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Nine of 17�Թ���’s largest general contractors have banded together to tackle a significant source of GHG emissions – construction jobsites.

At the same time, Aecon, Bird, Chandos, EllisDon, Graham, Ledcor, Multiplex, PCL and Pomerleau, are aiming to prove that the pursuit of sustainability does not have to come at a cost premium but in fact it’s a path to greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

On Oct. 22 their Canadian Construction Sustainability Alliance, in partnership with the Transition Accelerator, released a report titled Growing and Greening Canadian Construction: Five Ways for Canadian Construction Companies to Build More and Emit Less.

The report draws on data from more than 600 projects to analyze construction site emissions and identifies five priority actions for the sector.

EllisDon project manager Jolene McLaughlin said in an interview the initiative was launched two years ago with sustainability leads agreeing that, as with safety, the goal of achieving sustainability should not be competitive. If pursued jointly, she explained, “we’re going to make the industry better.

“To help move this thing forward is very exciting,” said McLaughlin.

Priority actions

McLaughlin said EllisDon is committed to all five of the priority actions:

• Electrify light-duty vehicles and small equipment;
• optimize and electrify temporary heating;
• adopt renewable diesel as a bridge fuel;
• connect sites to grid power instead of diesel generators; and
• deploy hybrid and electric excavation equipment. 

“I’ve seen over and over again where everybody tries to claim that sustainability always has to cost more,” said McLaughlin. “The way I look at it, it’s more efficient practices. If we can be smarter in how we use materials, smarter in how we use fuel, then we’ll reduce our costs, and then we can start to afford some of the newer technologies that need some time to scale, and some testing and R and D work.”

The report suggests the five actions could reduce industry-wide jobsite emissions by up to 75 per cent if fully implemented by 2040 while improving cost control, safety and reliability.

Early adoption could deliver a 25-per-cent reduction at a national level by 2030.

McLaughlin said members of the alliance got together in January 2024 in Montreal and started sharing what they had learned on their sites. Each firm discussed different solutions to reducing carbon, a set of lessons learned and best practices emerged.

“We’re kind of building off each other, which has been really awesome,” she said.

Sharing at CCA symposium

Audrina Lim, director of sustainable construction with Chandos, discussed her experiences with the alliance at the first Best Practices in Construction Symposium hosted by the Canadian Construction Association in Toronto last month.

“This is super exciting for us,” she said. “Every time we get together on these meetings, we actually share knowledge and we share learning.”

The construction sector has matured in its drive towards sustainability, Lim said, and has reached the point where there are numerous solutions and data, making optimization the next step.

“We get better at it, because if we just tweak a few things, the next round, we’re going to be highly efficient. That’s the sort of theory we’ve been pushing, and we’re seeing some benefit,” she said.

Fellow conference panellist Andrea Linsky, director of emissions-neutral buildings with Alberta Ecotrust, said on a market level, the industry already knows how to create large net-zero buildings and net-zero homes. There is a growing list of funding sources such as RBC and the 17�Թ��� Infrastructure Bank. Next, she said, is finding industry partners and perfecting what is already working.

“We’re seeing some players in the Alberta market who might have a portfolio of lots of multifamily residential buildings, who are experimenting with multiple different things that are happening,” said Linsky. “I mentioned four or five different auditing tools. They’re breaking up their portfolio, trying out 10, 15 buildings with each of the tools to figure out what is the best fit for their organization.”

McLaughlin said the nine GCs have the capacity to show the rest of the industry what works and help smaller firms move forward.

“We’re hoping that what we’re doing is educating them on opportunities and ways that they can start to optimize and take advantage of new technologies, new solutions, new ways of performing,” she said.