Financing Your Greening Initiatives
Over the last decade, the real-estate market has been adapting to a progressively “green” global attitude. Some of the biggest players in the industry are opting for energy efficiency, sustainability, and eco-friendly alternatives. Unfortunately, many apartment owners are still associating these words with complexity, confusion and extra costs. Read more >

Building Retrofits Gain Incentives and Attract Discussion
Building retrofits are great ways to reduce energy costs. Depending on the starting point, savings of 20 per cent, 30 per cent or 40 per cent are often available. The key is an energy audit of the building to evaluate where the best savings can be achieved. Qualified energy consultants or engineers can often suggest many approaches, while at the same time ensuring that the recommended changes will work together so that a landlord does not create new problems while solving old ones. Read more >

"Green Audits" - Basic skills for the building owner
Landlords can, with some very basic skills and very inexpensive tools, perform a basic information gathering green audit as a starting point to their energy conservation plan. Upon completion of an audit they will be in a good position to prioritize their green energy savings in terms of necessity and availability of funds. Read more >

Time to get energy costs under control
The Ontario Government has recently announced that they are expecting electricity costs to increase at more than double the rate of inflation over the next several years. This will have a very significant impact on the profitability of businesses and the return we can expect on our investments. The economic pressures causing the energy costs to increase are real and not expected to subside any time soon. Although we can’t prevent the rising costs it is completely within our control to minimize their impact and fortunately the government is providing some support. Read more >

Sustainability measures pay off
Greening a building isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when apartment owners think of boosting the bottom line.  Many owners think advertising a property as a green building might attract additional rental applications, but question whether the payback justifies the extra costs. Read more >

Futuristic solutions for the greening of apartment buildings
Studies show that commercial and residential buildings consume about 40 per cent of our total energy and 70 per cent of our electricity, while accounting for approximately 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and millions of tons of construction and demolition waste. Read more >

Children, toxins, energy and renovations
As someone now living through a major renovation, I know that this is a big job. There are many complex factors to balance, to get the desired improvements, more or less on time and on budget, and preferably without too many surprises. Read more >