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14 B C B U S I N E S S . C A M A R C H 2 0 24 By traditional business standards, it looked like a questionable idea. It was 2014 and Cadillac Fairview, a national com- mercial real estate firm, was about to install a cutting-edge geo-exchange system. The project would involve drilling 30 boreholes 400 feet below the parkade at 777 Dunsmuir Street—a mixed-use tower built in 1990 in the heart of downtown Vancouver—and inserting a piping system that would help remove heat in the summer and provide it in the winter. The geothermal retrofit would reduce the nearly 200,000-square-foot building's carbon emissions from heating by 85 percent. Still, the $2-mil- lion project was a tough sell, especially since it would take more than a decade to recoup the cost. "People weren't talking about carbon reduction and looking at these new, unique technologies for office build- ings. And an 11-year payback? People wouldn't even look at projects like that," recalls Lillian Tummonds, Cadillac Fairview's VP of office opera- tions for Western Canada. "Our finance department was like, 'No.' But we said, 'You know what? We want to be bold. We want to try out these new technologies.'" At the time it was a lonely bandwagon, but now the push to decarbonize is rapidly gathering steam across North America. According to a City of Vancouver report, the burn- ing of natural gas in buildings accounts for a whopping 57 percent of the total carbon emissions generated in Van- couver. And because of a new city bylaw that comes into effect this year, owners of large commercial properties are going to have to reckon with those emissions—and soon. Under the bylaw—the first of its kind in Canada, and inspired by similar measures in cities like New York, Boston and Washington, D.C.—owners of buildings over 100,000 square feet must report their emissions starting June 1. Beginning in 2026, they'll need to gradually limit those emissions to the point where, by 2040, all exist- ing large office and retail build- ings will be zero-emission. To start, the regulations will only apply to existing office and retail buildings—roughly 200 in Vancouver—but the city is looking at expanding to oth- er property types. Meanwhile, provincial rules require that all buildings constructed in 2030 or later be zero emission. For the most part, owners have been accepting of the change, says Micah Lang, team lead for large existing build- ings in the City of Vancouver's sustainability group. "These buildings are often occupied by large multina- B U S I N E S S C L I M AT E OUT OF OFFICE The push to decarbonize real estate is heating up tional companies that have set their own very high corporate sustainability goals," says Lang. "So they're looking to lease space and buildings that are also going to be decarbo- nizing." Kenneth McNamee, princi- pal with Impact Engineering, has noticed a definite uptick in interest in decarbonization. His firm has worked on a host of major upgrades in Van- couver, including at St. Paul's Hospital, Mount Saint Joseph Hospital and the Brock Fahrni Pavilion, where it achieved an 80-percent reduction in carbon emissions thanks to a heat recovery chiller, which captures warmth from exhaust air and uses it for heating and hot water. by Jennifer Van Evra Jennifer Van Evra is an award-winning Vancouver journalist, broadcaster and UBC writing instructor.