Climative was selected by the City of Ottawa through a formal RFP process as the technology provider for their Residential Building Labelling and Retrofit Portal Service (Better Homes Ottawa Portal). This project is being delivered in partnership with Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors for the City of Ottawa.
The Better Homes Ottawa Portal is an innovative online platform designed to empower residents to reduce their carbon footprint, cut energy costs, and enhance their homes’ overall sustainability. Scheduled for launch in 2024, this initiative aims to provide homeowners with personalized energy and emissions reduction plans while fostering environmental consciousness.
“We chose Climative for this project due to their experience, sound methodology, and excellent project management,” says Janice Ashworth, Climate Change Section Manager at the City of Ottawa. “Working with industry leaders like Climative has allowed us to create a tool that makes energy efficiency advice available to all Ottawa residents and that accelerates our community towards our climate change targets.”
Personalized Low-Carbon Plan: The Portal will offer residents valuable insights into their homes’ estimated energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and potential improvements to enhance energy efficiency. The Portal will also provide detailed information to guide homeowners in making informed retrofit decisions.
User-Friendly Interface: Residents will easily access a user-friendly interface to explore tailored information on cost estimates, payback periods, health benefits of energy-efficient homes, and available incentive programs. The interface will align with NRCan’s EnerGuide program and support the city’s objective to label all homes at the point of sale.
Public Visibility with Opt-Out Option: The emissions and energy labels assigned to homes will be publicly visible on a map, promoting transparency and accountability. However, homeowners will have the option to opt-out if they choose not to disclose their home’s information on the map.
For more information on the features of the Portal, visit the City of Ottawa’s Engage Ottawa website.
The emissions and energy labels assigned to homes are determined by combining city data and external building science data. Homeowners are encouraged to authenticate their ownership through the MyService Ottawa platform. They can enhance the energy label data by providing additional information through surveys, utility bills, or previous EnerGuide home energy assessments.
"We chose Climative for this project due to their experience, sound methodology, and excellent project management".
The Better Homes Ottawa Portal is not the first of its kind, as similar tools are already operational in other jurisdictions across North America, including Hamilton, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, and others. The success of these tools suggests a growing trend of using digital platforms to engage citizens and accelerate net-zero retrofits.
Understanding a property’s emissions and energy performance is crucial for environmental sustainability and homeowners’ financial well-being. The metrics serve as indicators of carbon costs, utility expenses, indoor comfort, air quality, and overall resilience to extreme weather events.
Climative helps homeowners make faster, better decisions to lower their home’s emissions, make them more comfortable, and save money. A Canadian technology company, Climative, uses trusted data sources to create personalized low-carbon plans. Homeowners can take control of their low-carbon plan by adding more information about their homes and making impactful upgrades.
Climative’s vision is to build an inclusive, climate-positive world through collaborative, transparent, and data-driven solutions. Our focus on fast decarbonization allows us to collaborate on solutions that are accessible to the masses and have a positive impact on our planet and the future. Learn more about our company values and our Responsible AI Framework at climative.ai.
Exclusively dedicated to accelerating the clean energy transition, Dunsky provides strategic analysis and counsel to governments, utilities, and others across North America, primarily focused on energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electric mobility. Dunsky brings over a decade of experience studying, designing, and evaluating home energy labeling and disclosure programs to help the City understand potential challenges, risks, and opportunities.
The Better Homes Ottawa Portal represents a significant step towards a sustainable and environmentally conscious Ottawa. As the Portal continues its development, the city is welcoming citizen feedback, ensuring that the platform meets the diverse needs of Ottawa’s residents on their journey towards a more sustainable future.
Jenny is a marketing professional with successes in home sustainability, biotechnology, agriculture, and more. She loves translating technology into stories and using stories to build communities.
Climative provides a collaborative AI-assisted data platform for organizations to enable personalized advice and offers to building owners, taking the guesswork out of building upgrades and transforming the low carbon economy.
