Home sales could require energy label
Environmental groups want rules in place as early as 2019
OTTAWA — Listing your home for sale in Canada could soon mean you not only have to tell people how much it costs to buy it, but also how much it costs to run it.
When 11 provinces and territories signed the Pan Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change in 2016, they agreed to look at requiring all existing to have an energy label outlining how much energy the home or building uses as early as 2019.
This week a coalition of environmental groups wrote to the federal government saying Ottawa should set that date as a hard target and help provinces implement a policy that requires the information from a home energy audit be provided when a home is listed for sale.
“It’s just another way for a home to be valued and also gives an indication of how energy efficient is this home and what kinds of improvements and therefore cost savings could I be making if I’m going to be buying this home,” Karen Tam Wu, director of the buildings and urban solutions program for The Pembina Institute, told The Canadian Press.
The recommendation was one of nearly two dozen the Pembina Institute and nine other environmental organizations made in a letter to Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna this week.
Tam Wu stressed making buildings more energy efficient is not just good for the environment, it also creates jobs and drives economic growth.
She said Europe is many years ahead of Canada, spurred on by energy prices which are as much as twice what they are in Cana da. The new carbon price being implemented nationally next year will add to the economic case for Canadians to make their homes and buildings more efficient as well.
The Pembina Institute also points to studies in the United States which have found more energy efficient buildings are more valuable to buyers and renters.
Tam Wu said the goal for new construction homes is to make them all zero-net-energy ready by 2030, meaning they produce the majority if not all of the energy they do need on their own, largely from solar panels.