A Year in Review

2025 saw trade wars, ongoing affordability pressures, fragmentation across the country for those trade-hit and trade-insulated markets, changing demographics, the requirement to pivot Canada’s export markets, alongside navigating the impacts of warring nations and increased natural disasters.

The industry continued to navigate the affordability crisis, alongside skilled labour shortages, supply chain volatility, regulatory complexity, technology integration, climate and resiliency pressure; meanwhile, Environmental, Social and Governance expectations continued to rise. In the face of increased weather disasters and heightened expectations for sustainable building and corporate responsibility, we were reminded of our fragility and its impact on our health, safety and wellbeing—we were also reminded of our resilience.

The Bank of Canada further reduced their interest rates, the new government launched the Major Projects Office and Build Canada Homes alongside focusing on creating conditions that allow businesses to succeed. Albeit, the residential housing market saw significant regional shifts across the country, the sector saw a 5.6 per cent increase in housing starts in 2025. And still, consumer confidence remains primarily unchanged in select markets.

One thing is clear: things continue changing rapidly, and we need to adapt. The path forward will see increased attention on sustainable living—economical, societal and ecological factors will all be considered to a greater extent because these can impact our welfare, security and health. This offers the residential building sector an important opportunity to build on its sustainably efforts: to take another step forward in building better. This means consideration beyond energy performance to other critical areas of sustainability.

Activity Overview

Built Green continued its focus on program delivery and training, while investing in program development, as the organization diversifies its product offerings and markets, evolving alongside the types of housing stock in demand, code requirements and variation in regional market requirements. New programs and markets offer additional ways for industry to remain competitive, address growing demand for additional housing types and address homebuyers’ interests.

Key highlights include the following:

Built Green continued its work from 2024 on RBC’s green mortgage funding and supporting those builders early in the process.
The Goodridge Corners development launched, which requires a BUILT GREEN® certification with associated rebates; this followed Built Green’s work with the City of Edmonton.
Built Green worked with Alberta EcoTrust Foundation on their builder workshops in March and April.
The Schools’ Program Pilot launched with its first enrolment from Renfrew Educational Services.
Further work occurred on the Medium Commercial program, which is now ready to pilot.
As part of Built Green’s expansion efforts, an Ontario Business Development position was hired. In support of this, an integrated marketing campaign began in the summer with a series of targeted emails followed by Built in Trust, a digital advertising flight of user-generated videos from BUILT GREEN® builders, which ran November 4 through December 12 and earned 0.79 million impressions, 20,300 clicks and 13,100 web users. Built Green was also at the Toronto Buildings Show, North America's largest annual comprehensive exposition, networking and educational event for the design, architecture, construction and real estate industries, in both the commercial and residential sectors. More to come.
Completion of the second BUILT GREEN® Maverick Awards’ cycle, which saw submissions from British Columbia through to Ontario. The marketing campaign launched in the spring and ran through October. Results included 1,016,556 impressions through digital advertising; earned media reaching 65,235,712 total; inclusion in multiple newsletters and communiques to 7,500 opt-in subscribers across Canada, reaching 67,500 impressions; traditional print with 12,600 in circulation across the country; 8,278 followers x 21 posts + finalists’/winners’ socials’ numbers on social channels; over 65,000 website views (as of October 31); online toolkits for finalists, winners and sponsors; alongside the development of assets including videos that informed the digital buy; and more. This, with the aim to spotlight our Maverick’s winners, but also to put sustainability excellence at the forefront.
Built Green third-party certified the Eve Park community at Platinum—a fourth community certification during the pilot phase.
The continued delivery of our training courses—BUILT GREEN® Program Fundamentals, Construction Technology for Built Green, Built Green Net Zero Energy for New Construction, and Built Green Whole-House Energy Retrofit—the latter three in partnership with Blue House Energy. 30 per cent discounts are offered to Built Green members, while all our training courses are acknowledged with Continuing Professional Development credits from BC Housing and Master Building training credits through the Professional Home Builders Institute.
Built Green hosted its second BUILT GREEN® Product Catalogue Talks webinar, which saw over 110 RSVPs received, with representation from across Canada.
A key component of our third-party certification includes onsite verifications through an Energy Advisor or Verifier, depending on the project type. At year-end, Built Green received more verifications than requested, which we believe reflects an increased understanding of the importance of this step as part of our quality assurance processes. Additionally, Built Green increased the number of deep dive verifications, expanding the scope of onsite visits as an additional way to provide support, ensure accuracy and gain essential on-the-ground input.
On June 4, 2025, in conjunction with National Environment Week, Built Green Canada declared National Green Building Day to raise awareness and support for sustainable building practices. Built Green celebrates those building more sustainably and encourages others in the industry, including trades, consultants, contractors and the media that profile them, as well as municipalities, to recognize those building beyond code. This annual initiative generated builder and municipality participation and went on to earn media pick-up and reached 497,393 online users, which resulted in 683,698 impressions through our social channels towards greater awareness and spotlight on sustainability practices in the built environment.
Earned media coverage continued throughout the year. See quarterly newsletters for detailed listings of media outlets.
Built Green’s social media activity saw increased, heightened engagement and growth in followers across its main platforms (Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn)—a 29 per cent increase in followers and a 107 per cent increase in engagement.
Built Green issued 304 Certificates of Authenticity, enabling homebuyers to save a 25 per cent increase in premium mortgage insurance on builds earning a BUILT GREEN® Gold certification or higher (for those who made a down payment of less than 20 per cent).
Attendance and sponsorship at various industry conferences and events, as well as presentations to builders, developers and government.
An updated website went live in the fourth quarter, which focused on improved navigation and streamlined content.
Built Green remains interested in builders’ consideration of checklist items related to accessibility, universal design and adaptability; disaster preparedness and home modifications for aging in place; greenhouse gases and carbon reporting; innovation; as well as the Water Efficiency Rating Score (WERS) certification, which is an option for Water Conservation.
Ongoing work with key industry stakeholders, Built Green’s Technical Standards Committee and Board of Directors continue to ensure alignment, program relevance and value. A shout out to all the contributing architects, associations, energy advisors, engineers, financial institutions, all orders of government, manufacturers, mortgage providers, suppliers, sustainability consultants, trades, training delivery companies, utilities and more. And to our builders, developers, renovators and restorers, thank you for contributing to the progression of sustainable development.

Success Indicators

As at December 31, we had a 34 per cent increase in new certified homes, including MURBs and renovations, and a fourth community as part of the Communities pilot, while high density units were up by 18 per cent from 2024.

That means there are many more living spaces added to the country’s housing stock that are more energy efficient, sustainably built and verified through third-party certification!

There was also a 27 per cent increase in single family enrolments (including Single Family, MURBs, Net Zero Energy+ and Renovations) and a 16 per cent decrease in high density units during 2024, due to the cyclical nature of these projects. And a Schools’ project was also enrolled. To an extent, these numbers reflect certification intentions moving forward.

These numbers are a continued testament to builders’ ongoing leadership in progressing sustainable building practices and meeting the demand for high-performance homes, while faced with socioeconomic challenges and policy changes. Moreover, 2025’s numbers pushed Built Green’s cumulative total to over 58,700 BUILT GREEN® certified single family, MURBs, renovations and high density projects, as well as four community certifications since our origins in 2003 represented in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario.