Built Green Canada Launches Challenge to Municipalities

City Mayor Proclaims June 4 BUILT GREEN® Day

Edmonton, AB, June 4, 2014 — coinciding with National Environment Week, Built Green Canada issues a challenge to municipalities across the country to encourage green building as part of their sustainability building policies.

Municipalities that incent builders to build more sustainably with a program like BUILT GREEN® reduce the load on civic infrastructure such as water, electrical, waste, and so forth. These savings can offset a rebate or incentive and furthermore, may provide a competitive edge from one municipality to another. Moreover, incentives may encourage builders to develop in a particular community and with more builders in a community, revenue for permits and ongoing property taxes increases.

Given the various green building programs available across the country, Built Green Canada recognizes municipalities may not be able to favour one over the other and therefore, encourages municipalities to include BUILT GREEN® programs as an option to endorse, along with other sustainability programs. The collective efforts of government, builders, developers, homeowners, and others focused on sustainable residential construction make a difference to environmental conservation, and ultimately leave more for future generations.

This year’s National Environment Week theme of “Strengthening Our Environment Today for Tomorrow” and the Government of Canada’s strong action to preserve and enhance the natural environment through science, such as maintaining air and water quality is well suited to Built Green Canada and its very foundation. “While energy efficiency is a fundamental component of these programs, integrating the EnerGuide label through Natural Resources Canada, Built Green Canada goes beyond energy efficiency moving the industry toward a more holistic approach to sustainable building practices,” says Jenifer Christenson, Built Green Canada Executive Director. It is an approach that includes the preservation of natural resources, reduction of pollution, ventilation and air quality, and the improvement of home durability.

The call out begins in Edmonton, where Built Green Canada’s head office is located. It’s also where Mayor Don Iveson has a long-term view to the environment and has been a strong proponent of the city’s “The Way We Green: Environmental Strategic Plan—a plan that has won provincial and federal awards, and which has led to the development of green communities such as Oxford: a demonstration of the City of Edmonton’s commitment to sustainable design and environmental building practices. “We work with a number of progressively minded municipalities, builders, and service providers across the country that are focused on a sustainable future,” says Christenson. “We want to recognize all those committed to building greener and intend that other municipalities will make the same proclamation in the years ahead.” Municipalities, builders, and other involved in residential building construction are encouraged to let us know—follow this challenge on Twitter: #BuiltGreenDay

Built Green Canada is an industry-driven organization offering programs for single family and high density projects, with a renovations and a communities program under development. As such, the programs are informed by industry to ensure they’re robust, credible, and achievable.

Since its inception, Built Green has enrolled and completed over 20,500 BUILT GREEN® certified homes, represented in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and now in Saskatchewan and Manitoba—including the units in multi-storey projects, the total is over 23,500. We are leading the way in sustainability performance for residential home construction.

For more information:

Jenifer Christenson, Executive Director

Built Green Canada

Phone: 780.485.0920

Email: jchristenson@builtgreencanada.ca

Built Green Canada promotes, encourages, enables and recognizes environmentally responsible residential home construction practices. Founded in 2003, the organization is based out of Edmonton, Alberta.