Photos from the event:
2024 Real Property Greening + Sustainability Workshop
The 2024 RPIC Greening & Sustainability Workshop was held in Ottawa at the Rogers Centre and online on November 27-28, 2024. The event, themed “Coming Together to Tackle Tough Greening Challenges in Real Property,” brought together public and private sector experts to collaborate on solutions.
Download Program (PDF)Day 1
Speakers
Nick Xenos
Executive Director, Treasury Board Secretariat – Centre for Greening Government
Session Description
The opening keynote features Nick Xenos, Executive Director of the Centre for Greening Government, who will share his insights on how the Real Property community involved in managing the Government of Canada’s Real Property portfolio of fixed assets (over 34,000 buildings, and 20,000 engineering assets) can ensure that their work continues to contribute to a net-zero-emissions and climate-resilient Canada. Learn how the Greening Government Strategy applies to your work, and walk away with a common language and understanding of priorities.
Speakers
Craig Ginther
Senior Manager, Ottawa Public Library
Mario Gasparetti
Project Director, Real Property Branch | Directeur de projet, Direction générale des Biens immobiliers, Library and Archives Canada / Government of Canada | Bibliothà̈que et Archives Canada / Gouvernement du Canada
Paul Hussar
Program Manager Design & Construction, City of Ottawa
Peter Ashley
Sarah Patience
Senior Project Manager, Colliers Project Leaders
Session Description
The opening keynote features Nick Xenos, Executive Director of the Centre for Greening Government, who will share his insights on how the Real Property community involved in managing the Government of Canada’s Real Property portfolio of fixed assets (over 34,000 buildings, and 20,000 engineering assets) can ensure that their work continues to contribute to a net-zero-emissions and climate-resilient Canada. Learn how the Greening Government Strategy applies to your work, and walk away with a common language and understanding of priorities.
Speakers
Leslie Sims
Principal, AECOM B+P
Mark Gad
Sustainability Manager, AECOM
Session Description
The WELL Building Standard focuses on human health and well-being in the built environment, while low carbon design emphasizes energy efficiency, renewable energy use, and carbon footprint reduction. Integrating these principles creates sustainable and healthy lab environments. Research shows that lab design impacts occupant health, well-being, and productivity, with strategies like improving indoor air quality, lighting, and ergonomics being crucial. Energy efficiency can be achieved through methods like energy-efficient HVAC systems and renewable energy integration. Sustainable lab environments also involve choosing non-toxic materials, conducting life cycle assessments, and using innovative lab equipment. Water conservation, waste management, and designing adaptable lab …
Speakers
Bonnie Penfold
Manager, SEEA Secretariat, ECCC
Kayleigh Chaston-Vickers
Policy Advisor / Training Facilitator, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Session Description
In Canada, the urgency of the climate crisis is demanding a whole-of-society response, calling on professionals in all sectors to leverage their expertise in support of this complex challenge. In the real property sector, the call to action is clear: buildings, infrastructure, and land use patterns must evolve to withstand and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Real property professionals face the daunting task of juggling multiple priorities, tasked with maximizing the value of existing assets while simultaneously investing in future-proofing strategies. From retrofitting structures to enhancing green spaces, the responsibilities of real property professionals are extending far beyond traditional …
Speakers
Jean-Samuel Côté-Legault
Senior Project Manager, Natural Resources Canada
Shadnoush Pashaei
GHG and Decarbonization Specialist, AECOM Ltd
Session Description
The Canadian government is dedicated to achieving net-zero emissions in line with international sustainability goals. The Greening Government Strategy (GGS) serves as the framework for these efforts within government operations, emphasizing practices like buy clean initiatives for renovating and constructing government buildings. By 2025, major projects will be required to disclose embodied carbon within structural materials and conduct whole building (or asset) Life-Cycle Assessments (LCA) targeting 30% reduction in embodied carbon through use of recycled and lower-carbon materials, material efficiency and performance-based design standards. Canada’s Federal Real Property portfolio contains many properties designated as either a Recognized or Classified Federal …
Speakers
Kashyap Desai
Senior Engineer, LabsCanada, PSPC
Ruba Salah
Architectural Representative, Science and Technical Services Directorate, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Session Description
Led by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) since 2018, Laboratories Canada is a long-term strategy to create a world-class scientific infrastructure rooted in the principles of collaboration and innovation. The strategy is in Phase 1, which focuses on the construction of five science hubs. The effort involves reimagining new facilities based on an approach that ensures science is at the forefront of the spaces created, and that buildings are designed for multi-departmental, interdisciplinary collaboration. This presentation will introduce Laboratories Canada’s holistic approach to sustainability as part of its Design Principles for High-Performance Laboratories. The integrated whole building approach is …
Speakers
Don Grant
Senior Analyst, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Niyat Gebreab
Cleantech Programs Co-Lead, MaRS Discovery District
Session Description
Cleantech in Canada is growing exponentially. Bright minds are developing new products and services that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with new construction, major renovations, fit-ups and building maintenance. How can you find these products and integrate them into your projects as we work towards net-zero emissions? Recently, the MaRS Discovery District completed a groundbreaking study to increase access to cleantech products and services for PSPC and other government departments. Come and see what you can do for your project.
