The University of British Columbia

Purpose

Over 50% of Canada's residential buildings are over 30 years old, and more than 20% are over 50, leading to higher energy demands due to outdated construction standards. Retrofitting these buildings offers a pathway to improve energy efficiency and occupant well-being. However, retrofit strategies must be optimized to balance environmental, social, and economic factors to meet Canada's emissions reduction targets. Current approaches often need more comprehensive frameworks for assessing building upgrades, such as insulation and mechanical systems, through life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) lenses. This Project aims to develop a life-cycle thinking decision-support tool for optimizing retrofit solutions for National Building Code Part 9 buildings. It will calculate carbon emissions and costs for various retrofit packages, optimize them for energy use, carbon reduction, and cost-efficiency, and evaluate climate resilience. The results will inform the development of a web-based optimization tool.