Building climate-resilient infrastructure ensures your community remains safe, connected, and prepared for the impacts of climate change. From safeguarding buildings and energy grids to strengthening transportation networks, resilience is essential for extending infrastructure lifespans and protecting against extreme weather, rising sea levels and other risks.
This factsheet provides guidance to help Canadian municipalities protect their communities by addressing vulnerabilities, integrating equity-focused designs and preparing for a net-zero future. It guides you through assessing climate risks, incorporating resilience into your plans and securing funding to bring projects to life.
Understand why resilience matters: Lower costs, ensure service continuity and enhance community safety.
Conduct climate risk assessments: Identify risks, assess vulnerabilities and meet grant funding requirements.
Develop effective strategies: Address challenges like flooding, wildfires and permafrost impacts with practical solutions.
Use this factsheet to identify steps towards protecting your community from climate risks, lowering costs and ensuring your infrastructure is prepared for the future.
Download the factsheet and start building a safer, stronger and more resilient future today.
Factsheets: Working with nature to improve infrastructure project outcomes
Key considerations for integrating nature-based solutions
By integrating nature-based solutions into your infrastructure, building or retrofit planning, you can not only build resilience to climate change but also help to sustain local biodiversity, improve air and water quality, and offer physical and mental health benefits. Within the development of green infrastructure, natural assets such as wetlands, forests, meadows, shorelines, lakes, ponds, and groundwater aquifers can be incorporated into municipal services such as stormwater management, flood control, and erosion control in order to promote resilience to climate change and achieve a net gain in biodiversity.
This factsheet will give you valuable information about why integrating nature-based solutions into municipal infrastructure projects is a great investment. Defining key terms such as biodiversity, natural assets, and green infrastructure, it will guide you through important considerations for integrating the benefits of nature into your projects.
The City of Markham, in Ontario, held a Battle of the Buildings competition inspired by Energy Star's National Building Competition and designed to empower and encourage facility staff and users to reduce electricity consumption through practical low- and no-cost operational and behavioral changes, while also boosting engagement and awareness around energy efficiency.
Background
The competition was initiated by the City of Markham’s Manager of Corporate Energy in response to the development of a Corporate Energy Management Plan in 2014 and has inspired other municipalities to do the same, such as the Regional ClimateWise Challenge in York Region.
This case study focuses on the last competition held in 2018. In 2019, Markham updated their Corporate Energy Management Plan and needed to re-align the competition with the new baseline. The competition was set to restart in 2020, however, external factors, including the Covid-19 pandemic, disrupted these plans and the competition has not yet restarted.
From its inception to its final year in 2018, the competition demonstrated a commitment to sustainable practices and community involvement, emphasizing the importance of energy efficiency and environmental stewardship.
What the competition set out to achieve
The objective of the competition was to educate staff on how local facilities use energy and how to identify operational behavioral changes that could significantly impact energy consumption, cost savings and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
Approach
The competition ran for four years from 2015 to 2018. In 2015, the initial competition ran for three months, from January to March, and participation was limited to large community centres. From 2016 onward, the competition extended to six months (January to June) and participation was opened to both large and small community centres, as well as administrative facilities. Participants competed in separate categories based on facility type.
To encourage staff participation and make energy efficiency more engaging, prizes were awarded to winners of five categories based on overall energy reductions (Table 1).
Table 1. 2018 Battle of the Buildings award categories
Award categories
Overall reduction (%)
Most energy-efficient building
Lowest electricity intensity (kWh/square foot)
Platinum
Best energy reduction performer
Gold
At least 15%
Silver
At least 10%
Bronze
At least 5%
Some of the prizes included monthly pizza lunches and movie tickets. The big prize for winning the battle was $1,000 which could be used by the winning team toward energy conservation initiatives such as weather sealing and LED light installation. Overall, the budget for visuals, posters, food, certificates, movie tickets and prizes was about $10,000, excluding staff time.
Barriers and solutions
Markham’s energy staff encountered several challenges running the competition, including:
setting accurate baselines
designing effective incentive structures
preparing clear informational materials
dedicating sufficient staff time and resources to manage the competition efficiently
Staff overcame challenges by creating an engaging communication plan, using easy-to-understand visuals and reporting results in relatable terms such as energy and cost savings. They collaborated with the communications department to produce materials such as posters, banners and newsletters while recognizing achievements through monthly celebrations.
Data analysis was conducted to track anomalies, and the competition was gradually scaled up with feedback-driven improvements. The City also engaged local post-secondary students and interns to assist with the launch of the competition.
Results in 2018
Annual electricity cost savings of $100,000.
Annual electricity savings of more than 700,000 kWh.
In total, the winning facility achieved a cumulative energy reduction of 24% over six months, while the second- and third-place facilities reduced their energy consumption by 15% and 12% respectively.
