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Existing buildings renewal strategy

Publication date: April 24, 2024

What is the Strategy?

The Existing Buildings Renewal Strategy will develop a path for today’s buildings to become more energy and water efficient, cleaner, and safer for British Columbians during events like earthquakes, wildfires and wildfire smoke, heat waves, drought, and floods.

Engagement on the Strategy

Provincial staff conducted the first phase of engagement in 2019.  During this phase, key partners provided early input on policy preferences for regulating energy efficiency and carbon emissions in existing buildings.

Between September 2021 and January 2022, a second phase of engagement was conducted to build on the first by seeking more detailed feedback on the regulatory approach and supporting measures to increase energy efficiency in existing buildings. This second phase also explored potential opportunities to increase the climate resilience of existing buildings. The discussions were informed by the approach to an alterations code recommended in the ‘Final report - Alterations to existing buildings’ prepared by the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes and the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030 released in October 2021.

Concurrently, a series of virtual engagement sessions took place between December 2021 and February 2022. The primary focus of these was to start building relationships and partnerships with Indigenous Peoples and communities to honour B.C.’s commitments under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, and to guide the provincial building code work over the long-term, including efforts to increase the climate resilience of existing buildings.

Feedback received during the engagement sessions will help inform the Existing Buildings Renewal Strategy.

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