A NEW DAY A NEW DAY - Toronto Construction Association

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SUSTAINABILITY GREEN IS GOOD, AS THEY SAY, BUT IT CAN ALSO BE A tangled jungle for those trying to make their way through the myriad of products and services that are out there. While everyone is pushing for more sustainable building practices, those charged with getting the job done still face some tough challenges in understanding the market, its supplies and its practices. Fortunately in Ontario, help is on the way. A special centre showcasing and explaining sustainable construction technologies is set to open in Vaughan, in the southern part of the province, this fall. The Ontario Sustainable Construction and Resource Centre (OSCAR) promises to offer green building support and to lessen the knowledge gap that exists between suppliers, building professionals and the government sector on the topic of sustainable building practices. “Our goal is to increase the economic prosperity of Ontario’s green building products industry by offering services and programs that help drive innovation in our six ‘Ps’: product, practices, projects, policy, performance and service providers,” explains Julie Scarcella, the centre’s executive director, and the person who has spearheaded the project from the very beginning. A longtime sustainable building consultant and project manager through her own company, Blue Wilderness Management Group Inc., Scarcella has experienced the aforementioned ‘knowledge gap’ firsthand. She can easily cite stories reflecting the dire consequences of this information shortfall — from cutting-edge supplies gone bad due to improper storage, to projects held up for months because of government inspectors who lack knowledge on a new practice being employed. By way of example, Scarcella relates a recent experience in her own family. “My mother just built a cottage utilizing a Green Smarts A new Ontario resource centre promises muchneeded support and information on sustainable building products and practices wastewater system that was off the grid. It took two years to get approval through the municipality to get the system installed. The inspector had not [seen] that system before and the builder did not want to make reference to it. They didn’t know how to make it to code. It cost twice as much as my mother had budgeted for, and took twice as much time.” LOSSES ACROSS THE BOARD On a larger scale, building contractors face similar scenarios across the country every day, even with those supplies being manufactured right on their home turf in Canada. Like Scarcella’s mother, businesses are losing time and money in BY Roma Ihnatowycz the process, and this is where the new resource centre should be able to help. “If we are looking at time management and cost management, that is where OSCAR is going to assist,” notes Scarcella. Part of the problem is that the green manufacturing industry is so advanced that building professionals are having a hard time keeping up. As a result there is a certain disconnect, and reconnecting the dots is imperative in order to both optimize the technology and move the province forward as a leader in environmentally friendly construction. While OSCAR is a first for Ontario, many other countries, particularly in Western Europe, already have similar 26 | Builders' Digest Quarter 3 2010
SUSTAINABILITY “ ” There is a lot of fine-tuning. There is a lot that we want to do, and it’s about honing in on the key services that OSCAR needs to provide and that the industry needs — Julie Scarcella, Executive Director, Ontario Sustainable Construction and Resource Centre sustainable resource centres in place, as does British Columbia here in Canada. Ontario is now playing catch-up — a strange scenario given that more than half of the country’s construction activity takes place in the province. Ontario also ranks high in terms of LEED buildings going up. Blue Wilderness reports that it has the greatest number of registered and certified LEED projects for all building types. That’s about 36 per cent of the market, compared to British Columbia with 24 per cent and Alberta with 16 per cent. With the help of the new centre, Scarcella hopes to position the province as a true leader in the green building sector in Canada. “It’s going to be one of OSCAR’s mandates,” she says. “There are many not-for-profit organizations with their own mandates in the province, but there hasn’t been leadership from a province-wide standpoint to look at the green building sector and what it represents.” OSCAR will act as a go-to information point for a wide range of interested parties, be they architects, construction professionals, tradespeople, students or the general public. If it’s tied to green building, OSCAR will have the answers people are looking for — information that is currently not readily available through traditional channels, and certainly not all in one location. “Take a water cistern,” notes Scarcella. “When it comes to finding a manufacturer, knowing how to install it properly, the correct specifications, critical documentation — this information is nowhere to be found. It’s difficult to find the information that you need to install the cistern and to utilize it. The second problem in Canada is that we don’t have product standards to help manufacturers reduce their carbon footprints.” The centre will also be a place where various professionals — from LEED consultants to manufacturers — can meet on common ground to learn and develop new ideas and technology. One of its goals is to combine the talents of the industry by working together to advance new partnerships, and to establish a physical ‘campus’ to foster education, sharing of ideas, demonstrations and innovation in the green building industry. needed to turn OSCAR into a fully operational resource centre. To date, there has been no financial support from the government; however, Scarcella and her staff of three are still working on this. The Centre will start operation slowly, opening for limited hours and offering select services to start, while it works on building and developing others. “There is a lot of fine-tuning,” says Scarcella. “There is a lot that we want to do, and it’s about honing in on the key services that OSCAR needs to provide and that the industry needs.” In the long term, training will be a key component of the service offerings, both on site and off. Plans are in place to introduce a ‘Training on Wheels’ program to bring OSCAR’s educational component to different regions across the province. “OSCAR can help all of Ontario. This is not a City of Vaughan project or a City of Toronto project. We want to get to the other regions,” says Scarcella. “‘Training on Wheels’ means that if we’re looking at specific construction materials or renewables, we can take that training to a satellite area. We can bring the training and the knowledge to a specific remote area. This probably won’t be realized until year three, but ‘Training on Wheels’ is an important component of our business plan.” OSCAR has already been embraced by 10 key industry associations, including the Toronto Construction Association, the Toronto Green Building Council and the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. They view the resource centre as a valuable addition to the province’s green building playing field. As the project gains momentum, and opens its doors for business in the fall, everyone will be able to benefit from its services. |BD GRADUAL START OSCAR will operate as a not-for-profit corporation, and is expected to open in a limited capacity this fall, while continuing to seek necessary funding. Scarcella has invested more than $200,000 to get things off the ground; however, more funding is Builders' Digest Quarter 3 2010 | 27
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