CAGBC is now accepting session proposals for Building Lasting Change 2025 to be held June 19 and 20 in Vancouver.
Building Lasting Change is known for delivering expert-led sessions that are cutting edge and offer actionable solutions to achieve a broad range of sustainability and financial goals.
CAGBC members are invited to apply for the opportunity to share their expertise and insights with Canada's largest network of green building professionals. Submissions are being gathered for this year’s Business Stream and Technical Stream (see stream descriptions and suggested topics below). This opportunity is open to CAGBC corporate members only.
All submitters must create an account in order to submit a proposal. For account instructions, please click here. If you have an existing Judgify account, please sign-in.
Timeline for Submissions:
The online submission portal is open from Friday, November 29, 2024, until the close of submissions at 17:00 Eastern Time on Wednesday, January 22, 2025. All complete proposals must be submitted, with completed speaker and session details by 17:00 Eastern Time on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, to be eligible for consideration. All proposals must be properly submitted according to the rules below, comprehensive in their description and deemed by CAGBC to be relevant and timely to the conference’s audience. All presenters and identified session participants will be contacted independently to confirm their submittal participation. Please contact the Market Engagement Team at getinvolved@cagbc.org if you have any questions.
Session Streams and Objectives:
This year we are looking for practical, proven, scalable strategies and solutions to decarbonize Canada’s existing and new buildings through both business and technical lenses. Each stream will consist of three up to six, one-hour long sessions to be presented as part of the full in-person learning program on June 20, 2025. Sessions should be a combination of presentations, discussions and opportunities for interactive audience dialogue or other collaboration. All sessions will be held in person at the conference venue in Vancouver and will be recorded.
Business Stream – Where green building meets ROI
Description: Decision-makers are seeking to understand the value carbon and resilience plays in the valuation, disclosure and insurability of their buildings, along with investor appeal to secure capital. Strategies that validate green buildings as a reliable investment are key to strengthen and preserve asset value, align with climate commitments and ESG priorities, assist with reporting requirements, and enhance marketability. Rethinking business and financing models with resilient, low carbon buildings creates innovative solutions to manage inherent future risks, such as transition, regulatory, and divestment risk.
Objective: Leveraging real-world examples, this stream will highlight the business advantages of certified green buildings, how they are investor-worthy, more resilient to current and future risks, are uniquely positioned to support new financing models and reporting frameworks, retain value and insurability. We are looking to share insights into market trends, decarbonization drivers, financing models and regulatory shifts that support value creation for green buildings. Created for real estate executives, investors and other industry decision-makers, sessions capture the experience and recommendations of industry leaders to simplify the complexities that shroud decarbonization decision-making.
Technical Stream – The right solutions, right now
Description: Prioritizing decarbonization and resiliency is key for Canada’s new and existing buildings to withstand and recover from climate events while supporting their occupants and surrounding communities. There is also increasing demand from tenants to occupy spaces that meet these characteristics to satisfy their own ESG goals. Considering the limited opportunities in a building’s life cycle to implement these strategies, identifying the right solutions at the right time during design, construction, operation and renewal is critical to enable responsible decarbonization and futureproofing. Rating systems such as the Zero Carbon Building Standards, LEED and IREE outline these strategies and help owners and tenants connect the dots to shape the building’s journey.
Objective: This track will examine rating systems, cutting-edge strategies and technologies to support decarbonization while enhancing resilience in both existing and new buildings. Created for architects, engineers, contractors, and other industry professionals involved in green building projects, sessions will showcase real-world experiences and solutions that enable energy efficiency, resilience, embodied carbon reductions, and transition planning for all building types across Canada.
SUBMISSION CRITERIA:
Sessions are a maximum of 60 minutes in length and must consist of a combination of presentation, discussion and opportunities for interactive audience participation such as Q&A. Individual, co-presenter and panel formats are accepted. A submitter may only submit one (1) submission for the conference.
Below are the fields that must be completed as part of the submission. All fields are required for the submission to be considered complete.
Membership Status: Submissions are limited to corporate member organizations that are in good standing. You will be asked to confirm that your organization is a corporate member in good standing. Please ensure you have confirmed your membership status in advance of submitting.
