Article: Daily Commercial News - Are carbon neutral steel big box stores possible?

(rendering of a 6,000 sq. ft. retail carbon neutral steel building system from the CN-SBS research project)

The Daily Commercial News recently published an article discussing the possibility of designing and constructing a carbon neutral big box retail store using a steel building system. This article references heavily our Carbon Neutral Steel Building System Research Project (CN-SBS).

Check out the article here for a general overview of this project and go to our CN-SBS website for all of the details. This is a multi-year research project with many partners including the University of Waterloo, Enermodal Engineering (now MMM Group) and Whiting Design. 

(rendering of a 10,000 sq. ft. retail carbon neutral steel building system from the CN-SBS research project)

Pilot study aims to make net-zero energy homes mainstream

Canadian Consulting Engineer website posted an article on June 26, 2015 about NRCan’s ecoENERGY Innovation Initiative and Owens Corning Canada's pilot project to build 25 Net-Zero Energy homes in four provinces. Click to read the full article.

The program involves five developers in four provinces. Each builder is constructing a set of NZE homes, to a total of 25. The focus is on conserving energy by maximizing the building envelope’s air tightness, along with the use of renewable energy technologies. So far they have photovoltaic panels to generate electricity, along with a hybrid heat-pump water heater. The PV panels are on the roof, and in one case on the facade. Other renewable technologies are being explored as the buildings progress.

This is exciting news for homeowners looking for a more sustainable home and for homebuilders looking to be on the forefront of technology and building principles.

Did you know that the CSSBI has its own Net-Zero Energy and Carbon Neutral research project? A number of years ago we started the research project to look into how you could build a retail building using a Steel Building System that could be carbon neutral. This project has proceeded over the past 5 years and several Phases have investigated various topics and ideas to create a carbon neutral steel building system for a retail space. If you are interested in learning more, click here to go to our dedicated website for the Carbon Neutral Steel Building System (CN-SBS) Research Project to read all of the details.