Speakers
Lynn Pilgrim
Senior Environmental Professional, CBCL
Rob Francis
Behaviour Consultant, FOCI
Session Description
Transformational change can be positive on many fronts but needs to start with a clear vision, structure, a strategic approach, commitment from leaders and accountability from everyone. Through harnessing talent from multi-disciplinary teams, CBCL has provided clients and Government Departments in understanding and working towards a number of sustainable and greening government strategies including emissions reduction, energy efficiency, solid waste reduction, water conservation, reduction of plastics, and circular economy. Having strength and expertise amongst different engineering disciplines combined with behaviour change professionals, this collective skillset has developed tools, brought about awareness and provided support to empower the workforce and advance …
Speakers
Dan Humphrey
Advisor – Climate Risk and Resilience, WSP Canada Inc.
Nicolas Sbarrato
Senior Advisor – Climate Risk and Resilience, WSP Canada Inc.
Session Description
Discover how integrating innovative risk assessments with specific tools can create a comprehensive approach to climate resilience in real property management. During this session, various innovative approaches and tools will be presented, which were developed to support climate vulnerability and risk assessments to guide property management decisions and enhance prioritization of resilience measures at federal buildings and sites. These approaches showcase a unified strategy for addressing climate change impacts by demonstrating how the synergy of strategic assessments and technological solutions can effectively manage and protect real estate assets, highlighting a cohesive methodology for advancing resilience and risk management across diverse …
Speakers
Abbey Saunders
Director, Engineering and Construction, National Research Council Canada
Session Description
This presentation will highlight the approach and challenges faced by a science-based government department when incorporating sustainability into its business practices to ensure it can meet its evolving science mandate along with its sustainability goals. A detailed overview of the National Research Council’s response to the Greening Government Directive will be provided, detailing the development of the council’s Departmental Sustainability Development Strategy and Real Property Portfolio Strategy. The focus will be on how the National Research Council has integrated new greening requirements into its business practices to ensure a sustainable future for the organization. Setting the goals is the easy …
Speakers
Iain Melvin
National Manager, Environmental Policy, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Jennifer Kolodziej
Environmental Policy Specialist, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Kate Amyot
Manager of Environmental Strategy, Department of National Defence
Michael Shoesmith
Principal Consultant, ERM
Riley Morris
Senior Environmental Advisor, Department of National Defence
Session Description
Both DND and RCMP have recently completed high-level Climate Change Risk and Vulnerability Assessments (CRiVAs) of their national real property portfolios. This engaging panel presentation will outline and compare the approaches taken to prioritize assets for further study, and integrate climate change adaptation into real property planning and operations.Participants will:Compare and contrast two unique approaches for conducting CRiVAs in asset-heavy departments.Uncover lessons learned and best practices to elevate your CRiVA approach. Discover practical examples of how CRiVA findings can be put to immediate use!
Speakers
Kyle Fridgen
Energy Officer, National Research Council of Canada
Mark Newman
Energy Officer, National Research Council of Canada
Session Description
Getting to net-zero operations in a science-based organization represents a massive challenge due to high energy use and outdoor air ventilation requirements. This presentation will provide an overview of how the National Research Council has reduced emissions by 50% since 2006 and the shift in approach required for the remaining 50%. The approach starts with the purchase of clean electricity and the completion of several high impact projects but the long-term shift is to decarbonize through recapitalization. This requires the organization to ensure every intervention in a building helps build toward the net-zero vision for the building. The approach may …
Speakers
Mark Hutchinson
Senior Vice President, Green Building Programs and Innovation, CAGBC
Paul Parsons
National Director EHS & Sustainability, BGIS
Rob Francis
Behaviour Consultant, FOCI
Tanya Doran
Western Canada Carbon Lead, Stantec
Victoria Papp
Senior Director of Strategy & Innovation, BOMA Canada
Day 2
Speakers
Thomas Mueller
Session Description
Canada Green Building Council President and CEO brings sustainability into focus for the Canadian market, drawing on the global trends influencing the building sector, and the barriers and collaborative solutions leaders in the real estate sector will need to accelerate building decarbonization and resiliency at scale.
