New case study on the transformation of a major regulatory system – The Model National Building Code

This is a special post to announce the publication of a case study examining the National Building Code of Canada. The story is about its transformation from a prescriptive to an objective-based code to become more flexible and allow for easier innovation.

The Model National Building Code is the single most important regulatory infrastructure to shape all buildings in Canada. In examining barriers and obstacles to sustainability – the underlying purpose of this blog -- it is important that we understand how the building code operates. More critically, we also want to appreciate what it takes to modify or change a large regulatory instrument like the building code. That’s an essential part of the process of removing obstacles and barriers to innovation and change.

Codes are very complicated instruments. Changing the basis on which they are built is therefore a complex and lengthy process. The detailed case study, prepared by André Potworowski and three MBA students from the University of Ottawa, provides a narrative account of that historical transformation which spanned a full decade.

This is a classic story of the significant effort needed to re-design a well-established regulatory system to make it more responsive to the needs of society.

One of the key lessons learned, is that once the new code was published in 2005, key stakeholders also had to undergo change. There is a lot of learning and training required to work effectively and take full advantage of this new regulatory framework. An international workshop of code writers and regulators from 17 countries was held in Calgary in September 2009 to share experiences from the transition to new performance- and objective-based building codes. The conclusion: we still have a way to go before the transition is complete and all the benefits of the new performance-based codes are reaped.

Special thanks to Director General Bob Bowen of the National Research Council’s Institute for Research in Construction who agreed to sponsor this project, and to Denis Bergeron and Guy Gosselin who helped throughout the research, data collection and editing process of the final draft.

To access the case study, click here: The Transformation of the National Building Code of Canada: from Prescriptions to Objectives

In search of better indicators, signposts and metrics to help us achieve sustainability – the case of green housing

From our very first pre-workshop research and workshop proceedings two years ago, it became apparent that metrics and indicators were a critical element to the “Making it happen” project and the transition to a sustainable society.

Our first challenge was to define what we meant by a sustainable society, what were the vision and the metrics. So we reviewed over 50 studies, reports, and visions written over the last three decades. We also looked at a number of metrics or indicators used to define a sustainable society, such as energy consumption per capita, water consumed per capita and wastewater produced per capita, garbage generated per capita, and probably the hottest indicator, tons of carbon dioxide emitted per year.

Our main finding is that choosing indicators or metrics to describe a sustainable society, how you define them, what you actually measure and how, and achieving consensus on their relevance is a whole research area unto itself. For example, setting performance metrics or targets for greenhouse gas emissions is a highly charged political exercise – from the selection of the base year to the target year, all the way to deciding on the magnitude of the desired reductions. All these are subject to fierce debate.

More specifically, as we explored the barriers to shifting our residential housing stock to become sustainable or green, where we used the "net zero energy" houses as a benchmark, we discovered other challenges related to metrics.

For instance, a major challenge has to do with how to increase awareness of various stakeholder groups to the opportunity of green housing. This is a pre-requisite for the paradigm shift, and has to be achieved through such interventions as consumer education and information.

An essential component to achieve increased awareness is to demonstrate to all the members of the value chain (builders, vendors, real estate agents, consumers, and banks) the green value proposition, i.e. what is the real market value of an energy conserving feature. For example, most homeowners understand the positive impact on resale value of a house of a new $10,000 granite kitchen counter. Few people on the other hand appreciate the true dollar value of a $10,000 energy retrofit investment, e.g. achieved by installing extra insulation or triple glazed windows. We need clear agreed-upon indicators and metrics to capture and communicate this number down the value chain.

Another consideration is that an energy-efficient or "green" house looks no different from an ordinary house. We need some very clear, highly visible and simple indicators to show what is going on inside these energy-efficient houses, so normal people can readily see and appreciate what make them so unique and valuable.

At the end of the day, what the consumer really wants to know in real time is how much money these energy efficiency features are saving him or her, and what is the net operating cost of that property.

And when time-of-day meters become prevalent, consumers will want easy-to-read displays that make decision-making simple and easy: when to switch on major appliances, or delay it to another time of the day when the cost of electricity is cheaper. Already, gas and electric utilities are experimenting with various models.

On the financial side, the higher cost of green houses has led to a range of innovative financial instruments and business models. But an ongoing challenge is measuring and quantifying the dollar benefits of energy efficiency and environmental features, so that these can be better reflected in the market. Being able to measure the added value of "green" will facilitate the funding and sharing of the financial burden of the incremental cost of building an energy-efficient house.

In short, there is a need for a standardized simple energy efficiency and environmental performance rating system. The Energuide standard is well on the way to provide that. And NRC is developing a new energy building code. But these standards and metrics need to be visible throughout the marketplace, and should be reflected in such normal real estate transaction databases like the MLS. And building designer and inspectors, real estate agents, builders and bankers will all have to become thoroughly familiar with the new environmental and sustainability standards.

So trying to be green is good. But knowing precisely what is green, being able to measure and monitor it over the lifecycle of the product, so you can determine how well you’re doing is more critical.