrofit proponents unable to contribute at least $6.25 million in equity capital will have to look to third-party interveners in order to tap into the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s $2-billion fund for commercial buildings.
Reaching net zero in the age of COVID-19
Optimizing ventilation and air handling systems is key to achieving net zero energy performance goals.
Indigenous voices hushed in planning processes
Indigenous communities across Canada continue to be sidelined or completely excluded from initial planning phases of new developments and renovations.
Ottawa hockey facility a zero carbon first
How AMPED Sports Lab and Ice Complex in Ottawa, Ontario, became the first Zero Carbon Building Performance Standard certified arena.
Vancouver’s largest seismically safe school underway
Construction has begun on Eric Hamber Secondary school, the largest seismic school replacement project in Vancouver’s history.
Pandemic intensifies evolving role of FM
Facility managers are no longer viewed as a back-office function, but rather “a strategic instrument to attract and retain talent and create a great experience,”
Can purchases help reverse global warming?
When considering products with recycled content, pay attention to the types of recycled materials that are in them.
Community buildings targeted for retrofit funds
Two distinct, but complementary new federal programs promise funds for community buildings. Both are focused on meeting GHG reduction targets and are aligned with a pledge to invest $15 billion to address climate change and boost the green economy.
COVID-19 related investment unveiled
The commercial real estate, facilities management and construction/retrofit sectors appear poised to capture a share of the spending announced in the Canadian government’s fall economic statement.
Feds to invest $2 billion in energy retrofits
A promised $2 billion investment in large-scale building retrofits will be central to the Canadian government’s job creation ambitions. Energy efficiency champions have plenty of ideas of how and where the funds could be best leveraged.
Circadian lighting improves seniors’ daily routines
Circadian lighting plays a special role in facilities management as long-term care homes and schools increasingly look to enhance wellbeing among seniors and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
An embodied carbon primer for facility managers
Facility management affects a significant component of total lifetime embodied carbon.
Blazing a trail for zero carbon in Nova Scotia
The zero carbon project marks an evolution in warehouses and, more broadly, the potential for a lower-emitting industrial sector.