Convener: Ian McVey

Globally the building sector is the largest energy-consuming sector, accounting for over 1/3 of final energy consumption and an equally important source of CO2 emissions. While cost-effective technologies are available to transform the buildings sector, a wide range of barriers related to market, behaviors, and political institutions create a complex and difficult context for adoption. In addition, buildings and their energy supply are embedded in wider urban systems. Overcoming lock-in of existing infrastructure requires consideration of this interdependency with other subsystems. Thus, integrative city-scale solutions are needed to address the motivations of multiple levels of government, and mobilize a diverse range of stakeholders within the city. This calls for a new role for local governments to integrate both vertically with higher orders of government, as well as horizontally with key private and institutional building stakeholders within the city. This session will look at commercial, residential and institutional building sectors and the wider urban energy system in which they operate. The session will highlight barriers hindering progress in the buildings sector, and explore the potential roles for local government in mobilizing innovative governance solutions across scales to stimulate accelerated uptake of low carbon technologies and behaviors.