Speakers
Denise Ming Yan Lee
Energy and Sustainability Analyst, Black and McDonald Ltd.
Session Description
The Greening Government Strategy which establishes the Government of Canada’s objectives and commitments to achieve net-zero-carbon and climate-resilient operations by 2050. Electric vehicles (EV) offer a promising solution for sustainable mobility, but the readiness of charging infrastructure remains a critical factor in their widespread adoption. A variety of federal fleet sizes, vehicle compositions and unique operational needs, making deployment and management of charging infrastructure more diverse and complex. This presentation focuses on the crucial aspects of maintenance, repair, and replacement within the EV charging ecosystem. Commencing with an overview of fleet telematics data mining to benchmark existing vehicle utilization patterns …
Speakers
Juliette Cook
Co-Founder, Ha/f Climate Design
Ryley Picken
Policy Analyst, TBS Centre for Greening Government
Session Description
Through the Greening Government Strategy, the Government of Canada has committed to decarbonize it’s real property operations and reduce the embodied carbon impact of its major construction projects. To support implementation of its commitments for low-carbon construction, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) published the Standard in Embodied Carbon in Construction in the fall of 2022 with initial requirements for concrete. In this session Ryley Picken will share how TBS is working to expand the standard to include requirements for project level assessments and construction steel, and how it is collaborating with other jurisdictions and industry experts in the …
Speakers
Nathalie Meloche
Gestionnaire de projet, Governement of Canada
Sabrina Lachapelle
Project Engineer, RETScreen Division
William Paradis
Agent de recherche, NRCan
Session Description
The Greening Government Strategy states that, by 2025, departments need to incorporate all facilities in the RETScreen Clean Energy Management Software. In this workshop, you will learn how the RETScreen Expert software platform developed by Natural Resources Canada can be used to report environmental performance, including GHG emissions, to the Treasury Board Secretariat to meet your department’s obligations.In this workshop, participants will: Review RETScreen® Expert’s benchmark, feasibility, performance, and portfolio modules.Explore various ways to import data in RETScreen® Expert and calculate GHG emissions.Discover how to create a portfolio for both real property and fleet, including water consumption and waste production.Learn …
Speakers
Kellen Wadden
Mechanical Engineer, Stantec
Michelle MacKenzie
Senior Environmental Officer, Natural Resources Canada
Session Description
As part of the Greening Government Strategy (GGS), the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) has committed to implementing low-carbon real property operations, including converting or replacing existing heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC-R) systems using high global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants, and ozone depleting refrigerants by 2030. At NRCan, this commitment almost exclusively affects refrigeration equipment (i.e., science-based walk-in refrigerators and freezers, large environmental chambers, and growth chambers). To assist NRCan’s facilities with adoption of the commitment, Stantec was engaged to complete a pilot study of equipment containing high global warming potential refrigerants at one of NRCan’s forestry centres. …
Speakers
Jeff Mitchell
Senior Associate, Diamond Schmitt
Session Description
Why Materials Matter: Decarbonizing Design” explores the critical role that material selection plays in creating sustainable, low-carbon buildings. Attendees will discover how the industry has shifted from focusing on operational energy reduction to embracing a whole life cycle approach to emission reduction, with an emphasis on embodied carbon. Through case studies of active projects across the country, this session reveals how meaningful material choices and smart procurement strategies established during the design phase can drive significant reductions in emissions, while maintaining competitive costs and ensuring project success carries through into construction.
