Ambassadorship in Advancing Sustainable Building Recognized by Maverick Awards
Kelly Williams at Sterling Homes Edmonton honoured in national awards
To reward and profile leadership in sustainable building, Built Green Canada launched its inaugural awards program (the Maverick Awards) with three exclusive category winners. Out of entries from British Columbia to Ontario, Kelly Williams at Sterling Homes Edmonton, took home this year’s most popular category award—for Ambassadorship—the purpose of which is to recognize those on the ground, promoting and encouraging sustainable building: those ambassadors driving real change towards the progression of industry.
Kelly has worked in residential construction for over 30 years and joined Sterling in 2015, originally as a Drafting Manager. Over the last two years, in her role as Design and Sustainability Manager, she systematically pursued improved sustainability practices and inspired a cultural and operational shift, and today, every home they build is BUILT GREEN® certified, most at Gold or Platinum level. Through Kelly’s ambassadorship, Sterling would prove, once again, that a volume builder can construct green homes and take meaningful action on climate change.
She spearheaded the implementation of the BUILT GREEN® third-party certification programs, effectively engaging all departments across the corporation, while working closely with Construction Manager, Jonathon Aiken. Together, they determined which checklist items they wanted to integrate into their building spec. Next, Kelly rallied their trades and suppliers, ensuring their ecosystem was educated and engaged in Sterling’s new direction. As part of this, she introduced regular meetings to review metrics and pinpoint areas for improvement, while spurring on healthy competition amongst the team to produce the greatest gains—all to maintain their commitment moving forward. She knows that lasting changes within an organization takes buy-in from everyone.
Through their marketing communications, Sterling shows not only that they’re building greener homes verified through certification, but they also help to educate the consumer, for greater understanding of the value of green building features, further driving demand for better building practices. For example, they provide videos focused on air tightness in the built environment, how it’s tested, and how it affects energy performance and occupant comfort—helping the public understand what factors into a greener home and what that means to them. These informative videos are posted through their communication channels, including social media, helping to engage people and to have a conversation about the benefits of sustainability practices.
Kelly has been influenced by the extreme weather across the planet, saying there was no ignoring the wildfires and extreme temperatures, but rather than feeling hopeless, she focused on doing what was in her power. Her motivation was three-fold.
“I want to take meaningful action on climate change; I want to see Sterling advance our building practices towards Net Zero; and I want our customers to benefit from the operational savings of our sustainable product line,” Kelly says. “Built Green really helped Sterling move the needle—it’s offered guidance and enabled us to share our achievements and inspire others to care about and address sustainability.”
Kelly believes that, as a high-volume builder, Sterling Homes can make meaningful change to GHG emissions: helping the environment and their customers. By making steady and incremental changes to their building specifications and focusing on air tightness, they have achieved a downward trend of roughly 0.5 tonne per year per house (an average home is 14 tonnes per year in heat and domestic hot water, with roughly 4 tonnes for electricity). Meanwhile, customers benefit from reduced utility bills—and, on those homes that reach 20 per cent improvement in energy performance, mortgage loan insurance companies reward homeowners with 25 per cent rebate eligibility. The substantial rebate is discussed with new homeowners in what they call the “good-news meeting”, which often ends in happy tears. This is very much inline with Sterling’s mission to provide the opportunity for affordable home ownership without compromise.
Kelly recognizes that sustainability can be a hard sell if it comes at a high price, but if integrated strategically at full scale, it becomes what she calls “a surprising benefit and a topic of conversation”. She goes on to say that Built Green’s certification levels are simple to understand, and people can boast to their neighbors that their home is Gold or Platinum certified by Built Green Canada, which gets people thinking about their own efforts. Sustainability can have the same sort of buzz as any good topic of conversation—it spreads fast, and everyone starts asking questions.
They continue to look forward, and their next step is a net-zero-ready project to be certified through Built Green and the Canadian Home Builders' Association, which will implement a high R-value wall assembly, air-source heat pump, and their standard tight air sealing.
“We are so impressed with Kelly’s unwavering pursuit of sustainability practices that has boosted Sterling Homes into the next generation of sustainable production builders,” says Jenifer Christenson, chief executive officer at Built Green Canada. “Kelly has shown remarkable leadership in what is still a burgeoning sector of the industry—she is one of our trailblazers, embodying our mission to progress industry toward more holistic sustainable building practices.”
Sterling has been building homes in Edmonton for 70 years, and is one of the area’s bestselling, move-up builders, with four-consecutive Consumer Choice Awards. A member of Qualico Group, and now a proud BUILT GREEN® builder, they boast above-average EnerGuide performance, on average 20 per cent better than National Building Code, and exceptional airtightness, alongside a holistic approach to sustainability. This includes features like water-efficient appliances, locally sourced products, sustainably harvested lumber, products with recycled content, alongside a variety of low-maintenance and durable materials. They complete between 300 to 400 single family homes per year and offer some of the region's most affordable prices, thanks to volume purchasing power for materials, trades and land.
The Maverick Awards are another step forward in Built Green Canada's mission to progress sustainability practices and recognize leadership; three winners have been announced in conjunction with title sponsor, BC Housing. Besides the Ambassador Award, sponsored by Excel Homes, the Maverick’s awarded Kanas Corporation the Innovation Award for their Calgary-based project, Orion at Lumino Park, which is the tallest ICF building in Western Canada, with a state-of-the-art cogeneration system providing 534 KW of electricity. While the Transformational Award went to Major Homes in Greater Vancouver, who transformed from a traditional builder into a leading energy and sustainability focused builder, and catalyst to the custom home building sector.