Final 2015 LEED certification numbers show steady growth in Canadian green building
By On-Site Magazine
Construction Infrastructure LEED Canada green building infrastructure LEED
Dunbarton High School in Pickering, ON, was named Greenest School on Earth.
The Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) saw a steady increase in LEED certifications in 2015, a result of green building’s growing impact as one of the most effective solutions to climate change. A total of 527 LEED projects certified between January 1 and December 31, bringing the grand total of certified projects in Canada to 2,576 – a total of 34,054,312 million sq. meters of certified space.
Among the most notable stats for the year was the growth of certifications at LEED’s most rigorous levels, Gold and Platinum, which increased over 2014 by 6.2 and 28.6 per cent, respectively. Canada also saw its first LEED v4 certified project in October, and ended the year with a total of 13 projects registered under the newest version of the rating system.
Totals by LEED certification level for 2015 were:
- 97 LEED Certified
- 187 LEED Silver
- 207 LEED Gold
- 36 LEED Platinum
“In many ways 2015 was a watershed year for green building, in Canada and on a global scale, culminating in the COP 21 ‘Buildings Day’ in December,” says Thomas Mueller, president and CEO of the Canada Green Building Council. “As the voice of the green building industry in Canada, we are now focusing on the federal government to leverage green building as an actionable solution to reaching Canada’s climate change commitments. The upward trend of Gold and Platinum level certifications is a positive sign that the industry is capable and ready to achieve more ambitious performance targets in new and existing buildings. However, we must engage more building owners to take action through energy benchmarking and verified performance improvements.”
The top provinces for LEED certification across Canada in 2015 were :
- Ontario – 198
- Quebec – 121
- British Columbia – 83
- Alberta – 75
- Manitoba – 19
- Nova Scotia – 17
Among the most notable milestones for green building in 2015:
- Edelweiss House in Wakefield, QC, became the first project to certify under the LEED v4 rating system in Canada;
- Ontario certified its 1000th project, which included 150 King Street West, a 28-storey office tower in downtown Toronto which earned LEED Gold EB:O&M Recertification – the second project in Canada to do so;
- Five Toronto 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games facilities earned LEED certification prior to the start of the games;
- Dunbarton High School in Pickering, ON, was named Greenest School on Earth; and
- Canada was named the top country for LEED projects internationally by the USGBC for the second year in a row.
A searchable LEED project database with further detail, including project scorecards and photos can be viewed on the CaGBC LEED Project Profiles webpage.
