What We Heard: Retrofit Financing

In 2021 Vancouver experienced 619 deaths due to a serious heat

dome that hit the city. Many of the individuals who died were

trapped in older buildings that did not have adequate cooling.

The majority of Vancouver residents live in apartments and

condos, with 3 and 4 story buildings being the most prominent

building archetype in the city. Many of these buildings were con-

structed in the 1950s to 1980s and require deep retrofits to create

healthy and safe homes that can withstand natural disasters and

are resilient to extreme and volatile weather patterns brought on

by climate change.

In this interactive workshop, hosted by George Benson Senior

Manager of Economic Development and Market Transformation

at the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre (ZEIC) and Shauna

Sylvester, Lead Convenor of Urban Climate Leadership, a project

of MakeWay, we explored questions related to financing retrofits

in multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs), considered different

approaches to blended finance and identified the work of ZEIC,

Urban Climate Leadership and dozens of private, public and non-

profit leaders who have been co-designing solutions to address

the needs of residents living in apartments and condos.