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The Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada (BOMA) has announced the latest edition of their Net Zero Challenge Awards. The initiative, launched in 2017, aims to recognize the efforts of property managers and builders to move towards energy neutral or carbon neutral operations. Existing buildings and the businesses within them currently use 40% of global energy, and the shift towards net zero buildings offers a compelling opportunity to significantly reduce carbon emissions. Net-zero buildings both produce and consume their own energy and do not take any energy from the existing infrastructure. Building managers must submit 12 month's worth of energy data for consideration.
Awards are doled out in three categories; Best in Class, Innovation, and Most Improved. The Best in Class award recognizes the leaders in the industry moving towards net zero operations and focuses largely on energy consumption. Over the course of the year, the building's energy consumption must be less than 6 equivalent kW hours per-square-foot in order to gain top points. The energy use intensity metric will only take into consideration the energy used from external sources, not the energy produced and consumed by the building itself.
The Innovation category largely focuses on the new technologies and strategies a building is using to reduce their energy consumption. The category's focus is less on the actual impacts of the innovation but rather celebrating the risk-taking spirit that comes with going beyond the ordinary.
Finally, the Most Improved award will be weighted heavily on the year-over-year reduction in emissions. To gain full points a building must reduce their energy consumption by over 50%.
Benjamin Shinewald, President and CEO of BOMA Canada said that the "Net Zero Challenge is a key element in reaching something that we can only imagine today, but that will be increasingly within reach tomorrow: a world where net zero buildings are commonplace". The deadline for new entries to the Net Zero Challenge is July 15th, more information regarding submission criteria can be found here. The winners will be announced September 2019 at the BOMEX National Awards Gala.
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