We’re Hiring! Program Coordinator – Building Decarbonization
September 11, 2023
The ZEBx 5-Year Anniversary Celebrations
September 18, 2023
Celebrating Five Years of Market Transformation and Climate Leadership
Zero-carbon building leaders converge in Vancouver to toast the Zero Emissions Building Exchange
Press Release / Sep 18, 2023 – For Immediate Release
COAST SALISH TERRITORIES I VANCOUVER, BC – Hundreds of this province’s built-environment decarbonization leaders came together this past week to recognize and celebrate their collective work advancing zero-carbon buildings.
The occasion was the fifth anniversary of the Zero Emissions Building Exchange (ZEBx), a program of the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre (ZEIC)—one of a network of seven regional centres that work to support ambitious and innovative climate action across Canada.
A capacity crowd of 200+ packed a downtown Vancouver venue on the evening of September 14. Dr. Peter Robinson, ZEIC Chair, kicked off the festivities, alongside ZEBx Director Roberto Pecora and ZEIC Executive Director Melina Scholefield. City of Vancouver Councillor Adriane Carr and Sean Pander, the City’s Green and Resilient Buildings Manager, also contributed remarks.
Attendees included homebuilders and developers, building owners and managers, construction and HVAC contractors, equipment manufacturers and suppliers, architects and engineers, and representatives of financial institutions, utilities, and universities and training institutions. Photos of the event are available below.
ZEBx and ZEIC would like to thank the evening’s sponsors: AME Group, B Collective Homes, Capital Home Energy, Ecolighten, Introba, Kingdom Builders, Naikoon Contracting, OPEN Technologies, Peak Construction Group, QMC Meters, Recollective Consulting, Small Planet Supply, and ZGF.
Backgrounder: What They’re Saying
Roberto Pecora, Director, ZEBx, a program area of ZEIC:
“Celebrating ZEBx’s 5th anniversary with such an illustrious group of people from the building industry and governments was a privilege. It’s a testament to how far we’ve come in five short years, as well the increasing impact and momentum we have as BC’s building decarbonization hub. We look forward to continuing to support industry and governments in reducing the carbon footprint of the building sector for the sake of future generations.”
Melina Scholefield, Executive Director, ZEIC:
“Through ZEBx, we often think about how we employ and deploy new technologies and practices but, ultimately, our success is dependent not on the technologies but the people. Our ZEBx community is imagining a decarbonized building sector and demonstrating leadership, curiosity, and support for each other, using determination, skills, and creativity. I am inspired by the many incredible people coming together to be part of a thriving ZEBx community and grateful for the momentum they are building towards a net zero future.”
Adriane Carr, Councillor, City of Vancouver, and Board Director, ZEIC:
“While ZEBx began as a City of Vancouver initiative, the communities ZEBx serves today go well-beyond Vancouver. Over the past five years, ZEBx has truly become a hub for decarbonization in the building sector, collaborating broadly to help build civic and industry capacity, facilitating peer-to-peer learning, bridging silos and helping to overcome barriers in support of net zero buildings and retrofits. As an elected official, I appreciate that the ZEBx community showcases what is possible, promising projects, technologies, and practices, and provides inspiration and opportunities for learning from real world experiences about what works, challenges to be overcome and what we can do to accelerate and scale up net zero actions.”
Sean Pander, Green and Resilient Buildings Manager, City of Vancouver:
“Advancing climate and energy performance requirements for buildings is critical if we are going to successfully respond to the climate emergency. Adopting new policies depends on industry’s confidence that they can meet these new expectations; this confidence is not earned by academic papers and government studies but through the exchange of ideas with peers that have already succeeded in changing their standard way of doing things. ZEBx has been very effective at bridging the aspirations of public policy makers and industry norms by showcasing the successful innovation of industry leaders and fostering this exchange.”
Backgrounder: ZEBx Timeline
June 2018: The City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Regional Construction Association, and a series of partners and funders launch the Zero Emissions Building Exchange (ZEBx) with a mission to “increase knowledge, capacity and passion for cost-effective, attractive, low energy residential and commercial buildings.”
July 2018: ZEBx with the City of Vancouver and CleanBC launches NearZero, which incentivises those building high-performance homes to share learnings and performance data for research purposes.
January 2019: In collaboration with C40 Cities and the City of Vancouver, ZEBx launches the Women4Climate Mentorship Program. The program matches mayors, city officials, business leaders, and civil society organization leaders with emerging women leaders.
September 2021: ZEBx launches the Building to Electrification Coalition (B2E), a member-driven coalition working to identify and address barriers to electrification and take actions that contribute to a meaningful market shift to low-carbon building electrification.