Stream: Please select the conference stream to which you are applying.
Topic: All proposals must be relevant to the stream objectives as set out above.
Learning Level: Learning sessions will be associated with one of the following learning levels. Preference will be given to Advanced and Expert levels given the make-up of the conference audience.
Title of Session: Please provide a Title for your Session. Your title must be specific enough to convey the session topic to attendees.
Session Description: Please include a brief description of what your session will cover; what questions will be addressed; what new information will be provided. If your session involves a rating system, specify the corresponding rating system.
Note: You will have the opportunity to make changes to this in the future; however, this will be the most critical field for reviewers to judge the value of your session.
Session Length and Format: You will be asked to confirm that your session can fit withing the maximum 60-minute time block and an estimate of the percentage breakdown by session feature.
Presenter / Speaker Information: Please provide presenter, speaker and moderator details for each session participant. Include professional information and credentials.
Note: Before including other participant information, please confirm their willingness and availability to participate. Additional speakers may not be added after final selections.
Session Agenda and Speaker Contributions: Please give a brief outline of your session agenda (including timing) along with the contributions of each speaker. Please include any audience engagement pieces.
Learning Objectives: Please specify a minimum of four learning objectives for the session. A learning objective is an explicit statement that clearly describes the knowledge or perspectives the audience will learn or understand as outcomes of attending the session. Learning objectives must relate to the conference streams and stream objectives. Learning objectives are a requirement for sessions to qualify for GBCI CE hours.
Relevant Standards and Rating System(s): Does your proposed session content specifically refer to one of the following certification standards? If yes, please provide the relevant rating systems.
Original Content: Has or will this content be presented at another conference?
Presenter / Speaker Qualifications: Provide a 150-word maximum description or relevant experience including professional background and how experience is relevant to the topic presented. Please also provide previous speaking experience at industry conferences.
Past Speaking Experience at Building Lasting Change: Please let us know if you or any of the other designated session participants have presented at Building Lasting Change in the past and, if so, which years.
Additional Information: This is your opportunity to provide any additional or relevant information that would benefit the reviewers when evaluating your session. If submitting a PDF document, it can be a maximum of one page.
Other Contacts : Please specify contact information for any other contact in your organization who you would like to be copied on any emails regarding this submission (e.g. admin assistant).
Important process note: The submittal site may time-out due to inactivity – please save your submission frequently. You must submit a complete proposal before the January 22nd deadline. You may begin the process and return to your saved proposal any time up until the deadline. Emailed, faxed, or mailed proposals will not be accepted.
SELECTION CRITERIA AND SUCCESSFUL PARTICIPANTS:
Offers to participate in Building Lasting Change 2025 will be made to successful applicants and identified session participants on or before March 14, 2025. All presenters and identified session participants will be required to execute the CAGBC Event Speaker Agreement and complete a speaker profile prior to proceeding and publicising selected session. Selected participants who complete the Speaker Agreement will be entitled to a 50% discount on the cost of a Member Full Conference Registration ticket at the Standard rate. Submitting company is responsible for their co-presenters. If a co-presenter is not able to secure budget to attend, the submitting organization will be responsible for their registration, or must source a different speaker.
Note that there is no guarantee that sessions will be accepted in their entirety. CAGBC reserves the right to combine multiple submissions into a single session with other presenters in cases where, for example, similar subject matter has been suggested, where CAGBC deems that the session should be augmented to meet the conference objectives or to ask the submitter to modify their session in any respect in order to fit within the program requirements or overall conference themes.
All submissions will be assembled and judged by CAGBC and a panel of experts as selected by CAGBC. Submissions will be ranked, and success determined by the selection panel based on, in their sole discretion, the assessment of how each submission best embodies the conference, including but not limited to whether the proposed session:
- Offers a deep, expert level understanding of the topic(s) that are of interest to the majority of Conference delegates
- Contributes to the diversity of the Conference offerings in terms of topics, presentation style, presenter experience, participation and/or professional or geographic perspective
- Qualified presenter and topic-relevant experience as demonstrated by the presenter bio and speaking experience.
- Fits within and contributes to identified session topics, streams and conference themes.
All complete proposals must be submitted by
Wednesday, January 22, 2025 at 17:00 EST
