Front entry of environmentally designed home in Vancouver

Green Buildings

Our goal: Lead the world in green building design and construction

The electricity and natural gas that our buildings use generate the majority of Vancouver's greenhouse gas emissions.

We are working to improve the environmental performance of buildings throughout the city.

Read about the:

Progress we've made towards our 2020 target
Actions we will take between now and 2020
Recent successes that have moved us closer to our goals

Our target: Require all buildings constructed from 2020 onward to be carbon neutral in operations

Our target: Reduce energy use and GHG emissions in existing buildings by 20% over 2007 levels

Progress we've made so far

All buildings

New buildings

All buildings

Hover on data points for more information on that year's performance.
To learn more about this metric, see the 'How We Measure Success' section below.

2015-2020 priority actions

Short-term actions for achieving our goals for 2020.
We’ll continue to use a combination of incentives and regulations to meet our green building targets.
- 2.1 - Update the retrofit requirement options in Vancouver’s Building By‐Law to further reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
- 2.2 - Launch a Green Condominium Program and expand the Green Landlord Program.
- 2.3 - Launch a Home Energy Efficiency Empowerment Program and a Home Energy Technology Program.
- 2.4 - Require annual energy benchmarking and reporting for large residential and commercial buildings.
- 2.5 - Launch a program for green industry partners.
- 2.6 - Develop a zero-emission new buildings strategy.
- 2.7 - Restructure our Green Building Rezoning Policies to specifically target GHG emission reductions and introduce mandatory GHG emission targets for new buildings.
- 2.8 - Update minimum energy efficiency requirements for new buildings in the Vancouver Building By-Law.

Our successes

Read about our successes in the 2019-2020 Implementation Update Dashboard (531 KB)

How we measure success

The metric for community building emissions relies on community-wide consumption data from:
- Electricity
- Natural gas utilities
The metric for emissions for new buildings relies on:
- Modelled energy-use intensities of various building types
- Actual and projected figures for newly built floor area in the city
We publicly report our greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory to the Carbon Disclosure Project for Cities (CDP for Cities) platform. Free registration to CDP is required to view responses.
- View our reports on CDP
This metric is maintained by the Sustainability Group within the City Manager’s Office at the City.

Get the latest Greenest City news

Sign up for our Greenest City newsletter, and get news on our progress, programs, and initiatives. You'll also be notified of local sustainability events and volunteer opportunities.

Learn more

Initiatives that are helping us reach our goal and targets

Building Retrofit Strategy - 2014

Learn how we plan to save Vancouver residents and businesses over $90 million and 160,000 tonnes of GHGs per year by 2020.

Neighbourhood Energy Strategy

The Neighbourhood Energy Strategy will help develop additional neighbourhood energy systems throughout Vancouver.