City receives award for building industry workshops to help improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon pollution

The City of Abbotsford is proud to announce it has received the Industry Partner of the Year award from the Canadian Home Builder's Association Fraser Valley in recognition of its partnership to deliver a series of educational workshops to building industry professionals on the BC Energy Step Code. The Fraser Valley Energy Step Code Super Series was led by the City of Abbotsford to advance the construction of high-performance buildings in the community by providing training and education on the Energy Step Code to help improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon pollution.

The five hands-on workshops were hosted in May and June 2024 and focused on Energy Step Code and compliance best practices, Low-TEDI building envelopes, airtightness, essentials of heat pumps, and adapting an integrated design. Participants included 170 architects and design firm staff, energy advisors, developers, custom and production home builders, renovators, and building inspectors.

"Building in Abbotsford is booming as we reach record breaking construction values this year," said Mayor of Abbotsford Ross Siemens. "As a City, our goal is to encourage responsible growth while ensuring a more sustainable future for us all. This award reflects our effort to support local building industry professionals to use energy-saving building approaches while continue to push for more growth and expansion through the city."

Part of the BC Building Code, the BC Energy Step Code sets energy efficiency performance requirements for new construction and groups them into "steps" toward achieving its net zero energy-ready goal. In order to comply with the BC Energy Step Code, builders use energy software modelling and on-site testing to demonstrate that both their design and the constructed building meet the requirements of the standard.

The Fraser Valley Energy Step Code Super Series supports the City of Abbotsford's goal of minimizing environmental impacts and addressing climate change in our community while we continue to grow. Other achievements in this area include the ongoing implementation of the Green Fleet Strategy to reduce corporate transportation and equipment emissions, upgrading City streetlights to LED to save energy and improve lighting quality throughout the community, embarking on a $10 million heat recovery and optimization project at the Abbotsford Recreation Centre, piloting the use of renewable natural gas (RNG) in heating systems at select City facilities, launching a comprehensive recycling contamination education and enforcement program, expanding active transportation amenities through construction of the Montrose Transit Exchange, and enhancing water restrictions to support resilience in citywide water usage.

The workshops were funded in partnership by FortisBC and BC Hydro and supported by the City of Mission, City of Chilliwack, Community Futures South Fraser, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Canadian Homebuilder's Association Fraser Valley.

Quick facts:

• Year-to-date, the City issued building permits worth nearly $700 million in estimated construction value. This will be a record year with the previous high being 2019 with $565 million.
• The BC Building Code currently requires Step 3 of the BC Energy Step Code for Part 9 buildings and Step 2 for Part 3 buildings, equating to a 20% improvement in energy efficiency. Step 4 is scheduled to be put in effect by 2027, and will result in a 40% improvement in energy efficiency.

For more information contact:

Aletta Vanderheyden
Communications and Public Relations Manager
City of Abbotsford
E: [email protected]