In March 2020, at a joint workshop organized by the European Commission and Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN), the EU and Canada affirmed their determination promote energy efficient solutions in buildings to address the climate challenge. European and Canadian policymakers, as well as national and local experts, shared best practices, including governance and political agenda setting in the context of the “Clean Energy for All Europeans” Package and the European Green Deal. Over the course of 2020 and 2021, both the EU and Canada have affirmed their desire to continue to an exchange on key topics of interest, especially in the face of now urgent challenges of planning for a sustainable economic recovery.

Hosted by BPIE (Buildings Performance Institute Europe), the Canada-EU Exchange has continued as a series of five webinars, running monthly from March until July 2021. The webinars covered selected building policies and programmes, their implementation, best practices, and innovative policies across Canada and EU Member States. A report summarising the key outcomes from these webinars is available here.

Topics covered include:

• Webinar 1: Investing in a climate-neutral recovery – Financing  mechanisms and initiatives supporting recovery and building renovation in the EU and Canada (March 9^th, 2021)
• Webinar 2: Pathways to 2050: Deep-dive into policy strategies to boost building renovation – The Renovation Wave and the role of the Long-term renovation strategies for reaching a decarbonized building stock by 2050 (April 20^th, 2021)
• Webinar 3: Supporting local action – How governments can help businesses and public authorities make informed investment decisions; tools and solutions for local authorities to trigger renovation (May 18^th, 2021)
• Webinar 4: Financing and business models that deliver – Innovative commercial offerings to accelerate the transition to low-carbon buildings (June 15^th, 2021)
• Webinar 5: Data that Informs Efficiency Policies – Data collection, tools, and databases that ensure the best available figures to inform policymaking and benchmarking for building policy (July 6^th, 2021)

Background: The Canada-EU exchange is organised within the framework of the  Strategic Partnerships for the Implementation of the Paris Agreement (SPIPA)

The 2015 Paris Agreement, complemented by the 2018 Katowice climate package, provides the essential framework governing global action to deal with climate change and steering the worldwide transition towards climate-neutrality and climate-resilience.  The EU set out in 2017 to redouble its climate diplomacy efforts and policy collaborations with major emitters outside Europe in order to promote the implementation of the Paris Agreement. This resulted in the establishment of the SPIPA programme in order to mobilise the European know-how to support peer-to-peer learning.  

By fostering exchanges and collaboration among national and sub-national administrations, business communities, academia and civil society stakeholders, the SPIPA programme encourages and assists EU and non-European major economies in making their best efforts towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, harnessing international economic and political relations to move more quickly together towards its full implementation.  SPIPA builds on existing European climate policy dialogues and cooperation with Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and USA.