Overall, the average energy reduction from this effort across all participating facilities was 8%.
The winners of the 2018 categories can be found in Table 2.
Table 2. 2018 Battle of the Buildings winners
Certificate / Award
Overall reduction (%)
Winners
Platinum
Best energy reduction performer
Centennial Community Centre
Gold
>15% energy reduction
Centennial Community Centre 8100 Warden
Silver
>10% energy reduction
Markham Village Arena Crosby Arena Clatworthy Arena
Bronze
>5% energy reduction
Angus Glen Community Centre Civic Centre Pan Am Community Centre Cornell Community Centre
Most energy-efficient building
Large multi-use
Milliken Mills Community Centre
Most energy-efficient building
Small arena
Markham Village Arena
Most energy-efficient building
Fitness and administrative
8100 Warden
Benefits
The competition engaged and educated facility staff by encouraging them to review energy data and bills, exchange ideas and improve their awareness of energy use and management. It fostered the adoption of best practices, generated project ideas aimed at improving efficiency and triggered investigations into anomalies or re-commissioning projects. Additionally, it made the workplace more fun and collaborative.
Lessons learned
Lessons learned from the competition include:
The importance of extending the timeline to six months for better engagement and even considering expanding it to 12 months.
The scope of the competition could be expanded to include thermal energy monitoring and reporting (i.e., natural gas, district energy).
Installing real-time energy meters would support timely data analysis and quicker anomaly detection.
Incorporating weather normalization into the process is recommended.
Engaging local staff to read meters can provide immediate results.
Running the competition is time-intensive and requires sufficient staffing capacity. Hiring interns and college students was essential to success.
Next steps
The City of Markham has no current plans to relaunch the competition, but remains interested in pursuing it in the future. Presently, the staff continues to advance corporate energy efficiency by analyzing more trends in real-time metering and building automation systems (BAS) and adding thermal (natural gas and district energy) tracking. The City aims to create a recommissioning program with predictable cycles between BAS retrofits and to align its baseline to its new five-year corporate energy management plan.
Want to explore all GMF-funded projects? Check out the Projects Database for a complete overview of funded projects and get inspired by municipalities of all sizes, across Canada.
Discover how standards can help your municipality tackle climate risks head-on. This one-hour webinar explored how the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) Group National Flood Resilience standards and other tools could elevate your municipality's climate action.
The webinar was delivered in English with French simultaneous interpretation (SI).
Watch the webinar recording to learn more about:
What national standards and guides can strengthen your municipal climate adaptation plans
Practical steps for incorporating these standards into municipal bylaws and policies
Real-world examples of municipalities that have successfully used these standards to mitigate climate risks
Speakers:
Jeff Menard, Program Manager, CSA Group
Bill Given, CAO, Jasper, AB, and former mayor of Grand Prairie, AB
This webinar is especially beneficial for municipal staff involved in climate planning, asset management and community resilience initiatives, particularly in communities with limited resources or in-house expertise. It will be most valuable for municipalities at the beginning stages of planning and developing a climate strategy.
The Climate-Ready Communities (CRC) Assessment Tool empowers local governments to evaluate and enhance their climate adaptation efforts. Through a structured self-assessment, the CRC assessment tool can help your municipality identify gaps and next steps and find effective ways to integrate adaptation into existing municipal processes. The pillars of the CRC Assessment Tool are interdependent. Each play an important role in supporting a community's pathway to becoming more resilient to climate impacts. On this webpage you will find three steps to get started on your journey: the assessment tool, tip sheets to read before you begin, and a guide and video to walk you through the process to complete.
Step one: Download the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool
Evaluate your climate adaptation progress and identify how you can boost resilience with the Climate-Ready Communities Assessment Tool.
Benefits: Helps municipalities evaluate their climate adaptation efforts, pinpoint areas for improvement, and create a clear plan for strengthening adaptation efforts.
What you will learn: Gain insights into your municipality's current resilience, identify key areas for growth, and develop actionable strategies to integrate climate adaptation into existing processes.
Who should use it: Designed for local governments of all sizes and locations across Canada.
Access the Tool Please download the file and save it to your computer to ensure full functionality.
Things to know before you begin
Collaborative Process: This tool is meant to be used in collaboration with key municipal departments.
Time Commitment: The tool is designed to be thorough, and municipalities should expect to dedicate approximately one week to gather input, assess current resilience, and develop a roadmap for improvement.
Starting Point: If your municipality has not yet conducted a climate risk assessment, it is recommended to start there. The tool builds on this foundational work.
Step two: Discover key considerations in the tip sheets
Reconciliation & Inclusion
Find tips and examples for integrating Reconciliation, anti-racism, equity and inclusion into your climate adaptation activities.
