Canadian Business Online
PROFIT magazine, December 2009

Your Next Big Thing: Growth markets: Big money in green makeovers
Building retrofits are about to explode.

Among the long list of opportunities engendered by the strengthening push to a greener economy, building retrofits are a hot spot.

Ron Dembo, CEO of Zerofootprint Inc., a Toronto-based developer of carbon-emission measurement and management software, says the construction and operation of buildings generates 40% of North America’s carbon emissions. In big cities, the numbers are far higher: 63% in Toronto and 79% in New York.

“We won’t solve the greenhouse-gas problem if we don’t deal with our buildings,” says Dembo. Poor insulation, archaic heating and cooling systems, and inefficient lighting have rendered many buildings energy hogs. Green retrofits that make buildings more efficient — such as installing energy-saving lighting, reinsulating walls and “reskinning” buildings with new exteriors — are the best way to deal with the carbon problem, says Dembo.

The value of such retrofits is set to explode, driven by ballooning energy costs and huge new government incentive programs. McGraw-Hill Construction, a New York-based market research firm, forecasted in October that green upgrades will account for 30% of all U.S. renovation projects by 2014 — six times their 2009 share. This would boost the market to US$15 billion in 2014.

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