Meeting climate goals requires upgrading the energy efficiency of millions and millions of homes.
This week’s guest Shawna Henderson (building science wonk and CEO at Blue House Energy) helps us understand how our response to workforce and housing crises in the US and Canada can accelerate or mitigate the impacts of climate change.
ICYMI: Contributing Editor Jamie Skaar interviewed Jack Policar (Director of Collaboration Energy, a company creating group buy installation packages that cater to “homeowners, contractors, municipalities, and manufacturers alike”) about contractors, competition, and why collaboration helps consumers win.
Energy efficiency and weatherization.
Home performance and electrification.
Clean Energy and resiliency.
We’re building and renovating houses to a much higher standard than we were even 20 years ago: weatherstripping and caulking are no longer solutions.
Builders in both Canada and the US are determined to make Net Zero energy houses — homes that produce as much energy in a year as they consume — a reality. But to meet that goal, we need to get our act together ASAP.
Ideally, we would have done this work last century. Both Canada and the US now face multiple crises in terms of workforce capacity, housing demand, and climate crisis response.
We need a technically savvy, mobilized, and motivated workforce to take advantage of all of the advances and innovations in materials, methods, and equipment. And a large portion of the industry workforce learns their skills outside of formal education. Learning by doing is a good strategy for hands-on work but right now we’re expecting folks to gain comprehensive technical knowledge in new construction and retrofit work that fits their climate and region from YouTube videos, websites, and social media clips.
This is not the way to build capacity.
What we should have done last century is take the information we knew about: looming retirement for a massive cohort, limited reach of formal education and apprenticeship programs, and the need to mitigate energy and carbon consumption at the societal level.
Let’s put electrification and clean energy and the current workforce challenges into context. The push to reduce energy use in new and existing housing has been going on for more than 5 decades.
This push began in the early 1970s, when the oil embargo against the US was enacted to gain leverage in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War peace negotiations. We’ve made some progress since then, mainly through building code changes, but not nearly enough.
Bear with me:
Building codes lay out the requirements to legally build a house. They are updated regularly (Canada: every 5 years; US: every 3 years). These are ‘model’ codes that are then reviewed, adapted and adopted by each province or state. The result is that most building codes lag 5 to 10 years behind current best practices.
In Canada, the newest update (2020) introduced tiered energy performance targets, starting with Tier 1 - a baseline target that uses the minimum requirements that were set out in the 2015 version. Only the Yukon adopted all the tiers right off the bat. Three provinces adopted Tier 1. That is, they committed to having 2015 standards as their minimum, and that will be the case until the next update is adopted in 2027.
All good right? Not really, given the goal for Canada is to have all new buildings built to net-zero energy-ready standards by 2030. So, how do we meet the goal of Net Zero Ready within 5 years, when most of the country is using a baseline that is already nearly 10 years old?
We’ve got 5 decades of building science and energy efficiency and innovation.
Why are we here?
By its very nature, the home building industry is conservative (that’s with a small ‘c’). Builders take on huge risk with bridge financing and mortgage or building loan dispersals. They’re slow to make changes voluntarily, because change means more risk, and learning curves bite into their already thin bottom line.
Programs like the Canadian Home Builders Association Net Zero Home Label and the US Department of Energy Zero Net Energy Home are the carrot. These voluntary programs invite builders to be leaders in the industry, offering them specialized training and marketing support that give them a competitive difference and be the first adopters of best practices. It’s the innovators and keeners who are going for the carrot.
This fact needs to be crystal clear when we are talking about the clean energy transition. Because there is inherent risk associated with incorporating new methods, materials, technology, and equipment, the stick (ie, the building code) will always be mightier than the carrot.
But the sticks are coming out:
In the US, departments like HUD and USDA have mandated that all new single-family construction they finance must meet the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). In Canada, the BC Energy Step Code Step 3 - a 20% reduction from the baseline - is now mandatory in one of the largest markets in the country.
My world is home construction and retrofits. I work specifically in energy efficiency and sustainability. These are topics near and dear to my heart, and thirty years of bashing my head against the same wall have not dimmed my enthusiasm for the field or my passion for instigating change in it.
Here’s what I know.
Home construction and renovation is an industry like no other, in both good and bad ways.
First, it’s an atomized industry: the bulk of ‘home construction and renovation' businesses are very small.
In Canada, 60% of more than 100,000 industry-related firms are micro businesses with less than 5 employees . These small shops build more than 80% of the single family homes in Canada.
In the US, there are over 400,000 firms, average number of employees: 1.6.
The significance of this is huge when it comes to implementing and enforcing licensing, competency training, continuing professional development, and other advancements like DEI programs.
Second: the residential construction and renovation industry is a Very Big Deal.
In Canada, residential construction and renovation employs 1.4 million people, contributing 7.5 percent of the GDP. It’s one of the country's largest employers.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) estimates that 4.5 million people worked in home construction, making up 2.9% of the US employed civilian labor force. The US industry revenue was $123.2bn in 2023.
That’s a lot of clout. Yet, in North America, home construction and renovation is feeling a painful pinch point because of 2 factors:
A shrinking workforce that is relying on traditional recruitment
Lack of a broad-based education in building science across the whole industry to keep up with code-related technical changes
We have seen this coming for a long time. Across North America, the skilled workforce is retiring. In the coming decade, more than twenty percent of the current workforce is set to retire. We’re already deep into a major contraction.
There are not enough people in the pipeline, or expected to be in the pipeline with typical recruitment patterns, in the coming years to cover that workforce deficit.
