The places where we live, work, play, and gather are a critical piece of Canada's transition to a net-zero economy. We can greatly decrease greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption in our building sector. To do so, we need to transform how we design and construct buildings in Canada.

This gives a new role for building energy codes, and this new role is exemplified in Canada's proposed 2020 national model codes which offer a tiered path to improved energy performance. Lower tiers are similar to today's minimum standards. Each higher step moves towards the end goal of a net-zero energy ready standard.