“The Climate” and what we’re doing about it

This year we’ve seen it. 

All of us in BC have seen climate change firsthand.

We saw it this month when the roads washed out. We saw it when our friends and families in Abbotsford were flooded. We saw during the heatwave when we all scrambled to find the coolest parts of our house. 

The past few months have shown us what a warming climate means for British Columbia; for our home. Climate change no longer feels like a far off future. It feels like a very scary reality.

The United Nations estimates that “buildings account for more than a third of energy used on the planet, and are in many countries the largest source of GHG emissions” (UNEP 2011). By building energy-efficient homes and climate conscious construction techniques, we are fighting back.

Bcollective knows how terrifying a changing climate can be. The enormity of the problem can seem overwhelming, but that does not discourage us from innovation. Action is the antidote to anxiety. 

One way we do this is by considering the entire lifecycle of a home. First, we consider the construction process. What is the climate impact of building this home? Where do these materials come from? These considerations are often referred to as embodied energy, or embodied carbon. Embodied carbon is the carbon footprint from raw materials to construction to a home. BCollective takes important steps to reduce embodied carbon.

The second phase we consider is operational carbon. When the home is operational (aka a family lives inside) what sort of emissions does the home produce? This step is called operational carbon. BCollective designs homes to reduce operational carbon emissions. This consideration of our climate impacts helps guide all of our decisions, from design to operation. 

BCollective knows that addressing climate change requires a fundamental shift in how we design, build, and operate homes. This is why we work so hard to push the residential construction industry forward. We can see how climate change is impacting our province. We want to be part of the solution, not the problem.