On top of all this, there is a housing shortage - we need to build twice as many houses as we’re producing now to cover the need. We’ve got several million existing homes to upgrade for energy and carbon reductions. How can we get enough people into the pipeline, let alone into the field, to build enough housing fast enough?
We are in crisis.
How do we get through it? We cannot rely on business as usual methods of education and recruitment. We need to expand the recruitment pool to include those not in the ‘traditional’ pattern. Over half of construction workers in the US are white, and 96% of them are male. Inviting women and marginalized communities to the table would go a long way to solve the recruitment problem.
Here’s more numbers that illustrate the pickle we’re in when it comes to training and qualifications (roughly the same for Canada and US):
1 in 3 residential building and specialty trades workers have obtained a high school certificate or equivalent
1 in 5 have an apprenticeship or trades certificate or diploma.
What those numbers say to me:
Formal post-secondary carpentry trades education is not how we’re going to meet the demand, right now, for more skilled folks who understand high performance construction and renovation.
The focus of the industry is changing, too, from new construction to renovation and retrofits. Across Canada and in the US, renovation work represents at least half of residential employment and has unique skills and workplace features.
As we move down the path to high performance housing, everyone from the building official who does the inspections to the insulation installer needs to know how and why a wide range of high-performance assemblies meets the building code for their region.
Each person who works on the design, construction, renovation, and inspection of houses now needs to know the science behind energy conservation measures, because the ‘why’ helps to inform the ‘how’ as building codes move to objective- or performance-based compliance.
This is especially true of renovators.
Renovators require the largest knowledge base in the construction sector: they have to identify problems, take structures apart, and put them back together. As such, they present the most risk to the homeowner’s investment in their home. With the emphasis on energy retrofits to meet emissions targets, the risk escalates when good intentions have unintended consequences because of a lack of understanding of building science.
We need to develop easily accessible, standardized technical education or competency training that leads to common understanding between builders, renovators and building officials. One that transcends the formal education system and puts people in the field, now, to take advantage of the experienced crews and leads before they retire.
The industry is burdened by a ‘trickle down education’ system fed by licensing requirements and incentive programs. One person — an officer of the company, not necessarily the actual builder or site supervisor — gets a certification or license, and the firm is now qualified.
It’s a royally disconnected system:
If you’re a program provider, you aren’t leading the revolution. You’ve got funders, stakeholders, regulatory bodies to answer to, you have clear limits on what you can do, and for whom you can do it. You’ve got to balance incentives with costs, and then convince contractors it’s worthwhile to invest their time in your program.
If you’re a builder, programs provide or point you to training in how to meet certification requirements, and then it’s up to you to bring your crew up to speed. You’re running a business that makes money by building or renovating housing. You didn’t sign on to be an educator, and you did not get any ‘Train the Trainer’ support.
If you’re an energy advisor, your knowledge comes at a premium. You can pass the information on when the contractor or builder needs help getting hitting the program targets. But you likely don’t get to charge (or charge enough) for the extra time you spend helping your contractor or builders’ crews get it right.
If you’re a contractor working with energy efficiency programs, you’ve got some chops and bench strength, but you’re up against bottom line bid wars, high crew turnover rates, and the vagaries of program funding.
If you’re actually doing the air sealing and insulation work, you’re on your own. Your work is hard, grubby, hot, and often itchy. It’s the shittiest job, often crappiest paid, with the least amount of training, and yet your work is the absolute key to success in the industry.
We need to proactively transition from trickle-down to bottom-up education in building science.
Here are three types of training opportunities that we should use to ramp up capacity for those already in the field:
Sub-tickets or endorsements (like a graduated driver’s license): workers gain experience in different categories and receive various levels of “certifications”, becoming a ‘framer’ versus becoming a fully endorsed carpenter for example. But that only applies to formal apprenticeship paths, a small percentage of the workforce.
Industry-vetted micro credentialing for non-apprentice trades: very specific skill sets are taught, for example air sealing or blower door testing, in the continuing education programs of established colleges. This is a great way to leverage workforce development funding and the infrastructure of post-secondary institutions.
Dual vocational training: private companies take on high school students for a 2-3 year training contract. On-the-job learning is supplemented with a broad-based education, with industry/trade certificate at the end.
Yes, we’re losing experienced people to retirement at a faster rate than people are joining the industry, we’ve got major code changes coming down the pipe, and a need to double the number of new houses built annually while scaling up the retrofit industry.
And, we have no choice but to turn each one of these crises into an opportunity.
We need to formalize non-traditional training in the form of micro-credentials and/or dual vocational training and weave the “why'' of building science into the fabric of the industry. With non-traditional training in place, allowing for different entry points, we can double the recruitment pool by showing ‘non-traditional’ recruits to their seat at the table.
Shawna Henderson is an expert in the field of building science, energy-efficiency and housing. She started her career in 1992 as an R-2000 evaluator and inspector, becoming one of the first licensed EnerGuide for Houses evaluators in Canada. Shawna's extensive background includes research for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), which laid the foundation for her design and consulting services at Bfreehomes.
As the CEO and co-founder of Blue House Energy, Shawna specializes in providing interactive online education for trades, renovators, contractors, and energy efficiency professionals. Her expertise spans a wide range of projects, from load-bearing straw bale construction to Net Zero Energy Home research and design. Shawna has also been heavily involved in Deep Energy Retrofits, serving as the technical lead on various initiatives in Nova Scotia.