CASE STUDY BY MARK HUTCHINSON
BLAZING THE TRAIL FOR ZERO CARBON achieving ZCB-Design certification, the Wilkinson development shows how innovation can be cultivated on a larger scale. Buildings currently account for 17 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions across the country. By 2030, Canada has vowed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels. To help the country meet its targets, the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) created the ZCB standard as a homegrown solution. The program, involving both design and performance certification, measures the carbon balance of a building and is the only one of its kind to make carbon reductions the key indicator for building performance. Here’s a look at how 355 Wilkinson achieved no-cost heating in a zero-carbon facility, creating a pathway for many types of facilities, both new and old, to follow suit. GETTING TO NET ZERO
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The Wilkinson Warehouse design started with a tight and well-insulated building envelope. Photo by East Port Properties.
The Wilkinson Warehouses are a set of five multi-tenant buildings in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Among them is 355 Wilkinson, a 65,000-square-foot warehouse that became the first one in the country to earn Zero Carbon Building - Design (ZCB-Design) certification last fall. The project marks an evolution in warehouses and, more broadly, the potential for a lower-emitting industrial sector—an asset class rarely at the forefront when building standards are created.
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sing prior knowledge of energy consumption, developer and manager East Port Properties created a
net-zero building that goes beyond the standard. The result is a space where tenants pay no central heating bills and operating costs are kept low. With a second warehouse recently
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As part of the CaGBC’s ZCB pilot program involving 15 buildings across Canada, East Port began the first phase of their warehouse development—355 Wilkinson. Given the company’s experience with energy efficiency—East Port developed the first multi-tenant warehouse in Halifax to be certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program more than 10 years ago—President Judy Wall felt it was possible to create a comfortable, leasable building with a net-zero cost central heating. The East Port team knew the key elements that would have significant impacts on building energy use: reduced air leakage, better insulation, efficient heating systems and automated controls to reduce dependence on human intervention to operate the
