The Community Energy Association (CEA), Efficiency Canada and the Environmental Law Centre explored regulatory and incentive structures builders can use to reduce emissions in new construction in the City of Edmonton. The project built off the recommendations in the City’s Evaluation of Sustainable Development Goals Report, which directs the City to "Develop a strategic plan with incremental targets to reduce emissions in new buildings and to more effectively enforce/incent sustainable design through associated policy and regulations" and explored policies such as incorporating density/Floor Area Ratio (FAR) bonus policy into the rezoning process, the use of Green Development Standards and Green Building Rezoning Policies as possible tools to dramatically reduce emissions in new construction. 

The project addressed various challenges and barriers to implementing the suggested policies and some common challenges and misconceptions regarding low-carbon construction.

Edmonton must reduce emissions in newly constructed buildings. The project team produced a comprehensive report that outlined each regulatory and incentive option, provided the legal rationale for using the option, gave examples of where said option had been adopted in other jurisdictions and analyzed the potential GHG impact of each option if adopted in the Edmonton context. While the report is complete and has been publicly shared with partners, the full value of the analysis will not be realized as the Government of Alberta announced updates to the City Charters for Edmonton and Calgary, which materially impact the recommendations in the final report.

While municipal action is clearly important to decarbonize new buildings, a supportive provincial government seems to be a critical success factor for municipal action. CEA will be incorporating the lessons learned from the report, particularly the incentive-based tools section, into their forthcoming Climate Leaders Playbook and Net-zero Communities Accelerator projects aimed at Alberta municipalities. CEA will actively try to encourage AB municipalities down this path.