Joyce Centre for Partnership and Innovation at Mohawk College
Hamilton, ON, Canada
Project completion September 2018
“Using the Impact Estimator on a net zero energy and carbon project was eye-opening.”
– Steve Kemp | M.A.Sc., P.Eng, LEED® Fellow
Principal, Senior Energy and Sustainability Specialist
RDH Building Science Inc.
The Joyce Centre for Partnership and Innovation (JCPI) is the second project to earn certification in the Canada Green Building Council’s cutting-edge Zero Carbon Building program.
Among multiple program requirements, project teams must perform whole-building LCA and report embodied carbon. CaGBC included this ground-breaking requirement to raise awareness about embodied environmental impacts and to encourage the development of LCA skills in the sustainable design community.
According to Steve Kemp, a Senior Energy and Sustainability Specialist on the project, “The expected annual operating energy consumption of the building is a low 73 ekWh/m²-yr for a total building annual energy consumption of 657,400 ekWh/yr. The on-site photovoltaic (PV) electrical generation is expected to produce 730,000 kWh/yr for net operational CO2e emissions of negative 159 tonnes per year.”
“However,” says Kemp, “the Impact Estimator analysis showed us that our embodied carbon for the building was 4,330 tonnes of equivalent CO2. Therefore, the largest GHG impact this now-constructed building will have, has already occurred. For low carbon operation buildings with on-site generation, embodied carbon is now the elephant in the room.”
SUSTAINABILITY FEATURES:
- Winner of multiple sustainability awards.
- Very high-performance building envelope.
- No on-site use of natural gas.
- Rooftop photovoltaic system can power the whole building.
- Uses a geothermal heat pump system.
Download this case study as a PDF >
Photo Credit: Sean Coffey, Mohawk College
ADDITIONAL PROJECT PHOTOS
Photo Credit: Mohawk College
Geothermal
Solar Array
Water Cooled Heat Pumps
