Recipient: George Brown College – Green Building Centre
Region: Toronto
Program: Prosperity Initiative
Total funding received: $6.6 million
Green sustainability is being explored and redefined at George Brown College’s Green Building Centre, which has become an important hub for innovative and environmentally responsible practices in the construction sector. The Centre, which is a state-of-the-art, industry-focused applied research and innovation structure, was funded in part by FedDev Ontario’s Prosperity Initiative. It’s a space where businesses and students have access to advanced research laboratories so they can work together to test, prototype and commercialize a variety of green technologies, including building automation and sustainable energy production.
“Since the Centre opened, we’ve assisted over 50 industry partners on 72 projects [that create] systems and services that will have a lasting impact on our environment,” says Dawn Davidson, Associate Vice-President of Research and Innovation for George Brown College. “Funding from FedDev Ontario was crucial in standing up the building, outfitting the labs, and providing business supports to help local industry bring their ideas to life.”
The Green Building Centre is driving Canadian innovation by focusing on construction practices that are environmentally responsible, resource-efficient and can be sustained throughout a building's life-cycle: from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and demolition.
Created to meet the innovation needs of local firms, the Green Building Centre was developed in response to the marketplace and, since its opening, has provided an environmentally smart location for the Canadian construction sector to promote green construction and sustainable building practices.
“The Canadian construction sector is currently behind the rest of the world in the research, adoption and integration of BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology into its business models,” says Davidson. “FedDev Ontario’s investment specifically helped create the College’s BIM laboratory, which has helped Canadian construction and building owners to yield big cost and time savings and significantly reduce carbon emissions.”
In addition, the Green Building Centre is helping to deliver a new generation of highly-skilled, tech-savvy graduates, equipped with problem-solving experience in real world contexts. More over, the rapidly evolving sector will provide students with increasing employment prospects in national and international markets. This further emphasizes the value of the Centre as a cornerstone for construction and engineering technologies.
This funding has enabled us to help many companies get new products and services to market, while helping our graduates gain employment.Dawn Davidson, Associate Vice-President of Research and Innovation for George Brown College
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