The Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) just finalized a financial agreement that sees it committing $100 million in funding to GDI Integrated Facility Services to be invested in a variety of sustainable energy retrofits in aging and old buildings across Canada. The primary goal is for these investments to reduce the environmental impact and footprint of old structures while supporting Canada’s climate change goals.
GDI and its subsidiaries, Ainsworth and Énergère, will lead these retrofit projects using a special purpose vehicle or SPV that will finance all of the capital costs with contributions from GDI, CIB and third parties. Ainsworth and Énergère will be in charge of building and designing the services, which include initial energy audits, system design and installation, as well as ongoing energy optimization and management.
The expected result is that the retrofitted buildings will have their greenhouse gas emissions reduced by at least 30 percent per year, with an average of 37 percent across the project. The goal is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by 44,000 tonnes per year while also generating roughly 500 jobs in the Canadian trades sector.
“This partnership will enable GDI to accelerate the implementation of turnkey retrofit solutions designed to improve the efficiency of our country’s inventory of aging buildings, which is key to making communities more resilient and sustainable,” said Ehren Cory, CEO of CIB. “No one can reduce the environmental impact of aging buildings across the country on their own. This requires the public and private sectors coming together.”
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