By Derek Sankey, Calgary Herald
September 2, 2010

 
According to the Environmental Careers Organization (ECO) Canada, there are 450,000 commercial and institutional buildings in Canada and new ones being constructed each year. Pictured: Grant Trump, president of ECO.

David Silburn is on the ground floor of the trend toward green construction among home builders and what he's doing on campus at SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary has significant implications for trade workers across Canada.

He's designing, fabricating and constructing "net zero" houses -- homes that produce as much energy as they consume -- by working with Avalon Master Builder, a company that plans to provide new net zero houses to its customers at no extra cost by 2015.

"There are certainly new skills being required by the trades," says Silburn, who's overseeing the initiative on campus as a research associate in SAIT's Green Building Technologies Applied Research program.
 

Their efforts are part of a growing trend among the skilled trades to learn the latest green construction techniques and materials, as well as for the operators of large commercial and institutional buildings.
 

"There are some champions in the market working hard and doing great things, while we're trying to work away at the leading-edge stuff," says Silburn. His team shipped one of their green homes to a suburban community in Calgary.
 

Green construction has potentially massive implications not just for new home construction, but for commercial and institutional building and retrofitting projects. 
 

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