Accelerating Our Journey to Net Zero Through Thought Leadership and Collaboration
Minto has been investing in electricity and natural gas reduction measures at our commercial and residential buildings for decades. But now is an exciting time as we’ve been piloting and planning a road map for the journey to a net zero carbon future by 2050.
Based on our recent deep retrofit and net zero carbon studies, decarbonizing our buildings involves two phases:
- Reducing the heating load by improving the building envelope
Older buildings typically have little insulation in the walls, inefficient windows, and leaky seals—leading to high heat loss. By prioritizing improvements to the building envelope, we help minimize the heating load and the overall impact on the electrical infrastructure and local utility grid.
- Converting to low-carbon mechanical systems
The majority of our buildings rely on high-carbon intensity natural gas-fueled boilers for heating purposes. Switching to alternative electric technologies will help make our buildings more energy efficient and reduce our greenhouse gas footprint.
Minto has completed deep retrofit studies on two of our older buildings and a net-zero carbon retrofit study on another site to better understand this process. As part of this, we’ve decided to share the study we did at our Castleview property with the public, so all building owners understand the process to decarbonize buildings. By sharing the results, we hope other commercial owners and developers will follow suit so that together we can accelerate deep retrofits and our journey to a net zero future.
Photo credits: Alert Labs
"Minto actively participates in opportunities to share learnings and collaborate with the industry including sponsorship of the CaGBC Reaching Zero Summit where I spoke on the "Planning Zero Carbon Transitions" panel. I've also had the opportunity to speak at several webinars regarding net zero carbon planning and to share the Castleview report." - Joanna Jackson, Vice President - Sustainability and Innovation
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