Canada needs to rapidly increase both affordable and sustainable housing. How can we optimize design for both? 

The urgent need for affordable, new housing is often perceived as being at odds with the pursuit of sustainable, low-carbon housing designs. However, this is not necessarily true. We now possess the technology to significantly reduce both operational and embodied emissions in new residential buildings, often for a relatively incremental cost.

We need Canada’s building codes to reflect and promote design solutions that not only reduce emissions but also support affordability.

To achieve this, the Climate Smart Buildings Alliance (CSBA) is collaborating with Canada’s National Research Council on a project aimed at creating Part 3 housing models that optimize building design for lifetime carbon (both operational and embodied) and lifetime consumer cost.

By identifying optimizations and testing them in a series of living labs, we aim to elevate the conversation so that builders, governments, and consumers recognize the long-term value of low-carbon, high-performance homes.