The Green Municipal Fund’s Sustainable Affordable Housing (SAH) initiative offers support to affordable housing providers—including municipal and not-for-profit organizations and housing co-ops—to construct energy-efficient new builds or retrofit existing affordable housing units that reduce GHG emissions.
Because a deep energy retrofit can be disruptive, engaging with residents is an important part of the process. This webinar aims to help housing providers develop their own plans for resident engagement that consider the unique circumstances of each project.
This webinar was delivered in English with French simultaneous interpretation.
Watch the webinar recording to learn:
How to effectively communicate to residents the challenges and disruptions associated with a deep energy retrofit, as well as the tangible benefits they’ll see as a result
Examples of best practices for resident engagement, such as training for new equipment
The positive effects of effectively engaging with residents to emphasize benefits such as energy efficiency, cost savings and quality of life
Lessons learned from previous projects that can be adapted and applied to your own project
How SAH’s funding and resources can help your project
Speakers:
Kaitlin Carroll, The Atmospheric Fund
Jon Jackson, Sarcee Meadows Co-op
FCM’s Sustainable Affordable Housing initiative is delivered through our Green Municipal Fund and funded by the Government of Canada.
Course: Building climate resilience with asset management
How to protect municipal infrastructure from climate hazards
Courses and training
Take this self-paced 10-module course and build climate resilience with asset management
Climate hazards like flooding, drought, extreme storms, and increased precipitation pose significant challenges to communities across Canada's diverse and varied landscapes. While these challenges are experienced differently across regions, they can threaten the reliability of municipal infrastructure and the vital services they deliver to residents and businesses.
It is important that local governments prioritize and integrate climate planning into their municipal decision-making processes so that they can guarantee the efficiency of infrastructure for current and future climate impacts.
Learn about the importance of integrating climate action into asset management planning with the Building climate resilience with asset management course.
This free, 10-module course is self-paced, with each module taking approximately 30-45 minutes to complete. It is designed for municipal practitioners from communities of all sizes, who are already familiar with the basic concepts of climate resilience and are looking to take their planning to the next level.
In this course, you’ll learn about:
How weather and climate change impact regions, communities and people
A framework for building climate resilience with asset management
How setting levels of service fits into municipal climate resilience
How to embed climate resilience strategies into your community’s plans and processes
“My first experience with BCRAM was piloting it in Winter 2025 in CIV8150 Municipal Engineering at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador with a group of Civil Engineering undergraduate students using a graded discussion forum. Given the conversational nature of the content, it is well suited to prompt real-world discussion around the issues of incorporating climate resilience into municipal decision making. I am now developing a new approach to using BCRAM in ENGI9799 Sustainable Infrastructure Management which is a required graduate level course in our Master of Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering program. In ENGI9799, students will be exposed to a 12-week municipal operations simulation involving a variety of complex operational issues typically experienced in rural municipalities. During these weeks, BCRAM will be an invaluable learning tool to help students gain an appreciation of how municipal teams can collaborate to improve sustainable infrastructure management.”
-Brian Peach, P. Eng, MCIP, CAMP, ENV SP, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador: Project Engineer - Community Based Partnerships, Project Engineer - Harsh Environment Research Facility Civil Engineering Instructor
This webinar highlights the role of community energy systems in helping municipalities implement innovative, sustainable energy solutions that reduce emissions while fostering local economic development. Through GMF’s new Accelerating community energy systems funded learning initiative, municipalities can access tailored support and funding to assess, plan and deploy community energy solutions, driving zero-emission strategies.
This webinar was delivered in both French and English with simultaneous interpretation.
Watch the webinar recording to learn more about:
The transformative impact of community energy systems on reducing GHG emissions, boosting local economic development and building partnerships.
GMF’s new funded learning initiative, designed as an “on-ramp” to help municipalities explore and implement community energy projects.
Tailored support available for municipalities during the application and project development process.
Unique opportunities for mid-sized municipalities to access funding and resources to launch CES projects.
Real-world case studies and best practices for securing funding and implementing energy solutions.
Practical steps for municipalities to apply for this initiative and advance their energy transition goals.
Panelists:
Lydia Fialka, District Energy Strategy Lead, Integrated Infrastructure Services, City of Edmonton
Alen Postolka, P.Eng, CEM, CP, Director, District Energy/Chief Operating Officer, Lulu Island Energy Company Ltd.
Explore how your municipality can accelerate its energy transition and unlock funding opportunities through GMF’s support. Don’t miss this opportunity to fast-track your municipality’s transition to sustainable energy solutions.
FCM’s Accelerating Community Energy Systems initiative is delivered through the Green Municipal Fund and funded by the Government of Canada.
