Most of Canada’s homes were built for a different climate and a different era of energy costs. The gap between how those homes perform and what current building standards require is significant, and closing it through better insulation, air sealing, and a more systematic approach to the building envelope is among the most practical and impactful steps we can take to reduce emissions at the scale Canada’s climate commitments demand.
Doing that at scale, however, requires something Canada doesn’t yet have enough of: a skilled trades workforce trained in building science and high-performance retrofit techniques.
Estimates suggest the country will need to retrofit close to 80 per cent of its existing building stock to meet its climate commitments, a volume of work that will require substantially more workers than the sector currently employs, and will require them for decades. At the same time, there are people across Canada who are ready to do that work, bringing real professional experience and technical backgrounds, but facing credential recognition barriers, limited access to industry networks, or simply the reality that the skilled trades have not always been welcoming to women, Indigenous workers, and newcomers.
We think those two problems have something to do with each other. Build is our attempt to address both.
What Build does
Build is our newest venture. A social enterprise delivering professional air sealing and insulation upgrades to homeowners in the Ottawa area. This is foundational, high-impact work that treats the building envelope as a system and makes a measurable difference in comfort and energy performance. At the same time, Build actively recruits and mentors people who face barriers to employment in the trades, pairing them with experienced installers and building their credentials in an industry that will need them for a long time.
The social enterprise model means that Build generates revenue as a business while reinvesting its returns into the broader mission. It’s designed to be self-reinforcing: better homes, better careers, and an expanding base of skilled workers ready to meet the needs of the retrofit economy as it grows.
The people doing the work
Our first two mentee installers, John Mava and Alan Kanobana, are newcomers to Canada with professional backgrounds in engineering and occupational health and safety. In their home countries, those qualifications were the foundation of careers. Here, credential recognition barriers meant those careers didn’t automatically carry over.
Build is giving them a pathway: paid employment, hands-on training in building science and high-performance retrofit techniques, and work experience that translates into recognized credentials here in Canada.
What comes next
In our first year, Build aims to hire at least four mentee installers and complete retrofits in hundreds of Ottawa homes. The response so far has been encouraging: the model has already attracted attention from the National Observer and The Guardian, reflecting broader interest in whether the retrofit economy can be built in a way that creates real opportunity alongside real outcomes.
We expect to grow the team, expand our range of services, and deepen our presence in the Ottawa retrofit market in the years ahead. The larger ambition is to show that taking workforce development seriously — treating it as a core part of the business model, not an afterthought — is not only the right thing to do, but a replicable approach the industry can learn from.
We’re glad to be getting started.
Ready to improve your home’s comfort and energy performance? Visit envirocentrebuild.ca to learn more or request a free quote. And if you or someone you know is interested in building a career in the trades, visit envirocentrebuild.ca/opportunities.
Interested in what EnviroCentre is working on? Build is one of the ways we’re putting our mission into practice. We’re always glad to connect.