Three things no one is telling you about the business case for retrofits

Open up your spreadsheets, it’s time for some fun with business case analysis.

Consider the building owner of a high-rise apartment looking for ways to save money to pay for repairs. She might evaluate replacing all lighting in the common areas with LEDs, which could significantly reduce her monthly electricity costs. But LED lights in every building in Canada is not going to get us to our climate targets, and, installing them alone won’t create the positive spinoff benefits on health, affordability, and local jobs we need as thousands of Canadians are looking for work.

We need deeper retrofits targeting over 40% energy savings – so picture those LED lights in combination with sealing and building envelope improvements, heat pump installations, fuel-switching, and more. The average building owners’ mind is spinning at the financial and technical complexity, not to mention their obvious question – what’s in it for me? We can’t rely on the goodwill of individual building managers, with their many priorities, to reduce carbon emissions and create great jobs. To reach our 2030 carbon target, we need to implement these deep retrofit measures across an estimated 44,000 units per year just in the GTHA’s multi-residential building sector alone. How do we get to that kind of scale when the business case and financing options are so out of reach for building owners?

In a new report, The Case for Deep Retrofits TAF answers these questions and makes recommendations on how governments, utilities, and green building industry professionals can improve the business case and help property owners and operators say yes to retrofits. Here’s what we found:

1. Crunch the right numbers

First, industry professionals need to help the building owner along to get the full picture of the return on investment. The business case can be improved dramatically for most projects simply by including often overlooked but extremely applicable numbers, like avoided equipment replacement costs and savings due to reduced tenant turnover (e.g. happy tenants in comfortable temperatures are less likely to move out). For a quick look, see the graphic below. The report details how to calculate these savings and introduces financial tools like Life Cycle Cost Analysis.

2. Increase financing options and awareness

Second, we need government and utilities to present the building owner with financing options and supports that accurately value the full range of benefits that retrofits offer residents and the wider public, illustrated on the top half of the graphic below. Building owners often don’t know what financing options are available, nor can they be expected to bear the full capital investment for outcomes they can’t monetize. To achieve deeper savings and maximize the many public benefits, we recommend building awareness and training about financing options for building owners and the green building industry, and creating additional financial supports, policies, and programs.

3. Simplify delivery

To streamline services for building owners and deliver deep retrofits at the necessary scale, we also advocate for a network of retrofit delivery centres. There are big investments coming for large-scale energy retrofits, as announced last week by the federal government, so we need to address a critical service gap to get to implementation. A joint effort from government and service providers could:

• • Create demand and sustain workforce development and training
  • Support property managers and engage tenants to successfully integrate all benefits
  • Maximize the multi-solving benefits of retrofits, like improving housing affordability, improving social equity and health
  • Improve the cost-effectiveness of deep energy retrofits through aggregation and standardization

While the business case can be complex, with a concerted effort between government, utilities, and retrofit service providers, we can make the case for all buildings to target at least 40% savings. This is a tremendous opportunity for Canadians to build back better, create local economic prosperity, and healthier, more resilient homes for people.

Read the full report here: The Case for Deep Retrofits