December 2021: ZEBx launches the BC Green Building Calendar. More than 80 organizations across the province now post hundreds of events and training opportunities.
March 2022: ZEBx adopts the Carbon Leadership Forum British Columbia (CLF BC), an organization that leads the province in building capacity to reduce embodied carbon in buildings.
April 2022: ZEBx officially joins and becomes a program of the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre, part of a network of seven Low Carbon Cities Canada (LC3) urban decarbonization hubs across Canada.
May 2022: The ZEBx Podcast debuts, bringing the organization’s popular Decarb Lunch program—along with recorded dialogues and webinars—to national and international audiences.
Backgrounder: About ZEBx and ZEIC
- ZEBx strengthens the public, private, and civic capacities to build and enable zero-emission buildings in Metro Vancouver and British Columbia.
- It is an industry hub that facilitates knowledge exchange to accelerate market transformation.
- It fosters innovation through dialogues, project tours, curated research, training, and demonstrations.
- ZEBx works closely with multiple levels of government and all facets of the industry, including developers, builders, architects, designers, contractors and trades spanning single family homes to high rise residential and commercial buildings.
- Since 2018, ZEBx has hosted more than 407 events, published 25+ reports and industry playbooks, as well as 29 case studies and 26 podcasts, while collaborating with more than 1,150 people and organizations and adding 4over 3700 newsletter subscribers.
- The Zero Emissions Innovation Centre (ZEIC) is an independent non-profit and charitable organization that is in turn a part of the Low Carbon Cities Canada (LC3) network established by the Government of Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).
- ZEIC works to catalyze, accelerate, and scale climate action innovation in the building, transportation and renewable energy sectors through a combination of granting, partnerships, research, capacity building, and impact investing.
Contact
Photographs
All Photo Credits to Matt Law info@mattlaw.ca. Photographer must be credited, including any social media use. Any personal use requires photographer’s permission.
Adriane Carr, Councillor, City of Vancouver, and Board Director, ZEIC, spoke about the impact of ZEBx to the crowd at the ZEBx 5-Year Anniversary Celebrations on Thu Sep 14, 2023. Photo Credit: Matt Law info@mattlaw.ca. Photographer must be credited, including any social media use. Any personal use requires photographer’s permission.
Roberto Pecora, Director, ZEBx, a program area of ZEIC, spoke about the many successes since 2018 at the ZEBx 5-Year Anniversary Celebrations on Thu Sep 14, 2023. Photo Credit: Matt Law info@mattlaw.ca. Photographer must be credited, including any social media use. Any personal use requires photographer’s permission.
Melina Scholefield, Executive Director ZEIC, chatted with Nadine Jarry, Program Coordinator ZEIC, and other guests at the ZEBx 5-Year Anniversary Celebrations on Thu Sep 14, 2023. Photo Credit: Matt Law info@mattlaw.ca. Photographer must be credited, including any social media use. Any personal use requires photographer’s permission.
Dr. Peter Robinson, ZEIC Chair , welcomed the 200+ crowd at the ZEBx 5-Year Anniversary Celebrations on Thu Sep 14, 2023. Photo Credit: Matt Law info@mattlaw.ca. Photographer must be credited, including any social media use. Any personal use requires photographer’s permission.
Sean Pander, Green and Resilient Buildings Manager, City of Vancouver, at the ZEBx 5-Year Anniversary Celebrations on Thu Sep 14, 2023. Sean Pandar helped set the stage for ZEBx becoming reality in 2018. Photo Credit: Matt Law info@mattlaw.ca. Photographer must be credited, including any social media use. Any personal use requires photographer’s permission.
Members of the ZEIC team at the ZEBx 5-Year Anniversary Celebrations on Thu Sep 14, 2023, (from L to R standing) Anna Henderson, Sarah Lusina, Nadine Jarry, Natalie Douglas, Kim McClymont, Roberto Pecora, Mariko Michasiw, Gordon Patrick Newell, Caroline Butchart, (from L to R front row) Melina Scholefield, Darla Simpson. Photo Credit: Matt Law info@mattlaw.ca. Photographer must be credited, including any social media use. Any personal use requires photographer’s permission.
Guests arriving at the ZEBx 5-Year Anniversary Celebrations on Thu Sep 14, 2023. There was a crowd in excess of 200 people, many from organizations who have supported and collaborated with ZEBx since 2018. Photo Credit: Matt Law info@mattlaw.ca. Photographer must be credited, including any social media use. Any personal use requires photographer’s permission.
END