Speakers
Arteen Haddad
Sustainability Analyst & Project Officer, Global Affairs Canada
Julie Matthews
Communications, BGIS
Soren Antosz
Deputy Director, Directeur adjoint – ecoGAC, Global Affairs Canada / Affaires mondiales Canada
Session Description
ecoGAC and BGIS will present an overview of successful sustainability projects executed under the Real Property 1 contract. This overview encompasses our process of building greening business cases, collaboration with stakeholders across various disciplines and departments, and the sharing of best practices. We will highlight key pilots, studies, and projects that have achieved success, emphasizing how collaboration with stakeholders played an essential role in their achievements. These projects are aligned to a circular economy that include: – Waste Reduction – Occupant engagement – Biodiversity – Making federal buildings more environmentally friendly Learn how you can apply these initiatives within your …
Speakers
Karim Halwaji
ESG & Nature Strategic Advisor, WSP
Session Description
Our client is an investment fund that formalized its sustainability strategy based on five pillars, one of which is Biodiversity aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals. the client has committed to be one of the official TNFD Early adopters for 2024. To support this, WSP was engaged to assess its current state of Biodiversity risk management, identify gaps, and align with TNFD requirements. The analysis highlighted the client’s position on Biodiversity and Nature, recommending actions for improvement. WSP supported the client in defining their TNFD Strategy based on key strategic levers, as well as the related roadmap and action plan …
Speakers
Nathalie Meloche
Gestionnaire de projet, Governement of Canada
Sabrina Lachapelle
Project Engineer, RETScreen Division
William Paradis
Agent de recherche, NRCan
Session Description
In this workshop, you will learn about RETScreen’s state-of-the-art Portfolio-wide Net Zero Planning Tool, designed to guide you in building a Net Zero Plan quickly and easily and provide an opportunity for you to gain hands-on practice through practical activities. You will discover the Portfolio Decarbonization Framework and understand how RETScreen® Expert’s Virtual Energy Analyzer leverages the facility-level Deep Retrofit Archetypes for deep greenhouse gas reductions.In this workshop, participants will: Review RETScreen® Expert and the new Portfolio Decarbonization Framework.Discover how to use the Virtual Energy Analyzer and its many full-facility archetypes available within the RETScreen® Expert Software.Gain hands-on practice exploring …
Speakers
Daniel Gosselin
Senior Director, Professional Services, BGIS
Paul Barton
Director, Energy & Sustainability, BGIS
Session Description
Building operations heavily depend on third-party vendors for the maintenance and optimization of Building Automation Systems (BAS) and the continuous commissioning of HVAC systems. Typically, these vendors visit sites sporadically, prioritizing urgent issues, which often results in inadequate time for thorough maintenance and system optimization. This reactive approach can lead to suboptimal system performance and increased operational costs. To address these challenges, BGIS, with PSPC’s leadership, created an internal team of BAS Specialists that leverages PSPC’s Smart Building technology to optimize performance. This team was established to ensure comprehensive support and oversight of the third-party BAS vendors to guarantee that …
Speakers
Jamie Summers
Sr Climate Change Advisor and Team Lead, WSP Canada
Paulina Pisarek
Sustainable Buildings Advisor, Global Affairs Canada
Session Description
Panelists from Global Affairs Canada’s Sustainable Buildings Program and WSP Canada will discuss the creation of a biodiversity action plan for GAC’s diplomatic real property and operations around the world. The objective of the project is to develop a plan to identify, understand, implement, and monitor realistic and feasible biodiversity conservation, restoration, and resilience of actions across the mission portfolio. The session will present the methods, outcomes, and recommendations from the creation of the action plan. It will provide general best practices around nature-positive real property management.
Speakers
John Clarke
Director, Environment and Sustainable Development, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
Michael Sugar
Director, Zero Carbon Building, Canada Green Building Council
Peter Whitred
General Manager – Accessibility, Corporate Sustainability, and ESG at Canada Post, Canada Post
Saleem Sattar
Director General Environment and Sustainable Management, Department of Defence (DND)
Session Description
With Canada’s federal real property assets under growing scrutiny for climate resilience and carbon reduction, departments, Crown corporations, and companies face the dual challenge of meeting net-zero commitments while upskilling their workforce to drive sustainable asset management. This session will offer practical insights into how sustainability standards and frameworks contribute to the foundational knowledge and skills required to achieve net-zero and low-carbon goals, focusing on federal government initiatives and asset classes. Panelists will share strategies for integrating carbon reduction in procurement, construction, and operations, providing realistic and cost-effective solutions to overcome bottlenecks in advancing the Greening Government Strategy. The panel …
Speakers
Tom Marson
Vice President of Building Technology Services & Energy, Loblaw Companies Ltd.
Session Description
Join Tom Marson, VP of Building Technical Services and Energy at Loblaw Companies Ltd., for an insightful discussion on the ambitious carbon reduction goals that Loblaw has set to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Tom will share Loblaw’s strategy to drive meaningful impact, including the company’s approach to engaging supply chain partners to reduce Scope 3 emissions. Gain valuable insights into the essential role that real property professionals play in meeting global climate commitments and driving sustainability initiatives across the value chain.
