BACCC successfully advocates for Green Building Standards to be implemented at the City of Hamilton

Representing the Bay Area Climate Change Council (BACCC), manager Jesse Elders successfully advocated for the implementation of mandatory Green Building Standards within the region at the City of Hamilton’s Planning Committee.

The Planning Committee voted 11-0 in support of the draft Green Buildings Standards, with a direction for further consultation on the energy efficiency and carbon emissions sections, as well as the development of an implementation plan. During the committee meeting, BACCC spoke alongside many other community members, including Environment Hamilton, a member of BACCC, each of whom ensured that the community’s support for net zero by 2050 was front and centre.

The Bay Area Climate Change Council is a coalition-in-residence administratively housed within the Mohawk College Centre for Climate Change Management, and is supported by the Cities of Hamilton and Burlington. BACCC’s strength lies in collaboration and the diverse expertise of its member organizations to harness the power of the community to advance net zero emissions across the Hamilton-Burlington Bay Area by 2050.

The City-wide Green Building Standards (GBS) include performance requirements and metrics for five impact categories, including:

• Energy and Carbon
• Ecology and Biodiversity
• Water
• Waste Management and Materials
• Community and Urban Design

The standards will apply to all site plan applications and plan of subdivisions within the City of Hamilton urban areas. The standards are expected to apply for all new residential, institutional, commercial, and industrial uses in the urban area.

BACCC supports ambitious and mandatory Green Building Standards and are supportive of the city taking a mandatory tiered approach for the region. As part of the tiered approach, BACCC would like to see the standards create a pathway to net zero operational emissions in buildings over time, which requires improvements to the standards recently before the Planning Committee.

As part of its focus and mandate, BACCC recently established a working group to look at how to develop a consistent approach to Green Building Standards across our region, including how to ensure that best practices are achieved in the standards themselves, and how to implement the standards most effectively. The goal is that the recommendations from that working group will be of assistance to city staff in the next phase of their work.

More information on the City of Hamilton’s Green Building Standards can be found here: https://engage.hamilton.ca/green-building-standards

More information on the Bay Area Climate Change Council can be found here: https://bayareaclimate.ca/